Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments
For years, I have criticized Niall Ferguson, the fashionable “conservative” British historian transplanted to Harvard, in terms such as these:
The ever-stylish historian Niall Ferguson’s latest specious argument designed to demoralize America
In that piece, I showed that Ferguson will adopt any argument about World War II, so long as it delegitimizes America and the West; that he opposes any restrictions on immigration, favoring the worldwide free flow of labor; and that he regards the Islamization of Europe as “inevitable.” I have also
called him a “dhimmi careerist historian,” and have
discussed his novel Darwinian argument in support of PC race blindness, that natural selection makes us believe (falsely) that race matters.
During the same period, I have shown how Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian-Dutch politician with the fashion-model looks transplanted to the American Enterprise Institute, was—notwithstanding the fact that Muslims sought to kill her, and notwithstanding the fact that many American conservatives revered her as an anti-Islamist heroine—no friend to the West, that she called for immigration restrictionist parties to be outlawed; equated Catholicism with Nazism; signed a manifesto with European leftists that treated Islam and Christianity as equally dangerous forms of “theocracy”; and, instead of seeking to defend the West from Islam, wanted to use the West to empower Muslim women and spread “the open society,” a borderless field of radically liberated individuals. (See my articles on Ali listed here.)
That’s a set-up for the news in the Sunday Mail: that Ferguson has left his wife of 16 years, with whom he has three children, to live with Ali, with whom he’s been having an affair:
The internationally celebrated historian and TV presenter Niall Ferguson has broken up with his wife of 16 years after a string of adulterous affairs.
The 45-year-old Harvard professor has left former newspaper editor Susan Douglas, with whom he has three children, for his mistress, the Somalian-born feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ms Hirsi Ali, 40, is a lawyer and former Dutch MP who wrote the script for a controversial film that criticised Islam and resulted in the assassination of its director. She is currently living under police protection in America.
Professor Ferguson, whose books, television programmes and work with financial hedge funds earn an estimated £5million a year, is understood to have been in a relationship with Ms Hirsi Ali since last summer.
Today, The Mail on Sunday can reveal how Ferguson’s philandering behaviour—described by one confidante as ‘more akin to a Premiership footballer’s louche ways than an esteemed professor’s’—wrecked his marriage to Ms Douglas, one of Tory leader David Cameron’s closest friends, a leading member of the Tory ‘A-list’ of potential parliamentary candidates and a former Fleet Street editor.
Ferguson, who also has high-level links to the Tory Party, with a seat on the board of the Right-wing think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies, has been seen with Ms Hirsi Ali at a number of high-profile events over recent months.
Just two weeks ago they attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in India where they were photographed kissing in the opulent surroundings of the spectacular Diggi Palace.
Ms Hirsi Ali had been flown to the event secretly. She has been the subject of threats from Muslim extremists since writing the script for the movie Submission, which was critical of Islam.
[The story continues at the Mail.]
- end of initial entry -
Here is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, from which I took the ironically intended title of this entry. My idea was, this adulterous affair, which destroyed a marriage, brings together two people who are two peas in a pod.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Ferg (whose last name is Ferguson) writes:
From the Mail article:
The internationally celebrated historian and TV presenter Niall Ferguson has broken up with his wife of 16 years after a string of adulterous affairs.
The 45-year-old Harvard professor has left former newspaper editor Susan Douglas, with whom he has three children, for his mistress, the Somalian-born feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
The man is a disgrace to the Clan and the Chief of the Name should issue an edict denying him the use of the Clan name as his surname, and directing him to revert to his proper Sept (blood family) name. The Chief should also ban him from any and all Clan gatherings, mailings, festivals or other formal or informal Clan functions. His wife should be informed she may continue to use the Name as her surname as long as she wishes even if she remarries.
LA writes:
I said above that Ali,
instead of seeking to defend the West from Islam, wanted to use the West to empower Muslim women and spread “the open society,” a borderless field of radically liberated individuals.
The article in the Mail, which I didn’t read in its entirety until after I posted this entry, says:
A friend who has known Ms Douglas [Ferguson’s wife] for many years said last night: ‘It just seems sad that, despite all the lessons of history, Niall has set himself off in pursuit of some liberal idea of individual freedom and appears hellbent on breaking up his family. God knows how Ayaan thinks her feminist views square with her current conduct with Niall.’
I’d say Ayaan’s feminist views square quite comfortably with her current conduct with Niall.
