You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for Griffith University Vice-Chancellor Ian O’Connor. His hamfisted attempts to defend Griffith against accusations of being a “madrassas” trawling for Saudi dollars have landed him in all sorts of bother, with his attempts to draw a fine distinction between “research by senior staff” (who apparently get all their briefing notes from Wikipedia) and correct citation in academic work being a classic case of digging yourself deeper into a hole. His self-justification reads more like the logic-splitting you might get from a student who’d been called for plagiarism. Revise and resubmit, of course, would not be an option in the sort of mediated culture war blowup the good Professor found himself in the middle of - and that’s the problem in a nutshell. He’d have done better, probably, to have ignored the frenzy of the press beat ups, released an anodyne statement and tapped someone with a brain on their shoulders to write him a measured response. Just some gratuitous pr advice…
What he’s succeeded in doing is obscuring the real issues, and playing the game on the turf of those who wanted to cast stones at Griffith. But he’s also succeeded in obfuscating the questions he does have to answer about Saudi funding for Griffith’s Islamic Research Unit.
As Mark wrote in comments on the Saturday Salon thread, the central issue here is clear:
The real story here, of course, is that universities are always abasing themselves to donors and rarely stop to think too much about where the money’s coming from. That’s the legacy to the academy of the Howard government’s funding squeeze.
That’s the context for the chirpy emails circulating around Griffith from fundraisers asking for extra zeros on the Saudi cheque.
O’Connor has a point when he refers to the Islamic Research Unit’s receipt of millions of dollars in Commonwealth funding. The Commonwealth’s agenda for funding a “centre of excellence” in Islamic research was a political one - to promote moderate Islam and ensure that Islamic leaders could be trained in Australian universities rather than in Middle Eastern institutions. Some might remember the “register of Imams” the Howard government was keen on back in 2006. The funding of Griffith’s institute has to be seen in this context, as do the millions of ARC dollars sloshing through the research accounts of Australian academics and universities earmarked for “promoting national security”. But the problem with Commonwealth funding is that it’s never enough. It always comes with demands for matching funds from the University which receives it, which are achieved either by slicing money off other priorities - undergrad teaching being a popular one - or by raising private sector money. The dosh from the Saudi embassy would have been solicited for this purporse.
It illustrates that neither public nor private funding for academic research comes without strings attached. That’s probably why O’Connor hasn’t used that old mainstay - academic freedom - as one of his resources in defending himself. He knows that it’s a myth, because pure research isn’t funded any more. And his own lame attempts to defend the donation reflect the nature of a modern Vice-Chancellor - a kind of chief fundraiser rather than any sort of academic leader or public intellectual, papering over the cracks that open up from contradictory demands by funding authorities. They’re actually the last people around who could mount a credible defence of academic integrity in whatever form.
While, as the link from Lyn at Public Opinion I cited earlier does demonstrate, there’s a large element of beatup to this story (in particular with regard to the comments from Judge Wall, whoever he is, and in the general frame of “OMG! Teh terrsts are in our midst!” bleh that The Australian specialises in), there are legitimate questions for O’Connor to answer.
These shouldn’t be confused with the sort of nonsense that slips oh too easily into commentary on this issue:
The photograph on page two of The Australian yesterday - featuring two Islamic female students at Griffith University with their faces covered - gives ample evidence of precisely how Wahhabi influence is already making its presence felt.
…They could just as easily be Australian citizens as international students, after all.
But if the Islamic Research Unit does do good work in promoting dialogue and in highlighting social justice and inter-faith links (and I’m assured from several quarters that it does), it does appear legitimate to query what it’s doing accepting money from a repressive government with an appalling human rights record - particularly when it comes to the rights of women. Not much light has been shed on this issue - by either side in the debate - and it may well be that Professor O’Connor never stopped to think about it, as he rushed around the boardrooms with begging bowl in hand while slashing budgets with the other hand, as is the typical practice of the postmodern Vice-Chancellor.
Here we go again. Money from Saudi may or may not have strings attached, but not all Saudi funders are equally bad. I remember one academic confiding in me late last year that he was rather glad that his department hadn’t managed to secure funds from O/S (yet) because journos from the Oz seemed to be ringing around looking for any dirt they could make stick. I myself fielded a call from an Oz journo asking me if I knew of any secret recruitments to fundamentalist groups on Uni campuses *snort*. Like they’d tell me if they were!
