The Nobel Prize is for Traitors?

For an example of the xenophobic, anti-intellectual freedom worldview that Nonie Darwish and other moderate Muslims struggle against on a daily basis, see this recent interview with Iraqi researcher Samir 'Ubeid. During the interview, Mr. Ubeid expressed his rather bizarre views on the Nobel Prize. MEMRI has the transcript, here's just a sample:

Samir 'Ubeid: "I don’t call it the Nobel Prize - I call it the hubal [idol] prize."

Interviewer: "Hubal?"

Samir 'Ubeid: "Yes, because it often encourages heresy. It encourages attacks against the heritage, and encourages those who scorn their people and their culture. The proof is that it was awarded recently to Pamuk, who had encouraged civil strife, which might preoccupy Turkey and the Muslims in general. He held Turkey responsible for what the Ottoman state did, when he referred to the massacre of the Armenians."

[...]

Interviewer: "In other words, if you are a traitor to your country, you deserve this prize."

Samir 'Ubeid: "If you are a traitor to your country, and a heretic, who curses his Prophet, you deserve a Nobel Prize.


(Emphasis added-DD. The Pamuk in question is Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.)


I'm going to go out on a limb and postulate that Mr. Ubeid is not a big supporter of intellectual freedom. It is this attitude, this belief that freethinkers are "heretics" and "traitors", that is the main source of danger to intellectual freedom in the Muslim world. It leads to the suppression of alternative viewpoints, and enables the rise of intolerant ideologies such as Islamism.