Tehran trip dismays colleagues

Tehran trip dismays colleagues
St. Francis Xavier prof presented paper at forum attended by Holocaust deniers
Dec. 14, 2006. 06:04 AM
MICHELE HENRY
STAFF REPORTER

Colleagues of a Canadian professor who spoke at a widely condemned conference in Tehran this week are outraged and dismayed by his presence at the event, which provided an open forum for Holocaust deniers.

Samuel Kalman, an assistant professor of European history at St. Francis Xavier University, was still reeling yesterday from the news that Shiraz Dossa, a political science professor at the Nova Scotia institution, attended the conference called “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,” which attracted the likes of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

“Anyone there had to know what was going on or else he’s living in a bubble. He knows full well the repercussions,” he said.

Sean Riley, president of St. FX, also made public his feelings about a faculty member’s involvement in such a forum.

He took strides to distance the university from Dossa’s association with the event, which drew 67 participants from 30 countries.

“It is a brutal shock to be associated in any way to that conference or to be lending it credibility,” Riley said by telephone yesterday.

“My first reaction was of disbelief. There’s quite a lot of upset in the community.”

Riley added that Dossa’s presence at the conference was in no way sponsored by St. FX.

Riley said he has not read the paper Dossa presented at the event, which is titled “Liberalism, Holocaust and War against Muslims,” but added there will invariably be discussion about the issue when Dossa returns to work.

“There’s no set process in place,” he said, calling Dossa among the more vociferous faculty members at the university, who creates tension in some of his courses to fuel the teaching process.

Dossa, who could not be reached for comment yesterday at the hotel in Tehran where he’s listed as a guest, has been teaching at the Antigonish university since 1988. He is a former chair of the Bronfman Lecture Series, which highlights issues in Jewish studies.

A focus of his work in the past has been Hannah Arendt, a German-Jewish philosopher and author.

Kalman said that while the decision to attend the conference was, in his opinion, “deplorable … a travesty and an affront to proper scholarship,” Dossa’s association with such wayward views came from left field.

“This came out of the blue,” Kalman said, noting Dossa’s pro-Palestinian views are no secret. “He may have been a bit controversial, but you have a right to whatever opinion you want. He’s never said anything hateful.”

Yvon Grenier, chair of the political science department at St. FX, said he condemns Dossa’s involvement with the conference but was relieved by statements the political scientist made in the media recently calling other participants “hacks and lunatics.”

“He said categorically he was not supporting the views of Holocaust deniers,” Grenier said, describing the Tehran event as a “love fest” for anti-Semites. “What’s really puzzling, concerning and appalling to me is he accepted to go.

“It is a colossal mistake and collapse of judgment to have accepted an invitation.”

Grenier said faculty were not aware Dossa was attending the two-day affair, where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed his views that the murder of six million Jews is a “myth.”

Ed Morgan, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said by attending the event Dossa is “denying proper history” in a way that is offensive to Jews and academics who aim to seek the truth, not propagate falsities.

“I can’t understand how a Canadian professor could allow himself to lend credibility to Ahmadinejad’s nonsensical views of history,” he said. “The Iranians made no secret about the agenda.”

Source: The Toronto Star