Well that news doesn't surprise me.
The Liberal Democrats have to be the crassest political party in the UK, saying and doing anything to try and gain a little political capital, jumping onto any political bandwagon that might be passing by in the vain hope it might accord them some extra votes.
The fact that they cannot gain a political majority here says it all really.

Posted by: Ginro at October 8, 2006 8:40 AM

So What?

Any award system in the west has its value totally undermined by the campaign subscribers, the rich socialites, faithful bureaucrats and those with friends in high places etc., while those truly deserving plebeians who are rewarded are expected to kiss the political backside because of it.

This is just another example of those you know being more important than what you do. If in addition you are of a racial or religious minority then so much the better.

In this country universities gain extra funds for female, minority or disabled graduates. So there appears to be a concerted attempt by the universities here to maximise the enrollment of these groups and to ensure that they pass their exams.
This is the multicultural way of ensuring that the majority of people in this coutry are handicapped by comparison and if you are lucky you just might be able to find a medical student who has English as her first language. I see nothing wrong with helping any truly disadvantaged minority, but I do see a problem with everyone else suffering by comparison.

At Newcastle university female engineering students are so desired that there is a standing joke about the disabled, minority, female student who almost never even had to turn up to get her degree so high was her "help" loading.

Posted by: MisIslamist at October 8, 2006 9:03 AM

Why be shocked when liberals who quite regularly demonstrate a very narrow mind set while always claiming to be the better educated when it comes to conservatives Vs. liberals. After watching Yassar Arafat receive the Alfred Nobel Peace prize from what was once upon a time a very respected august body, anything is possible.
I wonder how many other George Galloways are lurking in higher halls of education?

Posted by: Mackie at October 8, 2006 9:25 AM

BOHICA you UK dhimmis. You pathetic dopes of the so called "academy". Probably the same pathetic crowd that campaigned to outlaw fox hunting

Posted by: dennisw at October 8, 2006 9:54 AM

Have Khatami's fans responded in any way to the complaints about his track record as Iran's president, or have they just been ignoring it?

Posted by: Jesus Christ Supercop at October 8, 2006 11:28 AM

One of the traditions specific to St. Andrew's involves alms-giving (and receiving) on what is called Raisin Monday.

Readers of Christoph Luxenberg, or readers of reports about Christoph Luxenberg's philological investigations of knotty problems in the Qur'an, which he thinks can be solved if the Ur-text of Aramaic, or Syriac (the Aramaic of Edessa), will recall those 72 "clear raisins."

The Raisin Theme that links, however tenuously, Islam and St. Andrew's.

Food for thought. Unless you prefer Goobers.

Posted by: Hugh at October 8, 2006 12:10 PM

Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies, insisted last week that the decision to honour Khatami was in recognition of his efforts to encourage closer relations between Christians, Jews and Muslims....

Even if you're just quoting other people, I'm going to have to stop reading this site or I'll injure myself laughing (though I should really be weeping)

Posted by: philiph35 at October 8, 2006 12:14 PM

quote:
his efforts to encourage closer relations between Christians, Jews and Muslims....

philliph35...wasn't that the same reason Arafat received his nobel peace prize?

Same effluent, different day

Posted by: MisIslamist at October 8, 2006 12:46 PM

Just wondering what St Andrews might have been doing in the 1930s. Which side did they support then?

Posted by: Jimmy Bones at October 8, 2006 1:30 PM

"Muhammad Khatami is to be made an honorary doctor of laws by Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader who is also the university’s chancellor."
-- from the article above

Attacks directed at St. Andrew's are misaddressed. Those who actually promoted or took the morally unacceptable decision, include the chancellor, Menzies Campbell (one more example of the politician, or former government official, or Eurocrat, who is handeda university chancellorship --think of Chris Patten at Oxford -- always of the unacceptable "acceptable" variety If you don't know who Campbell is, then google his name, or his nicknamee "Meng" and find out what, for example, he delivered himself of this summer, in his ill-informed denunciation of Israel.

And then there is Ali Ansari, the resident defender of the faith and of Iran, and of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who thought it would be clever to offer such a degree to Khatami. A nice gesture. No, it wouldn't.

St. Andrew's has of late been making efforts to attract American students (in the same manner as McGill did a decade earlier). St. Andrew's administrators might worry a bit about the image problem among potential students, and not only the problem of image -- but also the problem of a morally intolerable act.

Posted by: Hugh at October 8, 2006 1:53 PM

A, N, D, R, E, W, S
St Andrews, St Andrews
for inner cleanliness.

A university parody of a well known Australian advertisment for Andrew's Liver Salts: a well known purgative.

Perhaps quite applicable here.

Posted by: MisIslamist at October 8, 2006 2:09 PM

I would suggest to members here that OFTEN quote how many jews received the nobel prize to show the level of application, devotion etc jews have compared to muslims or to other groups of people.

The nobel prize cometee REFUSED the nobel for peace to JP2, because "he doesnt' allow women to be priests" and as already said they had no problem giving the same award to ARAFAT.

Not only that, I read that runner up this year for nobel for literature is a muslim writer (I suppose this is fully a political decision).

Therefore I would dismiss the nobel prize institution for ANYTHING relevant, since it's a semi-political tool, that's been over-abused for political agendas.

The simple fact that a terrorist like arafat had it, nullifies its meaning.

Posted by: StillFedUp at October 8, 2006 2:36 PM

StillFedUp:

What a joke. They refused it to JPII, yet give it to Arafat.

Indeed, it is a worthless award.

