John Fund continues his vendetta against my alma mater (grad schoo) for admitting a former Taliban spokeperson Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi to its hallowed halls in “Sayed and de Man at Yale.” I’m with Fund on this one, especially since Rahmatullah has never fully condemned the Taliban, a movement that is far from extinguished:
Yale refuses to defend its position, but others are talking. Afghan exiles are appalled that Mr. Rahmatuallah was given a coveted place that could have gone to an Afghan man or woman who had been oppressed by the Taliban. Author Sebastian Junger reports from Afghanistan in the current Vanity Fair on the atrocities the Taliban are committing today. They include skinning a man alive and leaving him to die in the sun. Another man was forced to watch as his wife was gang-raped. Then his eyes were put out, so that the horrific crime would be the last image he would ever see. The relatives of U.S. soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan are likewise appalled. “It’s not like the Taliban ever signed a peace treaty,” Natalie Healy, the mother of a Navy SEAL killed by a Taliban rocket last year, told me. “They’re still killing Americans.”
Fund raises the spectre of Paul de Man, the famous leader of deconstructionism, who rose to prominence on the Ivy League faculty while hiding his Nazi past. Ironically, the cultural relativisim behind that theory is the very idea that has so permeated the academy that all world views, including the Taliban’s extremist Islam, are welcome. Also ironic is the fact that in terms of sheer numbers of adherents extremist Islam is far more successful today than Nazism ever was.
UPDATE: More from Clinton Taylor who blogs on this issue.
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19 Comments
1. photoncourier.blogspot.com:Also far more successful in terms of recruiting collaborators within American institutions.
Mar 20, 2006 - 8:19 am 2. Jamie Irons:Roger,
Thanks for keeping us up on this appalling story.
In my will, I had made provision for a substantial bequest to Yale (I still feel grateful for my undergraduate education there) as well as some to the three U.C.’s where I did my graduate training and fellowships.
I am working on a letter to Yale explaining why the U.C.’s are now going to get the entire bequest.
Jamie Irons
Mar 20, 2006 - 8:23 am 3. David Thomson:I would prefer a surgeon educated at either Yale or Harvard if my life were on the line. One can take it for granted that a medical diploma from either educational institution is to be highly valued. As matter of fact, the same can likely be said for all of the hard science degrees. The soft science degrees, however, are an entirely different matter. More often than not, it sadly indicates that the recipient is an intellectual slut. This is especially true if they have ìearnedî either a masters or the exalted Ph.D. Some good people admittedly graduate from these so-called elite universities. Still, itís best assume that each of them is an idiot until proven otherwise.
Mar 20, 2006 - 9:06 am 4. beautifulatrocities:One of the more horrific Taliban atrocities was its massacre of minority Shia Hazaris. In one Hazari town, the Taliban drove thru the streets machine-gunning every man in sight. Then they took the women & children & sealed them up in boxcars. It was summer, oppressively hot, & even some Taliban said they could never forget the screams for mercy & desperate cries for water as the victims slowly died.
Mar 20, 2006 - 9:06 am 5. Fausta:Mark my words, “former” top Taliban official Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi will one day be a Yale faculty member. If the current furor prevents that, then he’ll be in the faculty of another university in the USA.
And I say “former” because, as Curtis Sliwa can tell you, one never leaves the Mob.
Mar 20, 2006 - 11:10 am 6. Mark Razak:The primary reason why Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi was admitted to Yale is that he represents a movement and a former regime whose anti-Americanism is pure, uncompromising and unquestionable. This one act by Yale tells the American people everything they need to know about how the Yale elite view America?s mission in Afghanistan.
Mar 20, 2006 - 11:19 am 7. tim maguire:Mark is right. Roger, of course, Hashemi has not fully condemned the Taliban. If he had, you wouldn’t have heard of him because he wouldn’t be at Yale.
Hashemi is not at Yale DESPITE being a Taliban (as most of the discussions seem to assume), he is there BECAUSE he is a Taliban.
What other reason could you imagine for Yale to ignore his total lack of qualifications for the admission slot they granted him? Condemning the Taliban would be a strike against him at the admissions committee meeting.
Mar 20, 2006 - 11:34 am 8. neo-neocon:I wrote this post on whether Ramatullah’s change of heart can be trusted. I’m still agnostic on that one (and see, in particular, the comments section for a good discussion of the pros and cons).
But it does seem to be cultural diverstiy gone mad that has motivated Yale to bend over backward to admit him as a special student.
