| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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TEHERAN, Iran - Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country’s universities, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported in another step back to 1980s-style radicalism."Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," the agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students. – from this news article
Take the very best one. Take the one who is close to recognizing that the problem is not the regime, nor the "mullahs," but is rooted within Islam itself, and what Islam does, and the attitudes and atmospherics that Islam creates. Take the real thing, the "moderate" who is on his way to becoming Ali Sina, rather than the "moderate" who is on his way to continuing to seek for that demmed elusive "true" Islam -- the Islam that has no Jihad, no claim to stake on the entire world, no division of the universe between Believer and Infidel, no right to so cruelly mistreat all non-Muslims according not to a cruel ruler's whim but according rather to the Holy Law of Islam, the Shari'a. For civilized people now understand and view it as just that: cruel mistreatment.
Take that person and bring him to, say, Columbia University. Make room for him by getting rid of at least one or two of the "construction-of-Palestinian-nationalism" boys. Get rid, for example, of as-yet untenured Joseph Massad. Make conditions for the others who managed to be tenured in the Esdrujula Period, that period of timidity and cupidity and stupidity during which there was a wholesale failure to detect, much less oppose, the Long March of Propagandists, both Muslims and non-Muslims (Carl Ernst, Michael Sells, Bruce Lawrence) for the Lesser and Greater Jihads through the ranks of MESA Nostra -- until American universities, and their students, must endure the situation in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies that we all know so well today.
It is hard to slowly divest oneself -- off, off, you lendings from the PLO office in Beirut -- of such people as Khalidi and the inimitable panegyrist Hamid Dabashi, but perhaps they can be forced out, the way, one suspects, the permanently nasty and far too un-Lebanese Rami Khouri has been eased out of "The Daily Star." His disgraceful views on Hezbollah must have gotten to Michael Young. But of course he will now be heading a specially funded Arab propaganda effort, one more of those pretend think-tanks designed to support Islam and the local Jihads.
With the money no longer going to the likes of Massad, or possibly Khalidi and Dabashi, hire that one Iranian. Let him show the students that there is more to the culture of Iran than the movies that Dabashi likes to show. (And what would Kierostami think of Dabashi's Ode to Edward Said?) Let him actually give the students Sa'adi, Hafiz, Firdousi, Omar Khayyam to read, and also explain how very un-Islamic most of them were, and how they detected the Arab supremacism within Islam that made it so antipathetic to them.
Don't choose, please, one of those mere "moderates" who just thinks the rabble has gotten the upper hand but who believes, with Daniel Pipes, that "moderate Islam" is the "solution." Take someone whom you are sure is almost there -- almost at the point of recognizing not that "Islam itself is not the problem, but only those who misinterpret it" (in some always unspecified way) but that core elements of Islam are the problem, and will always be the problem. Such an Iranian professor may be on his way to something else. He may possibly be in the process of rediscovering Zoroastrianism, for the purposes of having that damned "identity" that everyone in the Muslim world thinks everyone has to have, including himself, or perhaps of finding Christianity (on converts from Islam it always looks good). He may even be tasting the perils and pleasures of the obstinate non-believer.
Make room for that kind of hopeful duckling. But only by getting rid of at least a few of those myrmidons of MESA Nostra, taking up time, taking up space.
Posted by Hugh at September 6, 2006 3:05 PM
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Hugh wrote: "Take that person and bring him to, say, Columbia University."
So that they indoctrinate him there and he becomes another Edward Said?
What a brilliant idea, Hugh!
Posted by: Liggett![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 6, 2006 4:30 PM
If he or she has resisted "indoctrination" at gunpoint at the university of tehran, he or she would make mincement of the likes of khalidi.
Posted by: Infidel33 at September 6, 2006 4:45 PM
You missed my point. Take the very best one, and give him the post now expensively occupied by someone worthless -- Massad or Khalidi, or Hamid Dabashi (he of the Ode to Edward Said). But make sure he's not one of those semi-demi-hemi-quavering "moderates" who is here to make sure that wonderful Islam is not misinterpreted by reference either to the Qur'an, the Hadith, or the emulative figure of Muhammad, nor by any glance at the 1350-year history of Islam, and certainly not by any examination of what has been going on in Saudi Arabia, in Sudan, in Pakistan, or in any other country where the populace or government attempt to come as close to real Islam, unmediated and unnuanced and unaffected by any influence, foreign (as the effect of rule by Western powers, as in North Africa) or domestic (the effect of large numbers of non-Muslims, as in Lebanon; the effect of a conscious and systematic effort to contrain Islam, as by Ataturk in Turkey).
This is a position to be given to someone who himself has lived through the Islamic Republic of Iran, and gives signs of being, at the very least, a figure akin to Kanan Makiya or, still better, Fouad Ajami and Mrs. Nafisi, or better still, the very best of all, to Ibn Warraq -- in other words, to someone who draws all the logical conclusions and chooses to openly jettison the faith, as the old hymn has it, of his fathers, and to find mental and other kinds of freedom, at long last.
That's what I had in mind. Not one more naif, grist for the MESA Nostra mill, that does not grind, as we know, exceeding slow.
The poor put-upon American students who might wish to learn about Islam, without which neither the Arab-Israel matter, nor what is going on in the Sudan, or in Nigeria and other parts of West Africa, nor with Ethiopia and the threats to its wellbeing that come from both Somalia and Egypt, nor what is going on in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, southern Thailand, Indonesia, in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, wherever non-Muslim states, or non-Muslims within Muslim-dominated states, are threatened by the adherents of the belief-system of Islam, made aggressive by their oil wealth, by their unopposed settlement deep within the Lands of the Infidels, and their fury that comes from sensing, but not wanting to admit, that Infidel societies, Infidel political and legal institutions, are not only different, but in fact superior, and this is something that cannot be admitted, for to admit that into one's mental universe is to let the whole edifice of Islam, in the minds of many, to come tumbling down.