And it goes without saying that a face-veil does not a Wahhabi make. Furthermore, Wahhabis have every right to study and attend university, it’s called freedom of religion, we seem to pretend we like it here in Australia.
Absolutely! That’s what I’m saying.
That’s a point that O’Connor should have been making, surely, and explaining why. Instead he got caught up in defensive rhetorical flights of fantasy, and piffling wikipedia ripoffs. And no money that goes to universities comes without strings attached, as I’m saying in the post.
He might for instance have looked at the precedent set when the US-Australian Studies Centre at USyd was established - there were strong calls from teh usual suspects (associated with the funding authority) for it to serve as some sort of anti-anti-Americanism propaganda unit, backed up with rhetoric from the Howard government, Planet Albrechtsen, etc. Sydney insisted on protocols which ensured that the purposes of the centre were not narrowly constrained or partisan.
O’Connor and his minions, by contrast, seem to me to have acted like dills. Sure, give us cash, and we’ll do anything you like with it. It’s hardly encouraging - no matter who the donor or funding body was.
It probably reflects the position universities like Griffith find themselves in - not sandstones, but not techs either and scrambling both for a mission and for as much research dosh as possible.
But, as I’m trying to say, leaving aside the “terrsts are coming!” frame, there are some pretty serious questions here both for O’Connor to answer and which arise out of the general sycophancy of university managers towards anyone who waves a chequebook in their faces.
Ha! Haaaahahahaahah!
My employer(one of Victoria’s premier lesser universities) almost got that money - but our management was simply to hopeless, and riven with factional politics to pull it off.
No ethical issues, mind. Wasn’t owing to any political sensitivities, forfend!
Just pure incompetence and seething ego based rivalries. Certain senior people just didnt show up to the meetings that would have brough millions in - as it was all organised by a vertain more junior person, that they wished to see fail.
Ah, collegiate life.
It’s worth checking out the debates on the Wikipedia entry, not that I know what they’re talking about, but I wondered on the plagiarism thing whether any of the people advising O’Connor might also be Wiki people, maybe feeding him their own lines.
The ‘don’t cite Wikipedia’ thing is so common I find it odd that any academic would do such a thing even in the heat of the moment. And O’Connor was definitely feeling heated when he circulated the email.
The ‘not much light has been shed on the issue’ observation is, I think, the safest way to approach the whole catastrophe. With extreme caution. It is, after all, a stoush between the Oz and a university.
“if the Islamic Research Unit does do good work in promoting dialogue and in highlighting social justice and inter-faith links …”
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I question why a university should be getting into “promoting dialogue” and “highlighting social justice”.
Leave that to the Salvation Army. A university is there to a) research and b) teach. And that’s all.
One day, the Oz editor Chris Mitchell will realize that the car he drives is powered by petrol made from oil that comes from MUSLIM COUNTRIES!
And the food he eats was delivered in trucks powered by petrol made from oil that comes from MUSLIM COUNTRIES!
And the computer he uses is made of plastics made from oil that comes from MUSLIM COUNTRIES!
The shock will be so great that he probably won’t leave his bedroom for weeks.
Kim describes as “nonsense” the comment about female students at Griffith with their faces covered. But that comment came from Stephen Crittenden, presenter of The Religion Report on ABC Radio National.
This suggests that he probably knows a thing or two about religions. And being an ABC presenter, he is hardly likely to be a raving right-wing nutcase.
Kim selectively quoted one sentence of his. But Crittenden actually makes a lot of sense when you read the full passage:
Ian’s put his name to it, so the buck stops with him but I’d be surprised if he actually wrote the piece published in the Australian. I don’t have any inside knowledge at all, but I think it’s more likely the order went out to prepare a response to be issued in the VC’s name with External Relations having a lot of input. It could be the case that ER went and interviewed a couple of academics and wrote the whole thing themselves.
d
That’s not all Paulus. I notice that Crittenden’s article referred to page TWO of the newspaper, where there was a photograph of TWO women.
