Limits of academic freedom (Netherlands)

Is this familiar?

After almost 40 years of lecturing at Utrecht University and with his eyesight failing, professor Piet van der Horst was looking forward to delivering his retirement lecture last summer. He decided to talk on the myth of Jewish cannibalism, a perennial anti-Semitic theme, and part and parcel of his field of expertise, Judaism in the Hellenistic period. As is customary in the Netherlands, he also decided to add a timely twist to his farewell lecture: the resurfacing of the myth of Jewish cannibalism in contemporary Islamic society [as evidenced by] the proliferation of anti-Semitic cartoons, TV-shows, sermons and the like ... particularly in Iran, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

However, Van der Horst was not to deliver his lecture. Flanked by three tenured professors, the university’s dean told Van der Horst that his lecture was academically sub-standard and would, if delivered, create an immediate security risk.

“It was the most humiliating moment of my life,” Van der Horst says. “I was grilled for one and a half hours by the dean and his co-conspirators. At some point I was so confused that I started to wander if they were right. That I had really gone mad. That was how intimidating it was.”

Did professor Van der Horst find solidarity among his fellow intellectual workers in Academe? In a word, no.

When queried by Dutch national daily newspaper, De Volkskrant, eight out of ten supported the decision, arguing that there are limits to academic freedom.

Funny how those limits are so selectively applied.

I have added it to the list.

War is simple

"Well in war, my dear friends, there is no such thing as compromise; you either win or you lose," McCain said.

(via Instapundit)

Moss Side angel

I would just like to put this on record. This evening I went to Moss Side Leisure Centre (google Moss Side reputation) to play squash, as I do once a week or so. Was running late so dashed into the changing room, slip into my stylish clobber, and ran out to play. After fierce spiritual conflict, returned to get dressed, most of which I managed to do. Save the last bit; ie putting on my coat, a yellowing rag containing my car keys, phone, wallet, card holder and Softmints. Nowhere to be seen. Fly back to court of spiritual clash - empty except for the aura of accomplishment. Mate goes to see if car is still there. Report loss of all dignity and identity to reception. Hesitate to ask her to call my mother. Another lady asks me over. My coat lies over the back of a chair. Someone had handed it in half an hour before. Still yellow and still laden with cargo.

AP and fauxfacts

I've just come across this one. You will remember that after the November 23rd bombings in Sadr City, the Shi'ite reaction seemed to confirm that sectarian violence had become so implacable and widespread that 'civil war' seemed the only proper label. Two of the stories that built that picture were picked up by AP and spread across the world. According to one, four Sunni mosques had been burnt to the ground; the other told of 6 Sunnis handcuffed, tortured and burnt alive.

Curt at Flopping Aces looked a little deeper, his curiosity piqued by the source of both these sources, police Capt. Jamil Hussein. It turns out that Capt. Hussein has been a very fruitful source for AP at least since April reporting on nine incidents of violence, all, as it happens, involving violence by Shi'ites on Sunnis. It also turns out that not only was there no confirmation of this last incident from any other source (and it was contradicted by the US military), but that police Capt. Hussein's existence is ... problematical. As is another of AP's much quoted sources.

Go here for Curt's full investigation and here for Jules Crittenden's commentary. Pajamas Media's Blog Week in Review has Richard Fernandez and Glen Reynolds to comment on the AP Affair.

(via Instapundit)

Who's lost what?

I always love it when Hanson gets comparative. About those (the majority?) who say that Iraq is lost:

What would these same critics say to Abraham Lincoln in May-June 1864 (“Each hour is but sinking us deeper into bankruptcy and desolation.”) when Grant’s Army of the Potomac tottered at the brink (Spotsylvania [ca. 18,000 casualties]; Cold Harbor [ca. 13,000 casualties]; Petersburg [ca. 12,000 casualties), prompting calls for an armistice on the basis of a status ante bellum, and the real prospect not just of Lincoln not winning the election of 1864, but perhaps not even receiving the Republican nomination? Or what would the pundits of the Kennedy School of Government or the Council on Foreign Relations have said about retreat from the Yalu River in November 1950 (ca. 14,000 casualties)? Korea is lost? We destabilized the Korean peninsula? We only empowered the real enemy Russia in Europe?

No Nativity at Christmas

The Mayor's office of the City of Chicago has forbidden the annual Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza to show clips from "The Nativity Story," a movie that depicts the biblical story of Mary, Joseph and the birth of Jesus.
Jim Law, the city's executive director of special events said that

showing scenes from the movie would be "insensitive to the many people of different faiths."

This was later corrected:

"This particular incident is about a movie studio aggressively marketing a movie and trying to sell tickets to that movie."

I have added it to the list.

Istanbul Rum Patrikhanesi

In the tiny Church of St George in the Patriarchal compound, overlooked by minerets and Turkish soldiers, the Pope and the Patriarch celebrate with the liturgy of St John Chrysostom, "the queen of liturgies", Joshua Treviño calls it, "a Greek epic of its own". Treviño recounts; this is the final paragraph, but it's worth reading it all (if only to find out the meaning of the title of this post).

