BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran denounces Oxford scholarship
| November 11th, 2009So, as I have said elsewhere, I have been feeling guilty about not posting about the goings on Iran of late, and I am beginning to formulate some posts I’d like to write, but this news article caught my eye. No matter how much I might disagree with and oppose the government in Iran, there is no way that the Iranian embassy is wrong about establishing a scholarship in the name of Neda Agha-Soltan. It is, by definition, political:
Iran has criticised Oxford University after one of its colleges established a scholarship in honour of a woman killed during post-election unrest in June.
The Iranian embassy in London denounced the £4,000 ($6,600) Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship offered by Queen’s College as “politically motivated”.
Queen’s said the award would help impoverished Iranians study at Oxford.
Ms Soltan became a symbol of the opposition after she was shot dead at an anti-government protest in Tehran.
For me, even though I agree with the politics, or at least what the politics behind the scholarship are perceived to be–since we don’t know who endowed the scholarship or why–the question is whether or not that is a good thing. I am still made uneasy by the way Neda’s image, and the idea of Neda, is exploited as a symbol of opposition to the government of the Islamic Republic, and, as an academic, I wonder about the degree to which a scholarship like this cannot help but be part of that exploitation, no matter how academically sound, impartial, etc. Queen’s College is in administering and awarding the money.
I wonder what others think.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I rather suspect that Iran is correct - the motivation for naming this scholarship after Ms. Agha-Soltan is likely political. There wasn’t anything in the BBC article that showed Oxford denied the charge, either.
Tough shit. I hope it is a continual irritant to those murdering bastards.
I share your caution regarding the exploitation of this woman’s death. But I’m glad to see her name will be kept alive in this fashion.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
November 12th, 2009 at 6:41 am
How much do we know about what Neda Agha-Soltan believed? My understanding is that we know very little beyond what is implied by her having taken part in the protest where she was killed. If we knew more, we might be justified in using her name like this (the same way that we are justified in dedicating things to, say, Martin Luther King Jr, because we have a good idea of what he believed and would have supported), but as it is, I think it is exploitative, appropriating her name and identity for our own causes.
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November 12th, 2009 at 6:59 am
And yet I wonder: Suppose the people who endowed the scholarship insisted that it be named after her, that this naming was a precondition of your getting the money. If you were the school those people wanted to give the money to, would you swallow whatever qualms you might have and take the cash? I probably would. Doesn’t make it less exploitive, though.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2009 at 3:39 am
Well, sure. Helping Iranians study at Oxford strikes me as a perfectly excellent cause, and I can well imagine swallowing something distasteful for the opportunity. But then the exact same criticisms apply, except to the endowers.
This comment was written by SeanH.Report this comment to the moderators