It's a question I ask in "Blessing From A Tyrant," at FrontPage this morning:
Three American academics flew to Tehran last week to accept awards from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In Tehran, Carl Ernst, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was honored along with William Chittick, a scholar of Islamic mysticism and a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and Miriam Galston, a lawyer at George Washington University who made significant contributions to the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp and Ernst seemed anxious to stress that this was an academic, non-political award -- as if Tehran these days were crawling with disinterested academics who are in no way co-opted by the regime. Even though Ernst reportedly “cringes” at some of Ahmadinejad’s “policies,” Thorp decided that this was an “academic honor,” not a political one, and so had no objection to Ernst’s trip. Ernst himself explained, “it would have looked strange if I declined an academic award.”
Are Thorp and Ernst hopelessly naive, or do they believe that we are? In any case, they have little cause to worry that anyone will get upset about this in Chapel Hill, where the academic Left holds comfortable sway -- you know, the kind of people who thought it would be a great idea for Ahmadinejad to give an address at Columbia University and to present a Christmas message on British television. But meanwhile, has it even crossed Carl Ernst’s mind that his work is useful to the Iranian regime, whatever the nature of this award, and that his traveling to Tehran to accept it is even more useful to them? Has this not occurred to him even after his trip to Tehran earlier this month, during which he made a “strong plea for improved academic and cultural relations between Iran and the United States”?And would Carl Ernst really even be able to distinguish an academic award from a political one? After all, a genuine academic evaluates arguments on the basis of evidence. He does not work to predetermined conclusions based on ideological or political considerations. Ernst does not do anything like this. Consider (and I am sorry that I must use a personal example here, because the problem of Carl Ernst and the Middle East Studies establishment in American universities in general is far larger than me, and I have nothing to do with it) how he has dealt with my own work: see his “Notes on the Ideological Patrons of an Islamophobe, Robert Spencer."
Take, in the first place, the characterization “Islamophobe.” He offers no evidence for it, much less any definition of this spurious, manipulative, politicized coinage. Nothing from my books, nothing from my articles at FrontPage Magazine or elsewhere, nothing from my website Jihad Watch, nothing at all. His use of this word is without substance, designed to propagandize rather than convince, much less to equip one to make one’s own judgment.
Note also that in the document, he doesn’t offer a single example of anything I say that is inaccurate. Instead, he expects his readers to dismiss my work because Ernst dislikes my publishers -- on political grounds. This is an example of the logical fallacy of appealing to authority: he is suggesting that his own publishers (such as Shambhala) are more prestigious than those of his critics, and that therefore he is to be believed over them. Argumentum ad verecundiam and ad hominem attacks are two sides of the same worthless coin.
Carl Ernst is no academic. He is a political and politicizing propagandist. Now he is also a willing tool of the vicious Iranian mullahcracy. And in Middle East Studies departments in universities all over the country, he is just one of many.
And so, it is time for me to make an announcement of my own: I hereby award Ernst, Chittick and Galston the Jihad Watch Afshin Award, named after the ninth century Persian general Khaydhar ibn Kawus, a.k.a. Afshin, who won great victories for Islamic forces although he himself fought for them only for his own material advantage, and not out of conviction -- he was in fact a proud Persian who had contempt for the Arabs and the religion they had imposed upon Persia. (In awarding this prize I in no way mean to imply that Ernst, Chittick or Galston have any contempt for Arabs or Muslims, or that they traveled to Tehran seeking their own material advantage.)
Thought experiment: would Ernst and Holden Thorp be as understanding about accepting an award from Jihad Watch, even though Ernst doubtless “cringes” at some of my “policies,” as they are about Ernst’s accepting an award from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Or are Ahmadinejad’s positions, thirst for genocide, Holocaust denial, open Jew-hatred and all, more acceptable to Ernst, Chittick, Galston and Thorp than those of someone who wants to defend the West against Islamic supremacism and its denial of freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, and institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims?
Remember this?
Awards were given to people in recognition of their outstanding contribution to society. Madeleine Bunting, a Guardian columnist and Associate Editor, was awarded the ‘Friends of Islam Media Award’ this year.
