Internet Sleuths Prove Qaddafi's Son Plagiarized His PhD Thesis
The director of the prestigious London School of Economics resigned today amidst a scandal over his and the school's shameful coziness with homicidal Libyan dictator Colonel Qaddafi. The LSE accepted nearly $2.5 million in donations from Qaddafi-run charitable foundations, which is bad enough. But it also gave Qaddafi's high-rolling son, Saif al-Islam, a PhD. in economics for what appears to be a plagiarized thesis.
The LSE is currently "investigating allegations that the thesis was plagiarized." But the Internet has already done most of the legwork for them. Some anonymous justice-seekers have set up a public wiki where anyone can highlight plagiarized passages in Saif Qaddafi's thesis. Simply download the thesis here, and start Googling.
Although you might be too late: Currently 17 passages have been revealed to be lifted almost wholesale from other sources, according to the Wiki. (Assuming the copy of the thesis is legit, which it seems to be, as it's hosted on his official wesbite.)
For example here's a passage from page 52 of Qaddafi's thesis:
The IMF cannot be blamed directly for all of the problems with the way PRSPs have been developed in particular countries; however, the fact that creating and implementing a PRSP has become a key mechanism for securing IMF finance means that these failures in the PRSP process take on an importance far beyond the problems with citizen participation in policy-making in those countries that are not subject to conditionality, e.g., the UK. The use of conditionality to enforce PRSPs makes the normal democratic process-whereby policies, once put in a plan by government, are subsequently scrutinised, changed and sometimes reversed-difficult, if not impossible, and is therefore fundamentally anti-democratic.
And here's a passage from Page 22 of the World Development Movement's report "Denying democracy: How the IMF and World Bank take power from people":
While the IFIs cannot be blamed directly for all of the problems with the way PRSPs have been developed in particular countries, the fact that creating and implementing a PRSP has become a key mechanism for securing IFI finance means that these failures in the PRSP process take on an importance way beyond the problems with citizen participation in policy-making in countries not subject to conditionality (eg, the UK). The use of conditionality to enforce PRSPs makes the normal democratic process – whereby policies, once put in a plan by government, are subsequently scrutinised, changed and sometimes reversed – difficult if not impossible and is therefore fundamentally anti-democratic.
BUSTED. Although considering the atrocities perpetrated by his dad, maybe we should be praising Saif for limiting his evildoings to cheating on his homework. (Mostly.)
