Griffith University "Foolish -- at best"

From The Australian Editorial, April 23, 2008:

The Saudi Government has bankrolled hardline Islam

QUEENSLAND'S 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 ...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".

....What is disturbing ...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.....

...[Griffith Islamic Research Unit ] states one of its aims is "cultivating an informed public opinion that will lead to a more ...pluralistic Australian society". It wants "to bring ...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.