Lewis, Ajami launch anti-MESA

The inevitable has happened: obviously frustrated that they are still a minority in the field of Middle Eastern Studies, a group of well-connected academics has set up an alternative to the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the respected multi-disciplinary group that gathers the brightest minds in the field. Who better to do this than the usual suspects of Bush-friendly academia, Fouad Ajami and Bernard Lewis? Thus was created the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. I’ll quote extensively from the Chronice of Higher Education piece about this:

Seeking to change the direction of Middle Eastern and African studies, a new scholarly organization was announced Thursday — with some big name scholars on board and some tough criticism for the discipline. The biggest scholarly names in the new group, Bernard Lewis of Princeton University and Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University, are associated with support for the Bush administration’s view of the Middle East, a decidedly minority opinion within Middle Eastern studies.

The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa aims to have a full range of services — conferences, a journal, newsletters, and so forth. Its council, in addition to Lewis and Ajami, includes Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and a veteran of the Johnson and Carter administrations, and George P. Shultz, who was secretary of state under President Reagan.

Materials sent to reporters said that the new group was founded because of “the increasing politicization of these fields, and the certainty that a corrupt understanding of them is a danger to the academy as well as the future of the young people it purports to educate.”

A statement from Lewis said: “Because of various political and financial pressures and inducements, the study of the Middle East and of Africa has been politicized to a degree without precedent. This has affected not only the basic studies of language, literature and history, but also has affected other disciplines, notably economics, politics and social science. Given the importance of these regions, there is an acute need for objective and accurate scholarship and debate, unhampered by entrenched interests and allegiances. Through its annual conference, journal, newsletter, and Web site, ASMEA will provide this.”

While the announcement didn’t mention it by name, the Middle East Studies Association has to date been the scholarly organization for that region. The kinds of criticisms made by Lewis in his statement are similar to those others have made about MESA — charges that scholars in the group feel are an unfair slur on their group and on their work. The new group arrives at a time that Middle Eastern studies has been the subject of intense debate on many campuses, with dueling charges that academic freedom is at risk.

Mark T. Clark, president of the new association, is a professor of political science and director of the National Security Studies Program at California State University at San Bernardino. In a brief interview Thursday, he said that the new group was started “by mutual interest by a bunch of us” who wanted an association “that would be more independent and reflect the academic community more than interest groups.”

He said that his interest in the Middle East is strategic, rather than just historic or cultural, and that he thinks it is good for American scholars to have a strategic view of the region in addition to more traditional approaches.

Asked about MESA, he described it as “kind of a closed circle” of people with similar views. Asked if he had ever participated in that association’s activities, he said he had not. Asked why he didn’t try to add his perspective to the existing group, he said that would be, “for lack of a better word, apartheid,” in which his views would be separated off from the rest. “We’re going to have a greater mix of perspectives than MESA ever had,” he said.

While some of the scholars involved in the new group are known for similar political views, Clark said that “it’s not neoconservative at all” and that scholars of a range of views are welcome to join.

The goal of the association is to be supported entirely by members’ dues, to preserve its independence. To get off the ground, the association also has received some “private donations.” Clark declined to say who had given the funds.

It’s somewhat appropriate that ASMEA’s new president is someone from the field of security studies, a field whose very purpose is to provide consulting services to governments and tends to be of the same mindset as policymakers (not always of course). This has been one of the key arguments by the people behind Campus Watch, who are unhappy about the fact that the top experts on the region tend to be rather negative about current US policies or about the extraordinary (and misguided) amount of support for Israel that America provides. That is naturally a rubbish argument, because policymakers should be listening to experts who tell them what they need to know, not what they want to hear.

One of the great ironies behind ASMEA is, of course, that it claims to want to fight the “politicization” of the field. Ironic, then, that its entire board appears to be composed of people who focus on politics, whereas MESA has plenty of academics who do nothing even remotely political.

Ironic, then, that its founders are people with a reputation for fierce partisanship (Victor David Hanson is up there) — in fact they appear almost exclusively to be conservatives who wear their politics on their sleeve. Also all supporters of Israel, including the non-Americans on the board like Cevik Bir, a former Turkish general who played a key role in building the Turkish-Israel alliance and was decorated by Israel. Others include Kenneth Stein, the former Carter advisor who made a big hullabaloo about rejecting his book on Israeli apartheid.

