Iggy only Canadian named in global poll of public intellectuals

Prospect magazine says half a million people around the world took part in its poll to find the world's top public intellectual. Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff was the only Canadian to make the list. He ranked 34th (up from 37th in a previous poll.)

Notably, “every name in the top ten would be from a Muslim background. (Noam Chomsky, who won the last poll in 2005, led the west in 11th place this time.),” the magazine says. The number one public intellectual as voted by the readers of Prospect and Foreign Policy? Fethullah Gülen, (right) “a Turkish Sufi cleric, barely known in the west.” The magazine then tries to figure out how Fethullah ended up on top and says:

On 1st May, Zaman—the highest-selling newspaper in Turkey, with a circulation of over 700,000 and a string of international editions—ran a story on its front page alerting its readership to the appearance of Gülen on the Prospect/FP list, and to the fact that we were inviting people to vote. Zaman is known to be close to the Gülen movement, and over the coming weeks the paper made regular reference to the cleric’s appearance on our list. The poll was also noted in other Turkish newspapers, as well as on every single Gülen website, official and unofficial, we were able to find.

The efficiency and discipline of the Fethullahçi is legendary—so in retrospect, for them, a poll like ours was simple to hijack. The temptation for Gülen’s followers to elevate their man to the top of a poll organised by two influential western magazines will have been a strong one. In one respect, then, Gülen’s crushing win tells us little about what the world thinks about its intellectuals; it merely exhibits the organisational ability of one movement’s followers. On the other hand, perhaps we can see through Gülen’s victory the emergence of a new kind of intellectual—one whose influence is expressed through a personal network, aided by the internet, rather than publications or institutions.

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