And that’s not all:
Britain’s Labor MP Stephen Timms Thanks Muslims for Bringing Islam Into UK, “We Need Decent Values Which the Muslim Community Shows in Abundance”…..
Britain’s Brown meets and shakes hands with al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Saudi Arabia
From this article here:
British PM Gordon Brown seeks IMF cash from Saudis
http://sheikyermami.com/2008/11/02/british-pm-gordon-brown-seeks-imf-cash-from-saudis/
"Britain’s Labor MP Stephen Timms Thanks Muslims for Bringing Islam Into UK, “We Need Decent Values Which the Muslim Community Shows in Abundance”…..
-- from the article above
The trans-Atlantic analogue to Dinesh "Family Values" D'Souza, apparently. And has the Hoover Institution done the right thing, and detached itself from that clinging embarrassment, or is he still describing himself as a Fellow of the Hoover Institution, just like Robert Conquest, and Sidney Hook, and others most definitely not of D'Souza's ilk?
Such people will always the claim that "this in no way legitimizes the government" or "this is purely a scholarly matter." But after the last, unappetizing century, when those who visited, or even came to be honored with, say, a special invitation to see Der Fuhrer in a relaxed holiday mood at Berchtesgaden, where the air is so clear and the view is so wunderbar, or a Stalin Medal awarded by none other than wolvish Joseph Stalin himself, one should have learned that this is the kind of thing beyond-the-pale regimes do, and that in accepting an award at this time, one is helping shore up the regime at home.
And that vicious regime, which represents the very worst of Iran, is now under assault by the very best of Iran, as embodied by, inter alia, students at Tehran University -- http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD217509-- and even by Shirin Ebadi, who is under assault despite, or because of, her Nobel Prize.
Political naivete, or a variant on it, the above-the-fray-I-know-nothing-of-such-things-I-just-write-about-Sufis-or-Al-Farabi, simply will not do. And the worst of the three is clearly Carl Ernst, who knows exactly what he is doing.
Come the Revolution -- and there will be a Revolution, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its troglodytes, replaced, Ernst and the others will not be looked kindly on by the Iranians who, having endured the worst, will remember who helped to legitimize that government at a dark hour, and who, in staying away, helped to express and embody disapproval and contempt.
Imagine what the Iranians in exile, imagine what, say, Ms. Nafisi, thinks of Carl Ernst or the others. Imagine what those students in Teheran think of these people coming to pick up their prizes. Imagine what the million or more Iranian exiles, those who have kept their hatred of the Islamic Republic of Iran pure (and not all are capable of that, and some end up backsliding, perhaps allowing nostalgia for a place and time that no longer exists having confused them, even as some refugees from the Bolsheviks ended up going back, out of despair or loyalty, to Soviet Russia, to their ultimate great dismay --think of Prince Mirsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Vertinsky, to take three very different examples.
After all, a genuine academic evaluates arguments on the basis of evidence. He does not work to predetermined conclusions based on ideological or political considerations.
LOLz. Not so much. It's the agenda, stupid. And the Saudi payroll. True academic research consists of moral equivalence, selective observations, and the ability to make evil sound tolerable. That's been my experience anyway. This is why I work on LOLspeak. But "true scholarship" matters little in terms of success in academia. "Publish or perish" is no longer what it comes down to. It's about finding some angle into the Saudi Agenda Department, which they will happily grant so that they can grow without needing a bigger building, and then admitting as many unqualified Arabs as possible.
Dhimmitude will get you tenure, but if you want to chair a department it helps to be a closet Muslim posing as a token Jew. This is the fastest path to success. If you're a closet Muslim posing as a token Jew you can chair a department and easily get away with publishing no more than 1 paper every ten years in some obscure journal, written by a student.
By the way, whenever a paper is authored by both a student and a professor the student usually wrote the whole thing.
I was going to refer to these three fools as the Three Stooges but then realized this would be insulting to Moe, Larry and Curly. No matter which way you slice it, accepting ANY kind of an award from a totalitarian regime, particularly one as odious as this one, helps legitimatize that regime. These three academics should be mocked by anyone who cherishes democracy, true freedom and the Golden Rule. What dupes.
A Mohammadan...A Mahdist...giving awards to filthy kufrs???? Allah must be turning over on his cloud.
