Rita Panahi: Even our best universities are being poisoned by far-Left ideology
Students at a tax-funded university are being told the evil of FGM is not that different to women choosing to pierce their ears in what is a worrying trend of far-left ideology poisoning our students, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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One would have to look long and hard to find institutions as captured by the toxic doctrine of identity politics as universities.
Institutions that once celebrated achievement, critical thinking and diversity of views are mired in groupthink and the promotion of a far-Left ideology, particularly in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
If you have a child who is contemplating higher education, then you should be aware of what is happening at Australian universities.
The growth of junk degrees and the devaluation of university education has coincided with the rise of cultural Marxism.
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Indoctrination starts at primary and secondary school where, under the guise of “inclusion” and “diversity”, a Left-wing narrative that is neither inclusive nor diverse is relentlessly pushed.
When parents see these weasel words, they should examine closely what is being promoted.
By the time students enter university, they have been well conditioned to swallow increasingly radical notions like the doctrine that Western civilisation, the greatest global force for equality, freedom, enlightenment and opportunity, is hopelessly mired in racism, sexism and bigotry.
Emotions are allowed to trump facts, history is redefined and students are encouraged to see the world through a simplistic prism of the oppressors and the oppressed.
It’s a phenomenon that has created a hostile, genuinely intolerant environment at universities, where robust debate and pursuit of truth can be tantamount to hate speech.
When mainstream conservatives are routinely attacked, silenced or completely deplatformed, then you know something has gone terribly wrong in our learning institutions.
Of course, this isn’t a uniquely Australian problem, the radical Left’s march through institutions is evident in the US, Britain and much of the West.
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As scholar and economist Thomas Sowell said: “Our whole educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities, is increasingly turning out people who have never heard enough conflicting arguments to develop the skills and discipline required to produce a coherent analysis, based on logic and evidence.”
If you think that the best universities are immune from this toxic idiocy, then you haven’t been paying attention.
Melbourne University has long been promoted as the country’s best and boasts an international ranking significantly higher than its competitors, according to The Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
It’s for that reason it was selected by international student Zachary Snowdon Smith as the ideal place to attend a masters in journalism program.
But it didn’t take long for the postgraduate student to be exposed to the extreme-Left ideology that is poisoning intellectual pursuit.
Snowdon Smith wrote about his experience in online publication Quillette: “The first indication I received that something had gone awry at Australia’s best university was in a criminology class titled ‘Violence, Trauma, and Reconciliation’.
“The instructor, Dr Juliet Rogers, devoted a lecture to female genital mutilation — a natural enough topic for a class on trauma.
“In Rogers’s view, however, the true source of trauma was not the practice of FGM, itself, but the ‘violence’ of anti-FGM laws.
“After all, Western societies pressure women into body modification in the form of ear piercings — so who are we to pass judgment on those who practice clitorectomies and infibulations on children? And isn’t it true that legislators’ supposed concern with FGM is actually motivated by ‘Islamophobia’?”
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Yes, your tax dollars are funding students at Australia’s top university being told the evil of FGM is not that different to women in the West choosing to pierce their ears.
Dr Rogers, a senior lecturer at Melbourne University, expands on this monumentally moronic theme in a paper published in 2016 where she writes: “For each claim that a woman’s sexual health is impacted, there is a study which suggests it is not, and others which suggest it is enhanced.
For each claim of trauma, there is another which claims empowerment.”
Naturally, this brand of moral relativism is not shared by medical professionals who’ve seen girls and women who’ve undergone this brutal practice.
Professor Elizabeth Elliott, who conducted a study into Australian girls as young as five months suffering FGM, is unequivocal in describing the harm it causes.
“FGM is a form of gender-based violence, is an abuse of human rights, and is associated with significant and often lifelong, health and psychological consequences,” she said.
“All types of FGM are traumatic for young girls and potentially harmful, including the more ‘minor’ procedures such as pricking or nicking and regardless of who performs the procedure and where.”
Women’s rights campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who herself suffered FGM, is scornful of those who ignore or seek to rationalise harmful cultural or religious practises.
“People are willing to sacrifice little girls on the altar of identity politics,” she said.
Snowdon Smith’s article details other instances of extreme ideology and an unrelenting obsession with identity politics he encountered at Melbourne Uni, but perhaps just as disheartening as the compromised curriculums is the ease with which he passed what was once a challenging degree.
He writes: “In Terror, Law and War, the essays I submitted consisted of structureless, deliberately turgid summaries of class readings, enlivened with the odd anti-Western cliche and handed in without proofreading or revision.
“This seemed to be the level of seriousness appropriate to the class.
“My diploma is proof that this material, produced almost without conscious effort, was up to the standards of Australia’s top university.”
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
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