Posted by: Hugh at September 6, 2006 4:56 PM
I just matriculated my eldest into a major research university. I thank the heavens I was able to talk him out of attending a private college.
He was thoroughly briefed on what to do:
* Study hard, party harder; you'll never again see so much opportunity for "romantic involement," and as you age you'll come to realize the urgent importance having romance available to you (i.e., nab 'em while you can)
* Increase your reading speed and comprehension
* Master the art of critical thinking
* Master the art of writing
* Master the quantitative sciences, especially statistics
* Also, if you doubt this advice, hit the Assn of University Women Website to begin understanding the concept of Fictive Reality
* Read Marx, read all of Marx
* Read Islam, read the base scriptures; do not take a class on Islam at the university (the profesor will be a turncoat shill)
* Read Marshall McLuahan (the professors are too stupid to teach him)
* Never, EVER, listen to your professor when he spouts opinion, for God's sake cuz they're all Marxists floating in Fictive Realities like round-mouth groupers with the same look in their eyes --- just look at the crapulous record posted by professors over the last 30 yrs if you doubt this advice
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
Society should ignore professors for the dumbasses they are. As their quality plummets their price skyrockets.
This legion of apparatchiks must be laughed off with derision. First they pushed Marxism and victimism, now they have two new causes.
Global warming and Moderate Islam indeed.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at September 6, 2006 8:06 PM
As I mentioned elsewhere, in commenting on an article about the 9-11 conspiracy crowd in the US academia- We need a new McCarthy. And a Purge.
I suppose it is possible to agree even with Jihadists on occasion..... eh, nariz?
Posted by: Gary at September 6, 2006 8:50 PM
One of the greatest of poets in the English language (English, not American English, for America was yet to be borne at his time of writing - although America was later to take him to its soul) was John Milton. Yes! He of Comus, of Arcades, of Il Penseroso, of the Paradises (Lost and Found).
For me, however, his greatest thought, his greatest verse, comes from (I think - school was so long ago) the Areopagitica written, by all accounts, in 1644 and, to my mind, most apposite to this thread -
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."
We've thought it all, and much more, before, and much ahead of them. What fools these moslems are.
Dominic.
Posted by: necessitasnonhabetlegem at September 6, 2006 11:26 PM
"for America was yet to be borne..."
-- from a posting above
One will assume that was a mistake, and not an Ernest-Jonesian slip. Otherwise there would be hell to pay. Siamo americani.
And you forgot the most famous line of "Areopagitica":
"I cannot praise a fugitive and burqa'ed virtue."
Posted by: Hugh at September 7, 2006 12:20 AM
Hugh/
A slip, a mistake, a careless, "fingering slip upon the keyboard". What a fool am I. I should always proof my thoughts and "chastise my errant fingers". Perhaps, of course, such a slip may be indicative of suppressed feelings - no, I doubt that.
No, I did not forget the line or, if I did, it was but for a moment, but " 'twas not so happened happily until you said the words, sir".
Of course, in the same work he also wrote: "Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making." which is equally true of this thread, also.
Thank-you for the correction. I hope it was not an Ernest Jones type of slip - I'd hate to have 100,000 people line the streets to jeer, or cheer, at me - I would certainly feel like singing the 'Song of the Low'.
Dominic.
Posted by: necessitasnonhabetlegem at September 7, 2006 1:16 AM
"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."
True of all threads and situations.
Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at September 7, 2006 2:59 AM
" Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country’s universities"
WTF?? Wasn't he there for the lecture on the
"Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence.??"
at September 7, 2006 3:51 AM
"I did not forget the line..." [about not being able to find worthy of praise a "fugitive and burqa'ed virtue"
-- from a poster above
Why not? Milton did.
at September 7, 2006 11:00 AM
Hugh's mention of Khalidi [I presume Rashid at Columbia] inspired me to recall that the Khalidi family history disproves and vitiates the very notion of a "palestinian people" as well as various lachrymose claims made about this newly minted nationality.
When the Ottoman Empire was in charge in Jerusalem, Khalidi family members were quite happy to serve the Empire in high posts. Likewise, other Arabs from prominent families were happy to serve the Empire. In the Land of Israel, these families included the Khalidis and Husseinis [both of Jerusalem], and the Abdul-Hadis of Sh'khem [= Neapolis, pronounced Nabulus in Arabic].
Yusuf Dia al-Khalidi was the first speaker of the Ottoman parliament [circa 1876] and a consul in Vienna, where he may have rubbed shoulders with Theodore Herzl. Musa Kazem Husseini studied at the Ottoman School of Administration in Constantinople and subsequently served as governor in various Ottoman provinces, including in Anatolia where he may have supervised Armenian-Turkish relations [although I don't know which province he served in].
So these prominent families served the Empire, a genocidal empire to be sure. Hence, they may be called imperialists, if we are allowed to call Arabs "imperialists."
Posted by: Eliyahu at September 7, 2006 2:43 PM
I suppose it is possible to agree even with Jihadists on occasion..... eh, nariz? Posted by: Gary
I see that you are still the child Gary.
For some reason I am way to important to you, so important that you give me free rent in your head..I own you young man, and that is pathetic.
And by the way you have a lot more in common with the muslims than you can admit..
They too hate seculars and liberals....it is a hatred born out of fear and insecurity.. just like yours....poor boy.
at September 8, 2006 12:09 AM
Hugh,
Precisely - that's why:
"...but " 'twas not so happened happily until you said the words, sir". "
You said the words, did you not?
LOL
Dominic.
at September 8, 2006 12:19 AM
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