Is this not un-Islamic?
So what if they are dhimmi's, aren't they supposed to bring fabulous gifts of tribute, called jiza?
Instead of slapping them on the neck, the Mohammadan gives them an award??
The Ayatollah is going for this? Boy is he slipping...
Ernst himself explained, “it would have looked strange if I declined an academic award.”
??
What about accepting a medical academic award from Josef Mengele?
Ernst is a disgraceful dhimmi Saudi puppet and an entrenched fifth columnist in American academics.
Some academics will do anything for money and accolades.
These three asshats will be reviled one day, count on it.
You know Ionesco's play, "Rhinocerous?" These three have donned their hooves and are snorting to Tehran...
The ONLY award Ernst should get is the "Charles Lindberg Treason Award"!
Since the University of North Carolina is a PUBLIC University, a Professor at UNC should NOT be Allowed to receive an award by TODAY'S HITLER in TODAY"S NAZI GERMANY, an AVOWED ENEMY of this Country.
These Professors should reject these awards on so many levels, first would be that Iran is currently organizing and has 70,000 University students prepared to be suicide soldiers. An abuse of the country, university, and acedemics.
But then Iran is vested with the Professors and teachers of the West. They are the pushers of propaganda and ideology.
Remember there were over 4,200 Professors in America that signed (in October 2008) a petition supporting Bill Ayers while it was being pointed out he wanted to kill Americans and overthrow the U.S. Want to bet these Professors are on the list of supporters of Ayers?
http://www.supportbillayers.org/
Our schools and Universitys are in compliance with Stalins plan of educating and overthrowing a country, why wouldn't our enemies award our Professors?
And America sits and watches.
It's Nazi time again!
Welcome back.
The same phonies with the same excuses.
The same cowards with the same cover stories.
The same poisonous perverts with the same secret sympathies.
The same facade of respectable normal social behavior.
"Ernst himself explained, “it would have looked strange if I declined an academic award.”" -quoted in the article
Perhaps it would have looked strange if Ernst had declined the award. It would not have "looked strange" for an honest, honorable academic to decline the award. Academics do sometimes decline awards for various reasons. One could find any number of worthy reasons for which to refuse this award, based on Iran's current policies: It's treatment of women, homosexuals, Zoroastrians, Baha'is, Jews, Christians, ex-Muslims, and political dissidents. These are in addition to other concerns about Iran's support of Hizballah, Hamas, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and terrorists in Iraq--not that any of that would bother Ernst. He, evidently, isn't bothered by any of this.
I suspect that Ernst won the favor of the Iranian regime due to their strong anti-American, anti-Western stance. This is consistent the relentless anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric that comprises much of Ernst's book "Following Muhammad." (The book is less about Muhammad and more about Ernst's own strongly anti-Western biases).
And what of this "looking strange"? Is whether or not something "looks strange" a legitimate reason for accepting, or declining, the award?
I'm not entirely disappointed that Ernst accepted this award--at least the culprit has exposed himself and can't really weasel out of this, now that his acceptance of the award is a matter of public record. I wonder if he'll put it on his cv?
"It's Nazi time again!" --joeblough
Which is what French playwright Eugene Ionesco's 1959 play "Rhinoceros" is all about.
http://www.amazon.com/Rhinoceros-Other-Plays-Eugene-Ionesco/dp/0802130984
I think many people here on JW would like to read it. It's pertinent TODAY! Concerning the Islamo-Nazis and their Apologists.
OMG, Alaskan. There were about a dozen professors from my school on that list, almost all of them in Education.
As a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, I can attest to it being a hotbed of liberalism. The fact that useful dhimmi Ernst got to meet that little Iranian douchebag is a testament to it. Couple of years ago an Iranian got upset about all the "injustices done to moslems"; got in his rental SUV and proceeded to drive it through the most densely populated place on campus injuring nine students-and UNC students are their friends and defenders, NOT misunderstanders of Islam. Perhaps ya'll remember about ten years ago, incoming freshmen at UNC were required to read a book about that accursed koran. It makes me sorry that all happened at my alma mater. The next time they come begging for donations, I'm not even going to give them money for snacks