This just in: Adam Habib (pictured below), a top researcher at South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council ([1] HSRC), was denied entry into the United States last week after arriving in New York as part of an official delegation. According to reports, upon disembarking from his airplane he was questioned by customs officials - then deported under armed escort.

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[3] Adam Habib at the 2006 Cape Town Book Fair

• Follow the story: [4] Sunday Times | [5] Mining Weekly | [6] Staten Island Live

It’s difficult to overstate just how well-respected Mr. Habib is in South Africa: he occupies a position here, vis-á-vis academic activism, similar to that which Edward Said held in the States. With that in mind, [7] Boswestblog.com offers the following interactive brain-tickler, in the hope of arriving at some consensus on the type of fuel, precisely, that the subtle institutional mind of Customs House, USA, runs on:

Boswestblog.com Survey: Why Was Adam Habib Deported?

• A. Because he was once detained by the South African government, albeit that apartheid one.
• B. Because, although his last name is “Habib”, his first name is “Adam”.
• C. Because a book he helped edit turns up on the same [8] webpage as a book that is a flagrantly provocative and frankly disgusting affront to the master race, namely, Whiteness Just isn’t What it Used to Be by Melissa E. Steyn (who should also be denied entry and/or deported).
• D. Because he’s the head of the Democracy and Governance section of the HSRC, and the current US administration simply couldn’t take further embarrassment.