Now, did you know that the numeral 2 is part of the Hindu-Arabic counting system? Which came from MUSLIM COUNTRIES!
This has got to stop. It’s time we all went back to the wholesome western values of Roman numerals.
I, for one, will not drive or count anything until I can be certain it is free from contamination by ISLAMIC MUSLIMS!
“cast stones at Griffith”
Quite appropriate, some would say, in the circumstances.
A bit of a beat up, really. The VC should get himself better advisers.
Stephen Crittenden, if you listen to his program at all, has a bit of a thing about Islam. He’s hardly rational on the subject. Sorry, Paulus, people on the ABC aren’t all lefties. I wouldn’t take his say-so for any allegation regarding what may or may not be going on among Muslim students.
As to the rest, beyond the comment Kim quoted, I don’t want to get into the particulars as I’ve worked at Griffith in the past and expect to again. But I would endorse the argument regarding funding.
I can remember being a student at ANU in early 1980s with several Muslim women students were on campus fully covered in black Burkhas. It is not a new thing. We didn’t worry about it then except to be concerned that the tutors couldn’t tell if they were paying atteniton in class. Before the Vatican Council of 1966 Catholic nuns attended campuses in full dark brown habits with head covered - similar to Muslim hijab.
Back then we just figured people had the right to express their faith and wear what they wanted. All that acceptance lost in post 911 hysteria it seems.
And to add to the Mercurius list of Oz editor Chris Mitchell’s use of oil from MUSLIM countries, I bet he wagers on quite a few horses running races heavily supported by Air Emirates. Are there any Australian horse races not supported by Air Emirates? The Oz should understand where the money is these days. In China and the oil rich states.
I’ve been a Muslim on campus (variously as a student and as staff) for about a decade now, and the Wahhabi Salafi influence has actually declined over the last few years if the two biggest Victorian unis are anything to go by. I remember before September 11, it was tough to find an audience willing to listen to how nuts the Taliban and the Wahhabis are in the prayer rooms, but these days no one gives them too much credit. Well, they will always have their fan clubs, but their sphere of influence has certainly lessened.
My Uni has a thing about giving back to the community (can’t remember the exact phrase) something touchy feely. Probably as a result of the influence of non-positivist ways of looking a the world
I see Clive Wall, the Southport District Court Magistrate who said Griffith Uni being a “madrassas” trawling for Saudi dollars, a wears some other hats:
Member, RAAF Specialist Reserve (Legal) (1971-)
Air Commodore, RAAF
Deputy Judge Advocate General, Australian Defence Force (2006-)
Defence Force Magistrate, Australian Defence Force
Reviewing Judge Advocate, Australian Defence Force (1997-2006)
Formerly a member of the Roster of Experts, United Nations Centre Transnational Corporations, the Committee of the Bar Association of Queensland and President of the North Queensland Bar Association
I’m sure Clive Wall (and Stephen Crittenden) sees themselves as doughty defenders of our hard-won freedoms. You see, freedom of religion and freedom of association are too precious for us to share with just anybody, especially ISLAMIC MUSLIMS!!
Oops, I forgot. It’s de rigeur to end such posts with a loud WAKE UP, AUSTRALIA!!!!!!!!!!
I remember being at a party in Townsville in the late 1980s where the other guests - many of whom were also members of the legal fraternity - locked the then barrister in the bathroom because he was such a bombastic pain in the arse.
It seems that age has not wearied him.
By strange coincidence I also met Ian O’Connor at around the same time, when he was a social work lecturer or something. He seemed to be very big on ethics but strangely unacquainted with the actualities of real life.
What happened to his ethics?
Er, the barrister in question was one Clive Wall.
Too bad they let him out again! I guess their mistake was locking him the bathroom of a one-loo house at in a crowded boozy party? Should’ve used the broom closet instead (for the boor, not the loo).
Stephen Crittenden
Let’s see. There’s a bettle of ideas looming within the Islamic student body. And Crittenden’s idea is to influence its outcome by banning funding from a certain source.
Well, we all know how well that approach has worked in the past. Just ask the Tsar of Russia, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the one united and indivisible Church of Western Europe.
What’s that you say? They all lost the battle of ideas because they attempted to repress rather than to engage?
Say it ain’t so!
