The Provost –Head- of the University College London (UCL), Malcolm Grant, has recently confessed himself to the London Evening Standard against the urge of Cameron to universities of London to become a watch-dog against breeding terrorism in their dominions.
I find such request quite reasonable and in no way, in my understanding, the suggestion compromises the quality or excellence of London universities. Nor it necessarily accuses universities of being "hotbeds" for terrorism although it should be a compulsory commitment to verify continuously they are not.
The facts are well-known: in the case of UCL, several of its graduates turned to be ferocious terrorists within the last years. The most recent one, Abdulmuttalab, a former UCL Mechanical Engineering student (the young boy who tried to assemble a bomb and blow a commercial plain in the US with over 200 aboard on Christmas Day 2009), will be sentenced in January to life-imprisonment. In a sense, as far as I know, some departments are already doing something to spot irregularities. In the Chemical Engineering Department, lectures and fellows have to record assistance of undergraduates quite often and must report any suspicious pattern of regular absenteeism.
So, I don’t understand the insistence of Malcolm Grant to detach himself and the University from the Government plans. I find his words improper of someone of his authority, "just stupid", as he says. Grant says that Cameron and Home Secretary, Theresa May, do not know a simple thing about Universities (which I can take it as they do not run universities), but then he throws a feeble argument on modern Colleges against Oxford style twenty years ago, when Cameron studied there (old class-clash, anti-system stuff here). So Grant says that Cameron knows nothing and that today’s Universities are complex and home of a large and rich variety of humans from around the world. And I say, what the hell is the relationship, for God’s sake!, between a modern University, whatever that is, and fighting against any form of terrorism that might brew within its walls and institutions. If illegal activities take place within the institutions of the University, the Provost, the Head, the Board of Directors shall hold the moral and legal responsibility to find out, report it and draw any measurements and policies in order to fight such activities back and eradicate them. If cub terrorists are registered for courses but university resources and groups are unrelated to their activities, nevertheless, is that much unreasonable to consider collaboration in a common effort to track the root of extremism?
In my view, Grant is a very narrow-minded politician. He just let an important opportunity pass by. He missed the chance to win a medal, get some notoriety and place himself in the first row of publicity. He could have said say: “I am proud as the whole UCL Community is proud of our University, faculty, researchers, staff and students. We have achieved a prestigious level among Universities in the UK and across the world. We count with one of the most colorful and varied schools in the world and we will continue any efforts to reach excellence in research and undergraduate education. We strongly believe in the growth of each of our students, personal as well as professional. For this reason, we will fight against any form of extremism in our Departments and Institutions and we will use any legal means to preserve the moral and legal integrity of any of their activities”. Etc.
Is the fight against terrorism so much unpopular for a politician like Malcolm Grant? If that is the case, what else are we missing?... Kind of disgusting, hm?
Oh, God! What moronic, narrow-minded, big-mouth, coward people… Mr. Grant.
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