Ironic, then, that its vice-chairman Fouad Ajami is a well-known public defender of the Bush administration who told Dick Cheney that “the streets will erupt in joy” if the US invades Iraq. (See Adam Shatz’s classic profile of Ajami.)

Ironic, then, that its chairman Bernard Lewis is increasingly seen a kook because of his predictions last summer that eschatological concerns drive Iranian policy. I would say merely leaving it at that is not enough — Bernard Lewis, perhaps once a serious scholar (his work on Ottomans is appreciated by experts in the field), has turned into a racist apologist for imperialist policies. I don’t use the word “racist” lightly, but I think it’s warranted. Take for instance a recent column he penned for the Atlantic Monthly — I don’t have a link and am copying from the November 2007 magazine’s page 23, where Lewis was asked to write about the “American idea”:

The better part of my life was dominated by two great struggles– the first against Nazism, the second against Bolshevism. In both of these, after long and bitter conflict, we were victorious. Both were a curse to their own peoples, as well as a threat to the world, and for those peoples, defeat was a liberation.

Today we confront a third totalitarian perversion, this time of Islam — a challenge in some ways similar, i
n some different.

Note that he doesn’t say “Islamism” or “political Islam” or “Islamic extremism” — just Islam. This is hardly a constructive, nuanced approach to take, although perhaps not a surprising one from a cheerleader for the Crusades. There are more examples of his strange politics here.

In other words, while there would be nothing wrong with starting another (or many others) alternatives to MESA, or more specialized scholarly associations, ASMEA appears from the get-go to have been founded with a very political purpose: to denounced as “politicized” academics who do not agree with their views. The involvement of people who are no doubt embittered by their estrangement from mainstream academia (i.e. the general consensus of a majority of experts in their field) speaks volumes about their intentions. In other words, this is the next step up from Campus Watch.

0 thoughts on “Lewis, Ajami launch anti-MESA”

  1. To call this a counter-MESA is to flatter the small group of mediocre, burned out or pseudo-academics behind this initiative. Academic associations like MESA are not gatherings of experts, but are professional associations, with specific professional functions. Ajami and Lewis haven’t published anything peer reviewed in years, and they can call their new association whatever they like but if actual scholars are not willing to sign on in large numbers, they’ll be left with an extension of their little Washington salons.

    As for their critique of MESA and Middle East studies in US in the general, they make it sound like it’s some sort of a strict disciplined micromanaging union – it’s not. It serves a limited functional purpose and brings people together to present papers and hire new PhDs. It does not credential scholars or decide who can or cannot teach Middle East related material in universities – graduate departments giving out PhDs do that. Despite Lewis & co’s silly insinuations about MESA funding and fantasies about being independent underdogs, MESA is funded by membership dues too.

    I’m afraid the neocons are going to find themselves in a position of throwing a party that nobody wants to come to. At best this new association might just offer a recruitment shop for a niche market of conservative Middle East scholars but they’ve already tried that with the Middle East Forum/Middle East Quarterly, and look at the standards of publication and scholarship those represent: http://www.mequarterly.org/

  2. Well put, SP. I had wanted to put in a paragraph about how if they were serious scholars and unhappy with the way MESA was run they could have joined it, stood for elections in its bodies, etc. Instead they’re creating their own clubhouse.

    One thing: it’s easy for academics to dismiss MEQ on scholarly grounds, but it unfortunately has a political influence way beyond its puny intellectual calibre. As do many politicized think tanks (in some cases glorified lobbies) that policymakers prefer to consult to universities.

  3. I don’t care if MEQ has undeserved political influence. Or even if this new anti-MESA becomes the centre of new neoconnish Middle East studies organising. There will always be a demand for those who say politically convenient things in superficially scholarly language. That’s what a lot of think-tanks are for. Just so long as they don’t kid themselves that their primary market is academic, rather than political.

    And as for the academics who sign on to this association, they’ll probably still have to go to MESA or AAA or APSA to get actual academic jobs.

  4. I think its important not to underestimate the importance of institution building. While they may be dismissed as kooks and hacks by those who know, merely by creating a new institution with a formal, nice, objective name like ASMEA they are going to be able to contribute greatly to the muddying of the waters and the perpetual efforts of the right to make fairly agreed-upon academic matters “controversial.” Their audience isn’t going to be other Middle East scholars–they don’t care if noone else joins their club. The point is that reporters, and through reporters, the general public, are going to get the Joel Beinins and Juan Coles of the world “balanced” by ASMEA from now on.

