Libya and the hand that feeds

by SUSIL GUPTA

As the Libyan crisis has yet to complete its first month the list lengthens of British multinationals and institutions that have taken money from Muammar Qaddafi. Even Prince Andrew, the UK’s ‘Ambassador for Trade’, is implicated.

The first to fall have been the universities. There’s scarcely a top British university that has not taken money from a nasty Middle East leader and what is more embarrassing is that their names are emblazoned on libraries, laboratories, technology parks and research centers for all the world to see. Worst hit, so far, is the London School of Economics.

Is it plausible that Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi, a multibillionaire with more money than anyone is able to spend, has spent four years copying other people’s work? A doctorate based on extensive plagiarism is still hard work. The claim is a way for the academic authorities to perhaps conceal a much greater fiasco. The rumor at the LSE is that, far from plagiarism being the problem, the School arranged for a ‘mentor’ (ie ghost writer) to assist Saif Islam with his studies. That is, the School provided the means to subvert its own procedures.

A more interesting recipient of Qaddafi’s boundless generosity is Anthony Giddens, LSE Director 1996–2003 and one of Europe’s most highly regarded and highly overrated intellectuals. Giddens is the inventor of The Third Way, the European version of the US neo-con outlook, except that ours has a sugar-coated exterior and a soft chewy centre (ie the usual tosh about ‘European values’, modernity and avoiding dogmatism) which means it is palatable even to people who consider themselves to be of liberal ideals. Giddens is said to be Tony Blair’s philosophical mentor, though it is not clear why this should impress anyone.

Counterpunch for more

(Thanks to Salim Amersi)

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