The Saudi Government has bankrolled hardline Islam
QUEENSLAND'S Griffith University prides itself on being progressive and inclusive. Its Equity and Diversity Plan 2007-2010 says the institution has "long been recognised nationally for its strong and enduring commitment to equity and diversity". This "core value", it says, is "a fundamental part of the university's identity, history and positioning for the future" contributing to "a more socially just and equitable society".The tone could not be further removed from the daily human rights abuses endured by women in Saudi Arabia under strict male guardianship and segregation. On Monday, a new 50-page Human Rights Watch report, based on interviews with 100 Saudi women, showed they continued to be banned from driving cars in the oil-rich kingdom. Nor can a woman work, travel, study, marry, or access healthcare without the permission of her father, brother, husband or sons. They are even banned from libraries. The nation reportedly beheaded 136 people last year, with stonings, amputations and floggings also practised. Child trafficking is rife and public Christian worship prohibited.
Given these realities, Griffith University has been foolish -- at best -- in virtually begging the Saudi Arabian embassy to bankroll its Griffith Islamic Research Unit for $1.3 million. So naive was director Mohamad Abdalla that he wrote to Saudi ambassador Hassan T. Nazer offering to keep the controversial deal secret if the ambassador did not want the embassy, "a core sponsor, to be acknowledged". And in a letter dated September 11, 2006, vice-chancellor Ian O'Connor noted Griffith was "rapidly becoming a popular 'university of choice' for students from Saudi Arabia".
To put the issues in context, all Australian universities aggressively court foreign students. They are also on a constant, relentless chase for research dollars. And some donors prefer anonymity. Universities have chairs named after benefactors and corporations. Foreign agencies, including the US Defence Department, fund major medical research projects.
What is disturbing about the Griffith-Saudi deal is Saudi Arabia's track record of bankrolling radical Islam. When it was launched in 2005, Dr Abdalla, who was born in Libya and lived in Jordan before coming to Australia where he completed his science degree and PhD, said the unit's main aim was "to promote a Wasatiyya or 'moderate' Islam". In offering scholars the chance to study Islam in depth, the unit is a worthwhile academic venture, given the increasing significance of Islam on the world stage. It has a variety of scholars undertaking research, including former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is listed as studying the "Asian Renaissance". Other projects include representations of Islam in the Australian media post- 9/11, intimate partner violence in the Islamic world and why Palestinian non-violence would be more conducive to liberation than violent resistance.
GIRU states one of its aims is "cultivating an informed public opinion that will lead to a more sustainable pluralistic Australian society". It wants "to bring positive and lasting change in our communities". Australians could be forgiven for wondering why it is our society that needs changing when the unit is being partially funded by a nation that espouses hardline Islam, policed by the Mutaween or religious police. Some in the Islamic community fear the funding could skew the unit's approach and create sympathy for an extremist ideology -- Wahabism -- which is widely espoused in Saudi Arabia and by al-Qa'ida.
Unfortunately, the university has not been upfront about the matter, and Queensland District Court judge Clive Wall has every right to raise his concerns. Last year, Ross Homel -- then director of Griffith's key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance -- said the university did not chase money from the embassy and that the $100,000 down payment was offered with "no strings" attached.
Documents obtained by The Australian contradict this, with Professor O'Connor offering the embassy the chance to "discuss ways" in which the money could be used and Griffith staffers speculating about "How do we get extra noughts on this cheque". Such a cap-in-hand approach to a nation that despises all manner of freedom, including academic freedom, does not encourage confidence. The funding of such units should be transparent and any conditions attached to it acknowledged publicly.