    To the detriment of everyone.

  5. EH, you have a point, though it’s not like Ajami and Lewis and Kramer and Pipes and their sympathizers aren’t out there already countering what the Beinins and Coles are saying. Will reporters really care if the usual Campus Watch suspects now have a different institutional name behind them?

    MESA does very little that’s overtly political, perhaps its academic freedom initiative is the one big statement in the past few years, so they’ll have to be contested on the academic rather than political plane, which I’m not sure the ‘cons are so good at. If these guys want to be taken at all seriously as a new institutional counterweight they’re going to have to show membership.

  6. I am no supporter of Bernard Lewis, far from it, but I would encourage you to read what he actually says before castigating him for demonising “Islam” in its entirety. Lewis was referring to a ”perversion” of Islam. Now if you had picked up that point and had then gone on to argue that this ”perversion” is a phenomenon which is not remotely comparable to the threats of Nazism and Bolshevism and that Lewis is seeing things which are not there, I would have agreed with you. Trouble is you didn’t.

  7. Dear Bill b,

    Re-reading the passage I quoted I see your point, but the way in which Lewis wrote it is ambiguous at best since he does not refer to Nazism or Bolshevism as perversions. It sounds more to me like he’s saying Nazism and Bolshevism were the first and second perversions, and then Islam the third. But I agree there is some margin for interpretation there. Still, poor choice of words. With your meaning, Islamism would have been just as a good word, since many forms of Islamisms are generally thought of as quite acceptable (e.g. AKP in Turkey, etc., although Lewis might differ on this point.)

  8. Isn’t it sad that people in the field are too busy fighting ideological battles rather than getting down to the had work of understanding the Middle East? It’s too bad because there is a lot to be done.

    I suspect that SP is an academic (or in training tobe one). I take issue with his/her claim (not supported by the evidence) that those who work at think-tanks are politicized hacks who speak in pseudo-academic language. Many of the people who work at organizations like Brookings, CFR, CSIS, and the Carnegie Endowment have the same training as folks in traditional academic departments, have spent long stretches of time overseas, and have a good dela of language training. For one reason or another (family? finances? interest in policy?), they have decided to take a different path.

    Traditional academics tend to bemoan the fact that they are not influential. Their voices should be heard more often, but they have got to stop insulting the people who are influential. It’s no way to get a seat at the table.

    By the way, I hear Juan Cole has been doing quite a bit of consulting at CIA.

  9. Abu Tabakh, I’ve spent a bit of time in both worlds and admire those who can straddle them and do good research, like some of the people at CEIP, ICG, and to some extent CSIS and Brookings. Do read carefully: I said “a lot of” think tanks and not “think tanks by definition.” There’s an awful lot of name-dropping and posturing and compiling received wisdom/news reports and restating of party lines going on in many think-tanks on matters related to the Middle East, particularly on the conservative side. They still serve a purpose, but their research is obviously going to be driven more by political than by academic needs (or trends). And it’s guys who haven’t published anything worthwhile in decades, whose work is primarily political, who now want to play the part of the misunderstood, sidelined “real” scholars marching to liberate Middle East studies from the tyranny of lefty Arabists and take it to a new independent dawn?

    The point of this post is that the new association wishes to be taken seriously as an ACADEMIC counterweight to MESA. We know very well that its sponsors are influential in the policy world, and good or bad, that’s frankly just a side effect of American politics. The policy vs academic debate is probably not one that can be resolved, but just as policy people are right to push academics to make their work more relevant to the real world, academics are right to stand up for real research and for their own credentialling mechanisms.

  10. SP, I am glad we cleared that up. I agree with you 100 percent. It’s not enough that people have been trained in traditional academic departments, they must demonstrate that this training conditions the stuff they write. I am also amazed at the lack of productivity on the part of some of the most influential thnk-tankers.

    Another part of the problem is the different professional expectations in each realm. As you know, given that you have straddled both worlds, what is important for think tankers (an oped in the Washington Post, a piece in Foreign affairs, and a book contract with Random House) means little in the academic world. On the flip side, that killer theoretical article in APSR is met with a yawn from the policy community.

    There are people out there who have done a good job at straddling both worlds, but it is difficult given these widely varying professional expectations.

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