It’s not just that, Katz. Remember when Australian universities were “the new front line in the battle” with Soviet Communism? Or Maoism?
Remember those people in the 1960s that ASIO thought were so dangerous they had to have a file on them - you know, revolutionaries like Phillip Adams?
And what about troublemakers like Paddy McGuinness? And folks who flirted with revolutionary politics like Piers Akerman? What happened? They all “grew up” to be op-ed writers. Why? Because Murdoch needs to sell papers and they needed the money.
I predict 20 years from now there’ll be an op-ed column in the national broadsheet penned by somebody who is right now a member of one of those student groups today being vilified. It’ll be right in the spot where Adams or Albrechtsen used to be. And it’ll be just as “influential”.
Meanwhile, yes it amazes me how many of these people who are so noisy in their assertion of the superiority of western Enlightenment values are then so reluctant to give free rein to the open contest of ideas - which just happens to be one of the great western Enlightenment values, in case they’d forgotten.
What are Wall and Crittenden so afraid of? If, as they would have us believe, our great liberal democratic traditions are so gravely threatened by a few inexperienced teenage student politicians, then it’ll take a lot more than Griffith Uni knocking back funds to save us!
Here’s one for the conspiracy theorists to answer: if the Saudi government is so anxious to ‘export Wahhabism’ into Australia and overthrow our society then;
a) Why didn’t they launder their donation through some less obvious channel?
and,
b) What strategic genius in the House of Saud decided that Griffith University was the ideal launch pad for the Islamist takeover of Australia?
Since Australia is an inordinately seculat country, I would venture to predict that many young Muslims will adopt our secular humanist values and “faith-based” [ugh!]attitudes might decline as they have woth many Xtans over the past 50 years.
p.s. The Enlightenment won.
In 2002 or 2003 some posters were put up by the more hardline Jewish students around a few campuses. Many people took them to imply that all Muslims were responsible for the Bali bombing etc. (I didn’t take them that way although I thought they were pretty stupid for other reasons).
At one campus these were put up by a serving office bearer, who then went on to have a crucial role as campaign organiser for his ticket in the election a few months later. People predicted a massive backlash from the Islamic students, but as far as I could see all that happened was some lobbying of the university (successfully). There didn’t seem to be a large Muslim turnout at the elections at all.
It does rather seem to me that if the Islamic student organisation (on a campus with pretty large numbers) can’t even get people to the ballot box then they’re probably not fertile ground for recruiting suicide bombers, although of course things may be different on other campuses or at other times.
Paul,
If you mean by secular humanist values things like freedom of religion, equality before the law, universal suffrage , giving everyone ‘a fair go’, hard work, compassion etc. then from my research with data from over 960 Muslims in Sydney and Melbourne, I can tell you that practising Muslims in Australia (a sizeable chunk being born here, but also migrants who have adopted citizenship) very much do experience and subscribe to those values, however their religious identity remains extremely strong, even more so than their ethnic and/or Australian identities (but then, the vast majority don’t see them as mutually exclusive either).
UY
Umm Yasmin,
This presumably would put Muslims in the same boat as devout pe4ople of other faiths. I never imagined, despite my penchant for secular humanism, that it would be otherwise. Pity the Islamophobes out there don’t get the message.
Lefty E at [3]
“Disputes in Universities are all the more bitter because the stakes are so low.”
attributed to a former US President, Woodrow Wilson? Herbert Hoover?
“the legacy to the academy of the Howard government’s funding squeeze” ???? Not really, Unis were happily taking cash from external funders long before John Howard was PM. Not saying he didn’t reduce funding, mind.
Sure they were, Ambigulous, but not to the same extent, not with the same cravenness and urgency, and not doing the slash regular budget to raise matching funds thing.
Paul: no doubt at all!
Agreed, Mark at 10.51pm.
Prof N. Picker,
Centre of Mediocrity in Pure and Applied Pedantry
Chair, Grants and Middle Eastern Largesse Search Committee
Immediate Past President
Life Member
Professor Emeticus
etc
Mercurius
You have posted a number of sarcastic posts intimating that concern over this issue is trivial and even as contempible as the Cold War “Reds under the beds” campaigns. I can assure you our concerns are much more sober than that.
