Western Universities: The Best Indoctrination Money Can Buy
The tendency of modern liberals to wring apologies out of governments for the actions of their ancestors, from the slave trade to Orientalist depictions of the peoples of Islam, is a pointless attempt to re-write history. There are, of course, no calls for Muslim governments to apologize for anything from their slave trade to the early Arab conquests.
"The ethics of establishing a campus in an authoritarian country are murky, especially when it inhibits free expression." -- Professor Stephen F. Eisenman, Northwestern University (which has a branch in Qatar)
Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 233.5 million pounds sterling from Saudi and Muslim sources since 1995 -- the largest source of external funding to UK universities.
"Several agreements made between the MEC [Oxford's Middle East Centre] and donors appear to indicate that funders have sought to influence the centre's output and activities." -- Robin Simcox, A Degree of Influence, 2009, p.35
One of those "dilemmas" is the influence by teachers across the United States on impressionable students who organize Israel Apartheid Weeks. They join with assorted anti-Semitic demonstrators, condemn Israel for every sin under the sun, and use intimidation against Jewish and Zionist colleagues, but are never told any historical, legal, or political facts by their equally biased faculties.
Fundamentalist Islam, backed by vast monetary power, is corrupting our dearest Enlightenment values.
Do a handful of donations from Muslim governments to a number of European and American universities merit an entire article that starts out with claims that Western civilization is under threat? As a matter of fact, the scale of the donations is far beyond a handful, the universities involved are among the top academies in the world, the money involved is hundreds of billions of dollars, and the targets of Islamic finance are, for the most part, specific and form part of a distinct agenda. Some money may be given to business schools or science departments, but the overwhelming majority goes to support or create large departments and academic centers for Middle East, Islamic, or Arabic Studies.
The academic targets of Islamic finance are specific and form part of a distinct agenda.
There is a seeming logic in this – aren't extremely rich Muslim states entitled to further the study of their own societies, history, and religion?Shouldn't they have an interest in creating a corps of knowledgeable men and women with the requisite language skills and close familiarity with the subjects they first study then teach, or with which they engage as government advisors, civil servants with governments, the UN or international NGOs, think tank members, public experts, media analysts and perhaps politicians? Well, if they observed complete neutrality and left academics to their own counsel, their input would pass as simple generosity or as a contribution to good relations within the international community. What could be nicer? Isn't the Islamic world badly misunderstood in the West, and wouldn't more teaching and research on it and its beliefs be a real boon? And how can someone like myself, who has spent a lifetime studying, teaching and writing about Islamic and Middle Eastern subject think badly of such an endeavour?
One obvious criticism is the sheer scale of the operation, meaning that fundamentalist Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar now effectively exercise a swathe of influence over the way in which Islam and Middle East Studies are taught in key Western universities. The dilemma for the universities is a harbinger of crises to come. Even fairly rich universities such as Harvard and Oxford experience financial difficulties. State funds are often hard or impossible to obtain; academics have to scramble to find funding for their projects, their jobs or their departments.
Universities have responded in a number of ways. One has been to bring in more and more students from abroad, including extremely high numbers from Islamic countries (where the standard of education is almost uniformly poor)
Scholarships and degree programs are the favorite and easiest weapons of the Islamist regimes to influence the Western academies and their freedoms. Eight universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 233.5 million pounds sterling from Saudi and Muslim sources since 1995. The total sum, revealed by Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University's Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, amounts to the largest source of external funding to UK universities.
Universities that have accepted donations from Saudi royals and other Arab sources include Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, University College London, the London School of Economics, Exeter, Dundee and City.The MEC has received substantial sums of money from sources in the Middle East. The way in which this money has been used means there is a clear risk that donors will seek to influence the output and activities of the MEC. In addition, many large donations to the MEC have been anonymous, creating a lack of transparency. In many cases, Oxford has knowingly accepted money from undemocratic states with poor human rights records.... Several agreements made between the MEC and donors appear to indicate that funders have sought to influence the centre's output and activities.[5]
Of Cambridge, he writes:
Cambridge University is an example of how funding has had a significant impact upon how the university is run. Recent donations have been attached with conditions that could lead to donors gaining oversight via university Management Committees. While the principal donor's intentions seem honourable, a precedent appears to have been set where wealthy donors can influence the running of an independent academic institution.[6]
http://www.meforum.org/6205/foreign-...n-universities
Ever wondered why most western students are not encouraged, if not discouraged to criticize these undemocratic states with poor human rights records as well as the ideology that goes with it?
Here is your answer: They don't bite the hand that feeds them. Sponsored hypocritical cowardice.