François, the professor of literature protagonist of the latest sensational novel by Michel Houellebecq, “Submission”, is forced to convert to Islam to continue his academic career at the Sorbonne, whose rector, Robert Rediger, is a fervent Muslim.
In fact, the Sorbonne, not just in the novel, is subsidized by Saudi Arabia. A case when fiction predates reality.
A few days ago, the president of the Sorbonne, Philippe Boutry, signed an agreement with the attorney general of the state of Qatar. Within the next three years, the Islamic monarchy will finance the studies of hundreds of Syrian immigrants at the Parisian academic jewel. The Sorbonne has accepted 600,000 euros per year for three years.
In 2015, the Café de Flore, the mecca of French intellectuals, kneels in front of bearded fanatics, just as thirty years ago it knelt before Stalin. The French intelligentsia always kneels before the winner, or what it sees as the future winner.
In the UK, Islam is also buying the British academia. Eight universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 233.5 million pounds sterling from Saudi and Muslim sources since 1995. The total sum amounts to the largest source of external funding to UK universities.
In the US it is the same. 20 million dollars were donated to the Middle East Studies Center at the University of Arkansas; 5 million dollars to the Center for Middle East Studies at Berkeley in California; 11 million to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and a half million dollars to Texas University (the seventh university, in order of size, in the United States); 1 million to Princeton; 5 million dollars to Rutgers University.
The Soviet Union, during the Cold War, invested much less in its propaganda operations in the West.
And there is another important difference. The Western intelligentsia fought the Communist efforts to subvert Western democracy. Their current relativistic heirs are offering appeasement to Islam’s agenda. The glorious French academy is now becoming an Islamic refugee camp.
Meanwhile, the real French professor of philosophy used by Houellebecq as the model for his Robert Rediger character is still hiding for having criticized Islam. It is my friend Robert Redeker.
To quote from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, “die wuste wächst”. The desert grows in Europe.