If this episode were just a matter of a time-poor VC rushing out a press release of course it could be excused. But O’Connor and his “senior staff” were not so rushed that they could not carefully change a couple of words from Wikipedia to make their case seem scholarly credible.
What is more worrying is that the research unit seems to be involved in some Saudi-funded PR campaign to ‘re-brand’ Saudi Wahhabism in the ’soft and cuddly’ language of Christian Unitarianism.
Cuddly Christian Unitarians *snort*. See, this is why we need to learn about other civilisations, peoples.
As I pointed out on my (warning: shameless self-promotion) recent post Just Who are Those Unitarian Muslims, also known as the Borg, the reference to ‘unitarian’ is just a direct translation from the Arabic of name “al-Muwahhidun” that the original followers of Ibn Abdu’l-Wahhab used, because of their strict emphasis on the doctrine of tawhid (the absolute oneness of God).
Has *absolutely nothing* to do with Christian Unitarianism!!!
Indeed, and the ABC religious mob should have known better as well. Wahhabism was in part a reaction against Sufism, which was seen as a threat to the oneness of God. If you want an analogy, you could look at Protestant reaction against what was perceived as Mary and saint worship in medieval Catholicism. It’s not exact, mind, just an analogy.
“Soft and Cuddly”! Have you forgotten the Unitarian Jihad!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/08/DDG27BCFLG1.DTL
d
Umm and Mark
It seems you two have also got this issue confused. The Culture Watcher seems to nail it including your own confusions.
No, that just supports what I’m saying about Sufism. It would appear that O’Connor was right to choose that term - as Yasmin says, a literal translation. It’s in the Wikipedia morass and the insensitivity to context and failure to explain that his problem lies. Although, like Darryl, I’d eat my hat if O’Connor actually wrote the op/ed that went out under his name. Nevertheless, as Darryl also says, he is responsible for it.
You might be right. I’m no Islam expert. I think Umm’s point about “unitarian” is interesting, but the culture blog says that is different from “Unitarianism”. But even I was suspicious when Dr. O’Coonor said Unitarianism was Saudi Arabia’s official religion. It isn’t.
I agree with you about O’Connor probably not writing any of those articles as they all read so disjointed as if there were bits and pieces from a few people
Yes, the claim (implicit or explicit) that “Unitarianism” is the official Saudi religion, whether or not that’s what O’Connor et al intended seems to have been the crux of the matter.
It sounds like an alarmist exaggeration to me, but assuming Stephen Crittenden is right in saying that “Australian universities are the new front line in the battle with extremist Islam. The Muslim students associations are being taken over by Wahhabist and other ultra-conservative groups, such as Tablighi Jamaat and Hizb ut-Tahrir” , this just gives greater weight for building and supporting institutions precisely like Griffith Uni’s Islamic Research Unit which seek to promote greater debate about mainstream Muslim views, beliefs and traditions.
The sick irony is that The Australian’s anti-Muslim fear-mongering is being directed at an Institute that has sought to do precisely what heaps of hectoring politicians and pontificating media pundits (including a number from The Australian) have demanded Muslims do - get engaged in public debate, build links with the wider commnuity and seek to honestly confront some of the challenges of Islam in the modern world. And yet they are prepared to run major pieces, most of them containing gross distortions, five days running, attacking this Unit despite not any evidence that it is actually promoting Wahhabism.
The end result of course will be far greater cynicism amongst many Australian Muslims and much less interest in engaging in genuine debate, as they will assume (rightly in the case of The Australian) that these calls for greater openess are not genuine in their intent.
There are legitimate questions to ask about Universities receiving donations from the Saudi government, but in the absence of any direct strings being attached - and offers to discuss how they might like the donation to be used do not count as ’strings attached’ in my view - one can only look at the work of the Islamic Research Unit itself. This of course is the one thing The Australian has not bothered to do - despite having run another massive drawn out beat-up recently regarding a seminar organised by the Unit which has Tariq Ramadan as one of its speakers, they still could not seriously fault the public work the Unit has done. It even has Anwar Ibrahim doing a PhD through the place. Instead they rely on distortion, dark insinuations and simply ludicrous rent a quote assertion from someone who clearly has no knowledge at all of what the Unit has done, but who insists they “must” be teaching the same stuff as an extremsist Pakistani madrass!