Mar 20, 2006 - 11:40 am 9. Richard Nieporent:Mark, I would like to believe that what you are saying is hyperbole and that you are being unfair to Yale. Unfortunately, I can’t. Admitting a member of the Taliban regime shows what hypocrites they are when they sued to get the Solomon amendment declared unconstitutional. They couldn’t have their pristine institution tainted by allowing a member of the military to appear on campus to recruit students, but they have no problem admitting a student who was a spokesman for a regime that killed gays.
Mar 20, 2006 - 11:52 am 10. Mark McGilvray:Jamie,
I am a UC Berkeley graduate from the early ’70s and I can assure you UC will never see a cent from me. Their skirts are as dirty as Yale’s. If you must give these swine money, please be sure it is earmarked and that there are both a signed agreement and an outside trustee to verify how the money is spent. Otherwise the money will go to more diversity cordinators, and the lesbian eskimos studies department.
Mar 20, 2006 - 12:27 pm 11. RBMN:What recommends someone for Americaís academic nomenklatura? Anti-Americanism does. So how could this man’s credentials be more impeccable?
And if he does lose his financial support from Yale, due to the external pressure, someone in the entertainment world will no doubt jump in to pick up the slack. He’s a “victim.”
Mar 20, 2006 - 2:12 pm 12. pst314:Various deconstructionists rushed to defend Paul de Man. Jacques Derrida showed himself to be particularly despicable with his vicious and dishonest attacks on de Man’s critics.
Mar 20, 2006 - 2:33 pm 13. pst314:Perhaps our professors of “littrachaw” can be summed up as people who have no problem with fascist thugs but cannot abide a preference for Coors Lite or McDonald’s.
Mar 20, 2006 - 2:35 pm 14. sparrow:It would be nice to hear from a political leader in Connecticut who thinks the mistake of giving this Taliban leader a student visa should be corrected. As in throwing Sayed out of the country. Like a Congressperson, Senator, Governor. Hello…
Mar 20, 2006 - 5:58 pm 15. dsmtoday:I still don’t understand why this guy hasn’t been deported yet.
Mar 20, 2006 - 9:20 pm 16. Kevin Peters:dsmtoday:
The academic left won’t put it in such crude terms but America as the great satan is the guiding principle of a large portion of the academic world so this scmuck fits right in. His mea culpa is weak and not complete. It doesn’t have to be. The totalitarian nature of the Taliban is ignored because his hate of America is enough. The academic world does not see the Taliban or similar Islamo Fascist as corrupt institutions, they see them as victims of American hegemony. Thus it is great to have a balance of opinion at their institution. Heaven forbid that they might be so ethnocentric to pass judgement on another culture, calling the Taliban evil is simplistic, unuanced thinking. If you could see the world from the ivy heights you would know how stupid you are. So please, keep your simple minded outrage to yourself. They will tell you what is right and don’t worry your little head about common sense. One must always give your enemy, even one that spouted a barbaric 12th century, sexist, homophobic, and fascist worldview, respect and a million dollar education.
Mar 21, 2006 - 2:03 pm 17. Knucklehead:I don’t mean this as any defense of Yale, but as Sparrow and Dsmtoday ask, why does this guy have a visa? How did he get one, who thought that was a good idea, and why isn’t it being revoked and his sorry butt sent back to Afghanistan to face whatever music he should be facing back there?
What am I missing about this story?
Mar 21, 2006 - 2:40 pm 18. Kevin Peters:Knucklehead:
It is a sign of the self hatred for our values. The Taliban is the exact opposite of everything this country stands for. It isn’t just different, it is a challenge to Democracy and human rights and it considers those principles as ideas that must be eliminated. Yet someone in our government felt enough sympathy for the principles of the Taliban that they thought an unrepentant spokesman for that group should be allowed in our country. If this gent had penned a complete denunciation of his previously held views I could possibly buy it. But his words are vague and hedged enough so there is no way to tell how much of his openly stated ideas of before have been purged from his thought process. And the sad part is that he will find teachers at Yale that will parrot many of the arguments that led him to the Taliban in the first place.
Mar 21, 2006 - 3:00 pm 19. Cap'n Billy:Re: sparrow at March 20, 2006 05:58 PM:
Well, glad to see you’re traveling among a better class of cyberfolks now (if you’re the same sparrow I’ve encountered here.
Not only is there a deafening silence from politicians of all stripes about this issue, but except for a tepid statement by the president, precious little about this. GW has made a goodly number of mistakes in this war against the Islamo-fascists (”Islam is a peaceful religion”), but if he doesn’t find a way to stop the execution of this chap I think I’ll join the THWTH.
Mar 23, 2006 - 1:09 pm