We have already shown that the Higher Education Establishment is going full court press in its push for open immigration. In addition to columns by “public intellectuals” (i. e., academics who publish their views), we now have studies that allegedly show the benefits of unchecked immigration, that most official studies only put a price tag to—despite their best efforts to show a benefit.
For example, the University of Utah’s Institute of Public and International Affairs recently weighed in with its take on the issue. “The institute, founded in 2005, has had an impressive first year,” Continuum, the university magazine reports. “Interdisciplinary research teams have been investigating international migration networks and health, globalization and justice, failure of ‘the developmental state’ and globalization, and the Utah-Mexico connection.”
“An IPIA research project, which identified the net contributions made by Mexico and Mexican Americans to the economy of Utah, received considerable public attention and resulted in personal thanks from Mexico’s then-President Vicente Fox.”
While many colleges purport to offer Middle East Studies courses, few of the professors holding forth on the subject can offer any real insight into the region. A notable exception is Bernard Lewis.
Lewis, a professor emeritus at Princeton, held forth on the history of Islam on a Hillsdale College cruise through the British Isles. Drawing heavily on the history of the French Revolution, he showed that, historically, at least until the 20th Century, Islam was both more diffuse and democratic than we know it to be in its present incarnation.
“The idea of equality posed no great problem,” Lewis said. “Equality is very basic in Islamic belief: All true believers are equal.”
“Of course, that still leaves three ‘inferior’ categories of people—slaves, unbelievers and women.” Nevertheless, to a degree, the top down management style we associate with Islam is mostly a European construct adopted in the Middle East, and from France, no less.
“Here, things are not as in France where the king is sole master and does as he pleases,” the French ambassador wrote from Turkey in 1786. “Here the Sultan has to consult.” According to Lewis, the sultan consulted “with the former holders of high offices, with the leaders of various groups and so on.”
In the modern era, another European power has stumbled badly in its understanding of Islam, Lewis indicated. Lewis recounted the rather surprising turn of events that transpired when Turks in Germany attempted to obtain instruction in the faith while attending German schools.
“The Turks said that they had excellent textbooks, which are used in Turkey and Turkish schools, but the German officials said no, those are government-produced textbooks; under the principle of separation of church and state, these Muslims had to produce their own,” Lewis relates. “As a result, whereas in Turkish schools in Turkey, students get a modern, moderate version of Islam, in German schools, in general, they get the full Wahhabi blast.”
“The last time I looked, twelve Turks have been arrested as members of Al-Qaeda—all twelve of them born and educated in Germany.”
How does a retired military officer get an academic berth when the Reserve Officers Training Corps cannot? By running for the Democratic nomination for president, apparently. “Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former supreme allied commander of NATO, will join the Burkle Center for International Relations in UCLA’s International Institute this fall as a senior fellow,” the university announced in a press release.
“Clark will teach seminars, publish papers through the Burkle Center and host an annual conference on national security.”General Clark served as NATO commander during the 1999 Kosovo conflict in what was formerly Yugoslavia. His service in Kosovo earned him the presidential medal of freedom bestowed by then-President Clinton.
“Of all the whoppers told by former President Clinton in his Chris Wallace interview, perhaps the most outrageous was his claim that he was involved in ‘trying to stop a genocide in Kosovo…,’” media analyst Cliff Kincaid notes. “In fact, Clinton’s bombing of the former Yugoslavia killed more people than died in this ‘genocide.’”
“And his policy benefited Osama bin Laden and the global Jihad.” Kincaid serves as a writer and editor at Accuracy in Media.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently found that young college professors prize collegiality above all else in their working environments. This may not be as innocuous as it sounds.
We are increasingly finding that “a lack of collegiality” is the excuse used by administrators for denying promotions to conservative college professors with “otherwise” sterling qualifications.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.