I wrote yesterday about Dr Rogozov the Czech consultant cardiac anaesthetist working in Sheffield who is under investigation for an opinion he expressed in a Czech language blog. I wondered how the authorities in Yorkshire had come to know about something written in a country far away ‘about which we know nothing’. The snitch is an academic from the University of Glasgow. From the Star, with a little more of Dr Rogozov’s description of the conditions and incidents in Sheffield.
A formal complaint has been made against Dr Vladislav Rogozov, a consultant cardiac anaesthetist for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, following comments attributed to him on a Czech website.
Dr Rogozov is said to have claimed that ‘Muslim doctors regularly abandon their patients to go to pray’ and that a Muslim anaesthetist ‘was reading out from the Koran during an operation and was trying to persuade all the other staff to read along with him’.
A translated version of his interview quotes the doctor adding: “It must be noted that in our teaching hospital, this problem is much less pronounced than in many smaller hospitals. There it is even worse.”
In the interview, Dr Rogozov is also quoted as saying that ‘many places here look like the streets of Pakistan’ and that the ‘Islamisation’ of the UK ‘is already irreversible’.
The trust has confirmed it is investigating a complaint against Dr Rogozov that has been made by Dr Jan Culik, a senior lecturer in Czech studies at the University of Glasgow. More about Culik below.
In his letter of complaint sent in January, Dr Culik said he believed Dr Rogozov, who has worked in Sheffield for ten years, has been making ‘biased, Islamophobic public statements’.
He said the comments ‘seem to be inappropriate from a professional point of view’ and has also highlighted a number of blog posts that appear to have been written by Dr Rogozov in which other comments relating to Muslims are made.
Dr David Throssell, Medical Director at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We have received a complaint which makes allegations about a member of staff. We are now looking into the allegations as part of our formal complaints process. We are proud to have a diverse patient population and work force and on that basis we have a code of conduct which recognises this.
In relation to the national newspaper article, he added: “The member of staff has not been excluded from work for raising patient safety issues as we take these very seriously.However since the publication of articles, attributed to the member of staff, we have received concerns about the tone he has used. On this basis the content and nature of the views published are currently being investigated.”
Jan Culík is an independent Czech journalist and academic currently Senior Lecturer in Czech Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is a great proponent of multiculturalism. Harry’s Place says of him
“Culík’s efforts to broaden Czech horizons sometimes look all too much like rants at the reluctance of Czechs to embrace certain quite debatable Western left progressive approaches. . . but oh dear, Culík has now appointed himself apostle of multiculturalism to the benighted Czechs, and has brought out a most peculiar piece entitled “Islam, Israel and the Czech Republic” in OpenDemocracy.
Criticism of bigotry among Czech anti-Islam activists is one thing, but this is something else… but then he writes:
“The inactivity of Czech authorities with regard to Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism may be connected with the strong and uncritical support which Czech politicians tend to show to Israel. A group of international celebrities including Ken Loach, Roger Waters, Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker and Hedy Epstein have recently protested against “Jerusalem Days”, a Jewish Festival organised to be held in the West Bohemian city of Pilsen, which presents Jerusalem as an Israeli city. The Festival has gone ahead anyway and its organisers called the protesters “antisemites”. The anti-Islamic statements repeatedly made by the Czech President Miloš Zeman, who calls Islam “an ideology” and compares it to Nazism, have recently led to a reduction of trade links between Saudi Arabia and the Czech Republic.
…it is seriously dismaying to see a Czech intellectual preaching that in order to become suitably advanced, progressive, western people, the Czechs need to get away from that primitive, backward, ignorant sympathy for Israel.
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2 Responses
Czechs are not remotely as savage as Culik likes to paint them, either. We simply put our culture and way of life above everyone else’s, which is, I think, perfectly acceptable – and perhaps even vital – for a small, globally insignificant, culturally and ethnically monolithic country. Culik, once a refugee himself, still sees us through the prism of 1968, and he refuses to understand we are not the same country we used to be back then. In 1968, we expected the world to help us against the Soviets, but nobody came – and so we learned to expect nothing from the world, and to offer nothing as well.
There’s one more dimension to the whole Culik-Rogozov matter. What Culik did is considered simply unacceptable in Czechia. Wilfully reporting someone to authorities for saying suspicious things, reading suspicious books or being friends with suspicious people – that’s something only commies do, and it’s something Czechs learned to hate with all their heart. During 70s and 80s, many of our people lost their jobs or ended up in prison because someone reported them like Culik did to Rogozov. British people may see it differently, given they never experienced a proper totalitan regime – but Culik, considering his own historical experience, should definitely know better.
I wonder, was Culik always like that? Or is this what Britain of today does to people?
Dear Jenovefa
Thank you for your comment. I never thought that Czechs were at all savage – I have fond memories of the kindness I met with on a holiday in Prague 30 years ago when I was at a low ebb.
When I was a younger woman there was a culture in Britain of not ‘informing’. Children of all classses were discouraged from ‘running t teacher’ to ‘tell tales’. Tell tale tit was one of the worse playground insults. The working class did not ‘grass’ on friends and neighbours to the police – there were certain exceptions, the neglect or abuse of a child, or a vulnerable old person were the obvious examples.
As you said that’s something only commies do. Unfortunately with their agenda and doctrine of political correctness that is the regime we are labouring under here now, no matter what party is officially in power, that is the climate that has been generated socially.
Veteran left wing activists like Peter Tatchell and Germaine Greer have been flabbergasted recently at being on the receiving end of the sort criticism that they are more used to dishing out. Their pupils have turned and they have not kept up.
We live in interesting times.