All too many of the trials our courageous forbears underwent in facing down the tyrants of the past are lost to us--comfortable, forgetful, irresponsible heirs that we are. But failing to appreciate and understand their sacrifice puts our own liberty at risk.
    Revisiting an episode from Nazi Europe, Andrew G. Bostom re-introduces modern readers to the courage of Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, author of the seminal text, The Autumn of the Middle Ages . In 1933, Huizinga, then rector of Leiden University, revoked university hospitality from Joseph Goebbels' favorite Nazi propagandist, Johann von Leers, "on the grounds," Bostom writes, that von Leers had published an anti-Semitic election pamphlet in which he knowingly presented the blood libel of Jewish ritual murder as a historical fact, and contemporary threat."
     He continues: "Despite subsequently winning public approval, Huizinga stood in courageous isolation when he took this action, suffering both personal criticism and significant problems in his dealings with German and Swiss publishing houses in the aftermath of the affair. Ultimately, he died in Nazi detention during 1945."
    Huizinga's inspiring example stands in dire contrast to his alma mater's modern-day stand on threats to liberty, Islamic style. Leiden University has just appointed Tariq Ramadan to a chair in "Islamology" endowed by the Sultan of Oman. Bostom writes: "Instead of being rejected by the current leadership at Leiden University, a more stealthy modern purveyor of von Leers’ ugly fusion of Islamic and European totalitarianisms – Tariq Ramadan – whose “spiritual” roots like Leers’ can also be traced to Jihadism and Nazism in Egypt – is welcomed, and granted a prestigious academic post. Protests by The Party for Freedom (PVV) and PVV MP Bosma – that Ramadan does not reject stoning of women and wants to destroy Israel, and that “the sultan of an Islamo-fascist dictatorial state (i.e., Oman) is paying 2.5 million euros to garner influence at a Dutch university – have been blithely ignored. Huizinga’s noble legacy at Leiden has been defiled by his avaricious and morally blind successors."