LA writes:
The Mail also says:
[Ferguson] is seen as a contentious figure in literary circles, prompting one rival historian to declare: ‘He has the kind of face you want to punch.’
I had never seen a photo of Ferguson before the one in the Mail that I copied in this entry, and that was exactly my reaction to his face as well.
LA writes:
Mark Richardson at Oz Conservative gets into an aspect of the story that I only briefly touched on: the way Ferguson is constantly described in the media as a “conservative” but in fact is a liberal and describes himself as a “liberal fundamentalist.” Ferguson says that money and the free flow of goods and people is the best way to organize the world. Well, that certainly worked for him, didn’t it? He left his wife and children home in England while he was teaching at Harvard, which led to his having numerous affairs and ultimately to the end of his marriage; while Ayaan Ali went from Somalia to the Netherlands to the American Enterprise Institute in America where she met Ferguson and facilitated the break-up of his marriage. It’s the perfect expression of the borderless-world elite. And besides, isn’t America the place where people come to throw off the shackles of the past?
That doesn’t work out so well for some non-elite types, like the young Muslim immigrant females who grow up here, become Americanized and free, and as a result get honor-murdered by their relatives.
LA writes:
The Mail says:
By this stage he had moved to America, having accepted a chair in history at Harvard. It was then that he also started advising some of the world’s leading hedge-fund managers and forged a close friendship with the banking heir Nat Rothschild.
‘There was a point when it was not impossible for me to get $100,000 for a one-hour speech at some extravagant hedge-fund manager conference in an exotic location,’ Ferguson recalled. While he lived a jet-set lifestyle, his wife stayed at home with the children. Ferguson travelled home every three weeks, but the marriage suffered.
Says a friend: ‘Niall has a fair few enemies who feel he has got above his station, but Sue always stood by him. The marriage was fine for 13 years, then when Niall went to America, it all started to go wrong.’
Mrs. Ferguson was married to an ambitious, vain man seven years younger than herself, and she consents to his moving to America and visiting her once every three weeks. I can’t help wondering if she really wanted to keep the marriage.
Carol Iannone writes:
Wow, that is some good reporting.
What does this say about him?
He also worked as an adviser to John McCain at the beginning of his election campaign before quitting to support his rival, Barack Obama. He is considered a leading expert on foreign affairs and once described himself as an ‘ardent Thatcherite’ but now calls himself a ‘liberal fundamentalist’.
And here are some other parts that I like. Good for this friend who can speak this way and not say, “The heart wants what it wants”!
A friend who has known Ms Douglas for many years said last night: ‘It just seems sad that, despite all the lessons of history, Niall has set himself off in pursuit of some liberal idea of individual freedom and appears hellbent on breaking up his family. God knows how Ayaan thinks her feminist views square with her current conduct with Niall.”
Also this:
Says a friend: ‘Niall has a fair few enemies who feel he has got above his station, but Sue always stood by him. The marriage was fine for 13 years, then when Niall went to America, it all started to go wrong.’
How about that, when he came to America, things started to go wrong.
Roger G. writes:
“The man is a disgrace to the Clan and the Chief of the Name should issue an edict denying him the use of the Clan name as his surname, and directing him to revert to his proper Sept (blood family) name. The Chief should also ban him from any and all Clan gatherings, mailings, festivals or other formal or informal Clan functions. His wife should be informed she may continue to use the Name as her surname as long as she wishes even if she remarries.”
Yes yes yes yes yes. You know how I fall down screaming and chewing rugs at the thought of people (e.g. Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, even Dick Morris) who do vile things, but are still accepted, and even honored, in society. I can’t stand it; to me, it’s as if a flying saucer has landed on the Ellipse, and everyone is ignoring it. Well, here is how these people should be treated. They should be shunned. Does it occur to anyone that maybe a person will be deterred from horrible behavior if he understands that it will result in his being banned public life?
James P. writes:
The article about Ferguson quotes someone saying,
“God knows how Ayaan thinks her feminist views square with her current conduct with Niall.”
Since when are feminists opposed to adultery (except perhaps when they can use it to bash Republican adulterers)? Feminists regard adultery as the action of two consenting adults—just another “choice”—and they regard traditional marriage as a sham and a patriarchal institution that should be demolished. Thus there is no contradiction between Ayaan’s “feminist views” and her adultery.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 07, 2010 01:36 AM | Send