The University of Durham last year entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Iranian government’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. The cosy arrangement saw the two promise to publish joint books, hold joint conferences, undertake joint research and exchange students and members of staff. In return, the Iranian government paid Durham £10,000. Worth the price of aligning yourself with probably the most obnoxious government in the world?
Increasingly, it appears not. As part of this
memorandum of understanding, a seminar
on ‘The
Relationship between Culture and Politics in Post-Islamic-Revolution Iran’ was held last month at the university
– a seminar which coincided with the execution of Mohammad Reza
Ali-Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, arrested after last June’s Iranian ‘election’.
Students protested at the awfulness of their university’s actions, and two
academics withdrew from the event. Dr Colin Turner, co-director of Durham's Centre
for Iranian Studies, was left with an event which he admitted was ‘monopolised
by pro-regime speakers’. In the audience were Durham’s mayor and the university’s
vice-chancellor.
Responding to the pro-democracy protests, Dr
Turner gave us an early front-runner for stupidest comment of the year:
‘These same people who denigrate us have absolutely no problem in accepting scholarships from the British government – which has turned the slaughter of innocent teenagers in Iraq and Afghanistan into an art form. Before they accuse us of receiving what they term 'blood money' from our Iranian funders, maybe they should look a little more closely at the source of their own funding.’
It reminded me of a similarly repugnant
comment that Denis Hayes, the founder of Academics for Academic Freedom, made
last year in response to A Degree of
Influence – my report which looked into undemocratic sources funding UK universities – in which he said
that ‘British universities are funded by a government that invaded Iraq and
Afghanistan. Does that make their funding suspect or a dangerous influence?’
It
doesn’t get much more pitiful than attempting to apply some kind of moral
equivalence between the UK and unelected dictatorships simply in order to
justify accepting the latter’s cash.
Turner has at least accepted the university made an error, and looked to rectify it – admitting that ‘Iranian money comes with strings attached, as we have found to our chagrin’, and that he has ‘taken steps...to sever all financial ties with...any representatives of the Iranian regime, at least for the foreseeable future’. However this is part of a bigger problem that A Degree of Influence tried to raise – that, as a student at Durham mentioned, ‘If universities want to hold events they don't have the resources in-house... British universities are forced to turn to authoritarian regimes for funding.’
A story on a similar topic has been uncovered by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Report, a website which monitors the activities of the clerical fascist organisation. They reveal that the European Muslim Research Centre at the University of Exeter was launched after funding provided by Islam Expo and the Cordoba Foundation. As the Brotherhood Report website states:
‘The Cordoba Foundation was founded by Anas Al-Tikriti who also serves as the Foundation’s Chief Executive. Al-Tikriti is a leader in the British Muslim Initiative and a former leader of the Muslim Association of Britain, both organizations being part of the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood... IslamExpo is an event that is strongly associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood and has been supported by organizations such as the British Muslim Initiative, the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).’
According to the NEFA Foundation, FIOE is also a Brotherhood front.
