Posted on 01/01/2006 2:26:50 PM PST by Alouette
Q: You just gave $20 million to Harvard and another $20 million to Georgetown to advance the study of Islam, and some are concerned that you are trying to increase the on-campus influence of the Saudi royal family, of which you are reportedly the single wealthiest member.
I don't have control, and I don't want control. Period. They approached us with a proposal. Harvard, Georgetown, University of Chicago, University of Michigan and several of the Ivy Leagues.
[...]
Since you're said to be worth more than $20 billion, with major holdings in Four Seasons Hotels, Saks Fifth Avenue and Murdoch's News Corporation, why not give an unrestricted gift instead of such a narrowly focused one?
The gift is unrestricted!
No, it's not. It has to be spent on Islamic studies. Georgetown is renaming a center after you, and Harvard is naming a program after you.
Well, sure! The studies that concern me and fit my overall global vision - they're Islamic studies. As you know, ever since 9/11, we have been trying to bridge the gap between West and East.
[...]
We are doing so many things to bridge the gap between Christianity and Islam and Judaism. For example, at my hotel in Paris, George V, you are going to find the Christian Bible, the Jewish Bible and the Islamic Koran in each single room.
That's a wonderful idea, but a luxury hotel in Paris is a long way from Saudi Arabia, where you could surely spend more money on Judeo-Christian studies.
Look. You have to understand that the population of Saudi Arabia has zero Christians.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Maybe they're hoping he'll buy the NYT too. Then he'd make all the women dress in burkas. At least then there would be truth in advertising.
The same universities that are outraged by military recruiting on campus because the military discriminates against gays...can't wait to pocket cash from a government for whom homosexuality is a capital crime.
I guess that doesn't count as discrimination.
This move will bare fruit within a decade.
Just look at what the department's of multicultuaralism and womens's studies have produced to guage this move.
This will be a short lived lovefest between the saudis and the left liberal unintelligentsia : )
Translation: As you know, since 9/11, we have been actively trying to bridge the gap between West and East by doing away with Western culture. We are doing this by migrating into Western lands, having as many children as possible, refusing to integrate into Western society and eventually demanding that our rights as Moslems be respected...and over time, superior to the rights of the old culture of the new lands we inhabit. Our ultimate plan is to eventually outnumber the native population and it is then that we will create the new Caliphate and Islam will rule the world. And natually, the law of the world will be Shar'ria law...Of course if anyone were to accuse us of this we will call in CAIR and claim racism (since according to CAIR "Islam" is a race, you see!) and Islamophobia etc...The way we see it, the West is screwed! Enough of the anti-war left and liberals have unwittingly joined our side along with those who are too stupid to understand that we want them dead along with all infidels. We're just using them and they are too arrogant and self-righteous to see it."
I sincerely doubt it. In fact I know of a Christian who lived there, a Sudanese, who was imprisoned for having the temerity to lead worship services in his home. He was later released due to the personal intervention of the U.S. Ambassador.
Doesn't anyone with money have the ambition to found a school that teaches the truth? Is there no one that would like to see a institution of higher learning that wasn't a whore for anybody that waves a dollar in their direction?
And Wacko Ward Churchill, too!
Except for untold thousands of Western contractors who actually keep the place running
Twenty years ago, I was working for a company that was a prime contractor for setting up the Saudi air defense system. They wanted to send me to Saudi to work there for a couple of years (you can get some good tax breaks on your ex-pat income). I told them "my wife's Jewish". They said "never mind"
Did you sue them?
Yep. I'm not surprised. Many US universities are participating in the construction of a massive new university in Doha, Qatar. The price of participation: make a list of your faculty and staff Jews, keep them out of the project, certify that each member is, er, Aryan.
Big universities like Carnegie-Mellon, Texas A&M, Georgetown, and others accepted these terms.
I can recall another nation that once got very concerned about the number of Chosen People in the professoriat, but I'm danger close to having Godwin's Law called down on my head as it is. In this case, though, I think the comparison is quite apt.
http://www.qf.edu.qa/output/page307.asp
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Interesting story. As sorry as the House of Saud is, they probably keep a lid on the most radicalized population in the entire Middle East. We should encourage them towards democracy, but we don't want the Taliban II in the world's largest oil producer.
I didn't really want to go, and I told them about my wife so they would stop asking
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