Transcript [00:00] these politicians, these rooks, turn the [00:02] campus slogan or the syllabus or the [00:05] mission statement of the organizations [00:08] into actual policy. And that's where it [00:10] becomes quite dangerous because policy [00:12] is the law of the land. [00:13] >> Okay, so I'm going to have you walk us [00:15] through the the chess analogy now and [00:17] the role that each of these components [00:19] plays. [00:19] >> So, I wrote the book in the context of [00:22] the soft war, but to allow readers to [00:24] visualize this, I placed it in this [00:27] chessboard analogy cuz if you're [00:28] familiar with chess, and I became [00:30] familiar with chess by writing this book [00:32] actually, you realize that there's [00:34] strategy, that there's moving parts. So, [00:36] throughout the book, you actually see [00:38] all these different moving parts because [00:40] it's not one part that wins the game. [00:42] It's all the parts coordinating [00:44] together. So, for our chess advocates [00:46] here, you're going to be familiar with [00:48] this terminology. The weakest or [00:50] smallest piece on the chessboard is a [00:52] pawn. And I framed the pawns in the book [00:55] largely as the students and the [00:57] activists who are, as I mentioned [00:59] earlier, they're doing the dirty work [01:01] for the regimes and the organizations [01:03] that have a nefarious agenda. Pawns are [01:06] easily also disposable if you're [01:08] familiar with chess. You can get rid of [01:11] them when they're no longer kind of [01:13] useful. They're just kind of discarded [01:15] away. The second level of the chessboard [01:17] are the bishops. The bishops, as I frame [01:20] it in the book, are the academics. These [01:22] are the professors. These are these [01:24] professionals who are using highly [01:27] sophisticated theoretical language that [01:30] is morphed in a way and biased towards [01:33] the West, especially as I mentioned [01:35] earlier, social sciences, humanities, [01:37] and history. So, you have the student or [01:40] the activist, the actual body, the [01:42] impressionable mind, and then you have [01:44] the professor who's saying, "This is the [01:46] reality." So, the indoctrination comes [01:49] through the bishops. Next tier up are [01:52] the knights. So, now we're out of the [01:54] five pieces, the knights are kind of in [01:56] the middle. The knights, as I frame it [01:58] in the larger sophomore that the [02:00] red-green alliance is imposing upon the [02:02] West, are the organizations, largely the [02:05] civil society organizations. These [02:07] entities, so in this context, CAIR, the [02:10] Council on American Islamic Relations, [02:12] you have ISNA, you have Jewish Voice for [02:14] Peace, you have Code Pink, you have the [02:17] People's Forum. They're not just [02:19] providing cover for the pawns and the [02:23] bishops, but they're also engaging in [02:25] political advocacy at the highest levels [02:28] of government. They're also fundraising. [02:31] They're lobbying. They're going out into [02:33] the public. They're going into mosques. [02:34] They're going into churches. So, they're [02:36] in civil society. They're covering that [02:38] room. The next element of the chessboard [02:41] are the rooks. The rooks are the [02:43] politicians. And in the book, because [02:45] it's red-green alliance, it's largely [02:46] focusing on progressive politicians. [02:49] Back to our earlier point, not your [02:51] moderate Democrat per se, but your [02:53] progressive woke politicians. So, I [02:56] isolate Mamdani, AOC, Rashida Tlaib. [02:59] Unfortunately, El Sayed has emerged, but [03:02] that was before the book was actually [03:04] written. But, these politicians, these [03:06] rooks, turn the campus slogan or the [03:09] syllabus or the mission statement of the [03:12] organizations into actual policy. And [03:15] that's where it becomes quite dangerous, [03:16] because policy is the law of the land. [03:18] And then finally, we have the kings and [03:21] the queens of the chessboard. These are [03:23] the foreign patrons. So, you have Qatar. [03:27] Qatar has a huge section in this book [03:29] with not only its financial funding to [03:32] American universities, but also its [03:34] diplomatic work trying to provide cover [03:36] for Hamas and supporting Hamas and [03:38] hosting Hamas. We also have Al Jazeera. [03:41] Al Jazeera is a huge player. China. [03:43] China is providing support, whether [03:46] financial or media-related, to Roy [03:48] Neville Singham, who is behind the [03:50] People's Forum. People's Forum is a [03:52] communist, not a socialist group, not [03:54] just a Marxist group. It's an open [03:56] communist group working on the streets [03:58] of this country to cause mayhem, the [04:01] type of mayhem that we're actually [04:02] seeing unfold in France today. I also [04:05] look at Hamas. Hamas is a huge player of [04:08] this. Turkey is involved as well. Now, [04:11] at Rice, I'm a bishop. I do not [04:13] indoctrinate my students. I tell them on [04:15] the first day of class that I'm here to [04:17] teach you how to think, not what to [04:20] think, which is not the norm at [04:22] universities in general across the West.
Pawns, bishops, knights, rooks and kings. Craig Considine of Rice University walks through the chessboard of the Red-Green alliance: student activists, professors, organizations such as CAIR, progressive politicians and foreign patrons such as Qatar. From The MEF Podcast.
Watch the full episode, "When Marx Meets Islam" with Craig Considine, hosted by Lauri Regan: https://youtu.be/q8n5Jwet0pA
Craig Considine is a Senior Lecturer at Rice University.
Views expressed are the guest's own.
Middle East Forum: https://www.meforum.org
