Israel Matzav

In Britain, academics are frightened

Nick Cohen describes a public debate over radical Islam at the alma mater of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, better known in the US as the underwear bomber.

"When we sat down, they played a video that opened with shots of the Twin Towers after they'd been hit, then moved on to images of mujahideen fighting, firing rockets in Afghanistan," one member of the audience told the New York Times. "It was quite tense in the theatre, because I think lots of people were shocked by how extreme it was. It seemed to me like it was brainwashing, like they were trying to indoctrinate people."

The London Times found that one cleric who had lectured the UCL Islamic Society was on record as saying of the Jews (inevitably): "They're all the same. They've monopolised everything: the Holocaust, God, money, interest, usury, the world economy, the media, political institutions… they monopolised tyranny and oppression as well." Alongside the racism came the concomitant sexism, homophobia and hatred of the western world. Channel 4, for instance, had caught another visiting imam on camera saying that the testimony of women was worth half that of a man. As for gays, he added: "Do you practise homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain."

You might have thought that in light of the above, academics would have wanted to protect their students. In particular, they should have wanted to protect Muslim students from going the way of Abdulmutallab.

Instead of facing the problem squarely, they pretended it did not exist. Philippe Sands, a law professor who is always alleging that Tony Blair is a "criminal" for overthrowing Saddam Hussein's genocidal tyranny, appeared undisturbed by the existence of actual criminals among his university's alumni. He didn't want to spy or snoop on his students, he said, and did not see why anyone should want him to. Other speakers followed the example set by the UCL's provost, Malcolm Grant, and avoided discussing extremism in the university by the shabby trick of denouncing those who wanted to talk about it as "Islamophobes".

Given the precedents, the report from the official inquiry was predestined to be a lame effort. As expected, it concluded last week that university life played no part in the radicalisation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. I could attack it by emphasising that UCL had chosen to put on the inquiry team Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain. Dr Bari is high up in the Jamaat-e-Islami-dominated East London Mosque.

Read the whole thing. Cohen goes on to explain that those faculty members who do not support terror are afraid to speak up in Britain. Is it too late to save Britain? Unless more Brits are willing to fight for their freedom, it sure sounds like it is.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:04 PM