By Judi McLeod
Friday, December 15, 2006
Shiraz Dossa, a professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University, who remained missing in action when he couldn't be reached for comment in Iran during the Holocaust conference, won't find it so easy to hide from some of his angry students.
"Good morning from Nova Scotia," wrote one student to Canada Free Press. "We want this #@%&* fired. and the schools are filled with like minded individuals who are teaching our next generation a history lesson."
Dossa not only attended but also addressed the highly controversial and anti-Semitic conference in Iran hosted by President Mahmoud ahmadinejad as the only Canadian in the company of Neo Nazis, Holocaust deniers and the Klu Klux Klan.
One of those waiting to see him on his return to antigonish, N.S. is his boss, university president Sean Riley, who wants a meeting with his roaming professor.
"I am shocked and regret the fact that the university's name was in any way associated with that conference," said Riley. "I still have to learn some more facts, but the fundamental point that I would make is simply that this, from the university's point of view, was not only an embarrassment, but it was an association that really speaks poorly of the values we care about."
Dossa registered surprise at the nature of the conference when originally reached by the Globe and Mail. He told reporters that he does not deny the Holocaust and said he was horrified to learn who else was attending the conference.
Riley says information about the conference was readily available on the Internet.
"It was possible to know that certain people attending were very definitely and very systematically Holocaust denial people."
Jon Goldberg, executive director of the atlantic Jewish Council ponders if Dossa's university students were getting fair, objective academic arguments from the political science professor.
"I'm more concerned about the fact the university has in place in their political science department a tenured professor who has said he agreed with parts of the Holocaust, but not the whole thing, who attended a conference like this and then claims he didn't know what he was getting into.
"This gentleman is teaching the future of Canada. That's what's scary," said Goldberg.
"There is a threat looming to the state of Israel and obviously the Jewish people. That is this Nazi-like government in Iran. Obviously, if we have somebody from Nova Scotia who goes to their convention to discuss the Holocaust in a revisionist manner--which is today's most virulent form of anti-Semitism--one and one add up to two.
"Here we have a gentleman who teaches at antigonish, who teaches at St. F.X., who attends this conference--what is the message he's giving to his students? What is the message the university sends to the students by having a gentleman like that on faculty?"
Dossa teaches Western political theory and foreign policy, and arab/Muslim culture and politics at St. Francis Xavier University.
In June 2004, Dossa contributed an article to Media Monitors Network (MMN). in which he predicted the US withdrawal from Iraq.
"The US has failed in Iraq. It has been defeated by its own racist, anti-arab discourse and policy, as in the Fallujah slaughter, as in the abu Ghraib torture, and US withdrawal from Iraq is just a matter of time.
In the same article, Dossa attributed the use of the term arab "niggers" to PM Lloyd George in 1932: "For the sake of "civilization" itself, PM Lloyd George in 1932, "insisted on reserving the right to bomb "niggers", that is arab "niggers". Since 1991 the americans have been obliged to twice invade Iraq to restore a degree of "civilization", but the "shock and awe" bombing in March 2003 failed to "pacify" this arab nation.
Dossa claims that the Israeli army and the Pentagon share methods of interrogation: "The Israeli army, at the request of the Pentagon, has made its tested methods of "interrogating" their natives available to the US occupation forces in Iraq. None of this is controversial any longer, and it all gives us insight into the character of Western secular culture, and its supporting Judeo-Christian template, at this point in history. What is striking in both cases is the uncanny combination of claims of ignorance, purity of motives, contempt for arabs and Muslims, and denial of responsibility by the civilian and military bosses.
…"Undoubtedly, this is the real anti-Semitism of our time, the contempt for arab Semites and t heir culture and values by the West led by the United States."
Meanwhile, in Iran it seems unlikely that Professor Dossa did not know the company he was in.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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