It is an unfortunate fact that modern day Universities have to seek substantial funding from foreign governments or from large companies. In such circumstances, there will always be a potential for the Uni’s activities to be distorted by the aims of the funding source. I am sure much larger funding comes from other countries with less than desirable human rights records - China springs to mind, as well as a few others in our region. But that is a reason for more openess about such funding and a reduced reliance on it, not for ending all such links. In any case, this was not secret money, as The Australian keeps implying with their assertions that they “revealed” the funding. If someone like me was able to be previously aware of it as a matter of course, then it wasn’t secret.
Possum: It is, they just like to arrogate their particularly interpretation of Islam as the entirety of the religion. Sort of like pretending that Shi’i Islam, Sufi Islam, and everything that isn’t Wahhabi-Salafiyya - isn’t “Islam”.
Culture War Watch: Ok, here’s a non-sarcastic comment on what you assure me is your sober concern that “the research unit seems to be involved in some Saudi-funded PR campaign to ‘re-brand’ Saudi Wahhabism in the ’soft and cuddly’ language of Christian Unitarianism.”
Your paragraph prior to that one repeated Kim’s point from her original article - that the ‘Unitarianism’ comment was some sort of Wikipedia-inspired SNAFU on the part of the VC’s office in an over-rushed attempt to defend the centre. Since I think both you and Kim are right about that, then the sinister ‘Unitarianism’ re-branding of Saudi Wahhabism that you impute to the centre is just that: a SNAFU on the part of the VC’s office, and nothing to do with the actual work going on the research centre. QED.
But just to be charitable, let’s look a little deeper into your imputation. You obviously harbour some grave suspicion about the purpose and operation of this centre. You haven’t made your grounds for this suspicion clear, or put forward any evidence. You’ve just asserted that their motives are suspicious. I will presume your suspicion is based on a genuine concern about what you read in the paper, and is not based on some redneck fear about Muslims getting uppity.
I’m not sure why you react in such a suspicious manner. Based on historical incidents, it seems that when humans are confronted with a religion they neither understand nor support, their responses typically fall within one of the following categories, which I shall list from what I regard as the least to most enlightened scenarios:
1) Extermination
2) Repression
3) Forced Conversion
4) Ghettoisation
5) Avoidance/Mutual Antipathy
6) Unforced Conversion
7) Secularisation/Modernisation
8. Open Engagement
Now, 1-4 we can ignore - the less said about them the better. You seem concerned that the centre may be here to fulfil scenario (6), whereas many on this thread have argued, with some justification, that scenario (7) is the most likely outcome.
You haven’t proposed a solution, but I suspect from your comments that scenario (5) is the one with which you would be most comfortable. You would prefer the Saudis kept themselves to themselves, and we get on with life here, and never the twain should meet - something along those lines, yes?
I would invite you to consider that, as Andrew Bartlett has argued, the purpose of the centre might in fact be along the lines of scenario (8). Open engagement, the contest of ideas - these are all values that defenders of the Western Enlightenment (of which I presume you are one) hold dear, and is therefore one I would expect you to support. Scenario (5), with the mutual hostility and suspicion it breeds, is an inappropriate response from someone who purports to be a defender of liberal democracy, freedom of religion, freedom of association, innocent until proven guilty, or the western Enlightenment generally.
In fact, the gravest threats our western civilisation ever faced came not from an opposing religion, but from political and military forces that were themselves the products of modernisation, secularisation and the western Enlightenment. In that regard, I find the panicky response of many in Australia to the ‘Muslim threat’ to be borderline comical.
Besides which, given the tremendous success the rich and powerful West has had ‘exporting democracy’ into the Middle East, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Vietnam, China and so on, I think you have little to fear from any purported Saudi attempts to ‘export Wahhabism’, even the comic-book shadow-boxing version presented by The Australian.
Given these circumstances, I think my initial sarcastic comments were perfectly warranted.
PS - The scare of today isn’t Reds under the Beds - It’s Mohammads in the Cupboards!
Mercurious @ 41,
What a pleasure to read such a thoughtful post.