Posted by: atheling at October 8, 2006 2:41 PM

It is, of course, a bad old academic habit - they will accept endowments from just about anyone, and give patrons H.C. degrees or favourable treatment for their progeny. In my lifetime, my beloved alma mater, Oxford, showered one of Britain's worst crooks, Robert Maxwell, with honours. (They got almost nothing for it, either, since the man was big on promises and short on payments.) Indeed, it probably goes back as far as universities themselves: Oxford's legendary Balliol College was founded by a criminal knight as part of his sentence. Pecunia non olet ought to be the motto of all universities.

But I do wonder whether this time a real line has been crossed. When even the National Union of Students - a nasty little conduit to put the most ambitious and ruthless students on a fast track to a Labour Party political career - protests about this award, one has to ask. And I would like to know whether universities have ever accepted endowments from the sworn and murderous enemies of their country and their culture.

Posted by: Paolo at October 8, 2006 3:05 PM

Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies, insisted last week that the decision to honour Khatami was in recognition of his efforts to encourage closer relations between Christians, Jews and Muslims....
____________________________

Yes, awarding an honorary degree to a butcher and hate-monger Khatami in order to "encourage closer relations" is akin to St. Andrews awarding an honorary degree to Adolf Hitler.

The UK should sake the people who made this decision.

Peace.

Posted by: Monkeywho at October 8, 2006 4:27 PM

What exactly does an Islamic scholar study? There cannot be a lot to study in the juvenile crap that comprises the Koran, Hadiths, and other sacralized texts, specifically including the ridiculous and otherwise comic Sharia codes.

The only output of Islamic scholars seems to be obfuscation and references to themselves as scholars, however undeserved that reference may be.

610 * 623 * 732 * 1066 * 1215 * 1453 * 1492 * 1683 * 1928 * 1938 * 1948 * 1996 * 2001

The rise of Marixm caused the collapse of the academy. In turn, the collapse of the academy is leading to the ascendancy of Sharia.

* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *

It's a funny world, a world with no self-defense. No recognition. No care. No hope. And, maybe soon, no Pope. Let 'em smoke dope and give 'em enough rope they've already ruled out trying to cope cuz we absolutely must not let the scowling deeply offended Moslem mope...

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at October 8, 2006 6:06 PM

Giving this idiot an honorary degree proves how utterly valueless such a degree is. Who's next for one, Castro or Chavez?

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at October 8, 2006 6:18 PM

Dennisw: You don't suppose that the next time Khatami shows up in the UK, we could sic someone's idled foxhounds on him? The people who are oh so concerned about the poor little fox can take comfort that the thing suffering would be a human being rather than an animal.

Posted by: Kepha at October 8, 2006 7:25 PM

The only honor the West should give this wretched cretin is a one way ticket home and a swift kick in the rear. The sooner the better.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at October 8, 2006 9:06 PM

You guys didn't read the memo. Lets' see what happens when Khatami visits the Pope this month..

Oh you didn't know that? I didn't either, until I heard Robert Fisk mention it after his interview with Khatami, just before Khatami visited the States.

Let's see what comes out of that.. Maybe B16, knows his place and will "heal" the rift with the Muslim world and thus "protect the handful of his flock that still suffers under Islam" or maybe he is deluded (Christians suffer that disability) that he can convert Muslims to Christianity.. a handful (a scant handful have) but as noted on another thread, the stay behind Moors (Morisco's) in Spain held on to their faith while pretending to be Christians..
oops, sorry, the Peoples of the scroll (the Sefardim) did the same thing..Spanish called them Marrano's and the hidden Muslims were called Moriscos'.

Posted by: Nariz at October 8, 2006 11:57 PM

Hugh mentioned Richard W Bulliet (The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization) and his new focus on cotton growing.

Bulliet wrote in the Preface to his deplorable book that, immediately following 9/11:

"Like most Americans, I felt an overwhelming urge to do something useful. This book is my response to that urge."

Let's take a 'useful' typical paragraph almost at random:

"Western critics of Islam persistently propose civilizational litmus tests: Does Islam meet, or is it on its way to meeting, Western standards of gender equality? Can Islam conceive of human rights in a manner that sufficiently resembles Western conceptions to be counted as civilized? Does Muslim understanding of religious toleration and secularism come close to Western ideals for inclusion in the civilization club? Tests like these, conceived in willful denial of the appalling failure to live up to the same standards, are intended as rhetorical devices for finding Islam wanting rather than as serious questions." (p.12)

Bulliet should have resisted 'the urge to do something useful' and gone straight on to cotton. Much more useful. Interestingly, as each month goes by, the thesis contained in the book's title becomes more and more threadbare, even laughable. It now reads like a dhimmi text, classically exemplifying Bat Ye'or's warning that we should be very alert to attempts at the Islamization of Christianity.

And fortunately recent events such as those involving Benedict, and the Anglican Church, suggest Christians are not falling for it.

But it probably still goes down big at Columbia among the undergrads.

Posted by: MBR at October 9, 2006 1:04 AM

nariz stop playing the smart-ass from of the lefty communism discent.

The pope had already met khatami in 1999, so your news is of NO interest.

Posted by: StillFedUp at October 9, 2006 11:57 AM

I have a good mind to present Khatami with an honorary degree of my own: for cold-bloodedly murdering thousands of innocent human beings while smiling at the same time so serenely before the cameras of the world's media as though nothing was wrong...

May this Islamic Zombie-master wear his honorary medals in the deepest recesses of hell.

Posted by: pythagoras at October 9, 2006 10:59 PM

About a year ago, or so, when Khatami was still running the show, it was reported that while some conference of Asian nations, he engaged in an hour of conversation in Farsi, with Israel's then president, Moshe Katsov, a Persian Jew. When called to public account, Khatami vehemently denied having done so. So much for his "recognition" of Jews, who once comprised a significant minority of Iran's non-Muslim population, with roots that go back to Cyrus's times or earlier.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at October 10, 2006 9:12 AM