“I left Algeria because it put me in last row and I rejected France because it colonised my ancestors,” says Professor Elias Zerhouni

Algerian professor Elias Zerhouni said he immigrated to America rather than to go to France upon request from his father. He told him French oppressed Algerians all their life. “So, don’t go there to collaborate with them or to learn from them.”

• “The commission which was chosen to select a new director of National Institutes of Health suggested three names. Of them, two well-known American scientists,” Zerhouni said in a TV show on Al Jazeera on Friday.

  “The commission told US President then George Bush the third candidate is an Algerian scientist born in Algeria and studied there and he could give a lot to radiography. That encouraged President Bush to choose me, saying to the commission’s members: this is what America looks for. A man coming from a far place to contribute in its evolution,” he added.

  Zerhouni was appointed as the director of National Institutes of Health in 2002. It is the largest medical facility in the world with a $30 billion annual budget. He has founded five medical companies in America since he immigrated in 1975.

  He said he chose to live in the US because they put him in the first row while his native country Algeria put him in the last one. “When I started thinking of immigration, I asked advice from the Superintendent of Medicine Faculty in Algiers. He told me: if you want to immigrate, you have to go to America and its universities.”

  Zerhouni believes that Arab countries lost their desire to think. “I remember when I was surprised on my first day in the institute by seeing Al Haoui medical book of Muslim scientist Abu Bakr Arrazi. That moved many mixed feelings in me.”

  He also said he may not come back to Arab countries including Algeria because the budget in Washington represents many Arab countries’ budget. 
  

  He believes that the Arab countries do not encourage science and technology.
  

  Professor Zerhouni has three children. The eldest one is a lawyer and the second is a doctor while the youngest son is still studying in America and he wants to be a painter.