Universities are often where dark cultural movements draw their first breaths. In Germany, Nazism was embraced by students and given intellectual ballast by lecturers. As early as 1920, two German academics published a book entitled Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living. Six years later ā with Hitlerās election still seven years in the future ā the National Socialist German Studentsā Union was formed.
In the 1960s, the engine of Chairman Maoās cultural revolution was Chinaās youth. The Red Guards paramilitary movement was led by a vanguard of students. In 1979, when American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution, it was once again students to blame. We live today with the menace of the theocratic regime they midwifed.
With the first quarter of the current century almost behind us, it is the turn of our universities. After decades of saturation with toxic and abstruse ideologies, they are revealing just how far they have travelled along the path of anti-democratic fundamentalismā¦
End of the column: The idiocy of these people doesnāt make them less useful. Which brings me back to Gaza. Meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh last month, Iranās supreme leader said:
āWe have, so far, successfully won the media and PR wars, and have managed to change public opinion across the globe. We must continue with this.ā In November, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said: āWe must salute all those who took to the street in support and solidarity with the Palestinians, from all over the world.ā In Gaza, signs were held up paying tribute to campus protests.Itās myopia thatās the problem, isnāt it? That and the narcissism. But the danger is rea