Bartholomew ascends to the iconostasis and welcomes Benedict in Greek. Benedict, aware of the cameras surrounding him, replies in English. We must, he says, recall Europe to its Christian heritage before it is too late -- and we must do it together. Then they emerge into the cold sunlight of a cold day. They ascend to a balcony overlooking the courtyard where we gather in expectation. They speak briefly. And then, they clasp hands, Pope and Patriarch, smile and raise their arms together. Tears come to my eyes, and I am shocked to see several media personnel crying openly. For an instant, the Church is one. For a shadow of a second, the dreams of Christendom are again real.

Actually, there's one line more. I shied away from copying it, but was not sure why. At first, I thought it rhetorically gauche, and yet given the scene he had painted so skillfully, surely he had earned it? For the atmosphere of threat, of historical and durable threat is strong. How else can you interpret the decline in population of Orthodox Christians in Turkey from "millions to a mere two thousand in Istanbul proper"? And the censorship of proper names that the Turkish authorities do not wish to recognise sending "police personnel to tear down English-language banners with the phrase “Archon Pilgrimage to the Ecumenical Patriarchate” on it". Those bearing passes with the offending phrase "Ecumenical Patriarchate” were not allowed to enter.

Then there's the geographical position; the little church surrounded by mosques, minarets and Muslims inimical to it. Perhaps that is the key. How strange it is to put it like this, but we in Europe have come to see ourselves in the same position, threatened by the same forces and fearing to go down under them in a process as inexorable as that which has occurred in Turkey to the Orthodox and other Christian minorities. Are we victims of our own fears? Or merely waking up to them?

Joshua Treviño's final line is

Under the Turkish guns, the Christians roar.

Al-Dura Trial 3

This took place on Thursday; the decision is expected in January. From Richard Landes' brief report, it sounds like a reply of the Karsenty trial with solid arguements and evidence from the defense and virtually nothing from the plaintif. And there's a fourth trial to come, though Landes says nothing about it except that it is "really bizarre".

Not sorry enough?

The slave trade has been the ruling principle of my people ... it has been the source of their glory and wealth.

The speaker of these words was King Ghezo of Dahomey (now Benin in West Africa) whose kingdom was probably making about £250,000 a year from selling captured soldiers or even his own people as slaves. He was not alone; the rulers of Ashanti and Congo were competitors in the trade.

I put this here not in a spirit of 'you, too', but to spread the field of this argument a little. Let's spread it a little more. Slavery has existed for longer than history can trace and in every part of the world. It existed in law in many countries until the 20th Century and, de facto, exists even now with estimates of between 20 and 200 million slaves in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

This is the context: a practice universal in time and space. Until 1807, when the British Parliament abolishes slavery in the British Empire and the British navy enforces the ban (I read somewhere that Royal Navy ships carried a manual about slavers until the 1970s). For the first time in human history, slavery was made illegal. It was a triumph of Christian and Enlightenment education and the result of the perhaps the first great public opinion movement.

It is important to restate all this because in certain contexts it gets easily forgotten. It is not remembered in the reactions to Tony Blair's expression of regret. It was not remembered in the BBC's Making History programme of a couple of weeks ago as they walked around Bristol picking out the names of slave traders. But it is the point. This great progessive act was made here.

The relevance of slavery to British power was small. The industrial revolution and the growth of the British Empire was a result of imagination, energy and commerce, a form of commerce that had made slavery an economic anachronism. It was only because it was of little economic importance that it could be abolished at the stroke of a pen and that a higher vision of human beings could be placed on the statute books.

It will do no-one any good to wait on just retribution. Reparations for a particular event performed by a single people on another make some sense. Reparations for all of human history make none.

Lebanon Q & A

Jeha adds a little dollop of hope to a smorgasboard of worrying maybes.

Excerpts.

Are we moving towards a civil war in Lebanon?
In Lebanon, anyone who grows to big for is own boots is pulled back in by the other groups, who will find plenty of allies in doing so. Willing or unwillingly, we are all minorities in this country; whoever tries to impose their will on the others faces war. With assassinations in Lebanon, and suicides in Syria, we are indeed in the middle of a “cloak and dagger”, stealthy war.

Why hasn’t the “real” shooting started?
Syria’s greed is keeping things quiet, for now. With the new US Congress, our sister is hoping for a return to the buffet, in a “Grand Bargain”. As long as it is hoping to get Lebanon back, it will not break it directly. It may hope to spark civil strife by assassinations, demonstrations, but it will shy away from any larger scale confrontation.

[T]he Syrians are smart enough not to move to a direct confrontation, and would try to initiate another “battle of the marionettes ”. Indeed, the assassination of Pierre Gemayel may have been an attempt at sparking another civil war... The fires of anger were quickly quenched, but one should not expect Syria and Iran to give up so easily.

Will the United States be “Defeated” by Iran or Syria?
[B]efore you chant the “Vietnam” mantra, recall that there was not much oil in Indochina. The United States may have “lost its way” and Israel may be scared , but it is no South Vietnam . And Iran is no Soviet Union.

I am reassured, however, by Amine Gemayel’s stance; coming from a father who had just lost a son, his call to calm and prayer has gone a long to calm passions, and saved us another war. Whatever their fault, many of March 14th leaders, have apparently learned the lessons of the civil war and the occupation.

Meanwhile the marionettes are busy.