The Muddled Mess of Middle East Studies in American universities

What's ailing contemporary Middle East studies? A symposium earlier this month at Stanford University provided a clue. A paranoid fixation on imagined American and Israeli "empire"; the refusal to accept legitimate criticism; an insulated, elitist worldview; an inability to employ clear, jargon-free English; and a self-defeating hostility towards the West: these vices and more were made clear at "The State of Middle East Studies: Knowledge Production in an Age of Empire."

Professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University Hamid Dabashi captured the symposium's theme by asserting that the "Middle East is under U.S./Israeli imperial domination" and that America is an "empire without hegemony," engaged in a "monopolar imperial project." Yet no one defined this "empire" or "imperialism." Nor did attendees learn what events in the Muslim world precipitated a more expansive U.S. foreign policy in the region after Sept. 11, 2001, or why Israel might have legitimate concerns about its bellicose neighbors.

Only Nur Yalman, professor of social anthropology and Middle Eastern studies at Harvard University, made reference to Islamic terrorism. He also reported on the atmosphere of political unease in both Egypt and Turkey from whence he had just returned.

Also popular was equating criticism of Middle East studies with a U.S./Israeli/Jewish plot. Dabashi condemned Middle East scholar and critic Martin Kramer, calling his book, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America, an agent of "U.S. and Israeli intelligence." Yalman bemoaned a speech Kramer gave last year on the relatively stable geopolitical situation of Jews today, implying that such a condition represented a threat to Muslims. Dabashi denounced David Horowitz, Stanley Kurtz, Daniel Pipes, and Campus Watch for, as he put it, "helping Bush in his crusading war against Islamic terrorism."

Dabashi also singled out Stanford's Hoover Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation, accusing them of acting, horror of horrors, in "the service of national security." He was particularly aggrieved that with the ascendance of these think tanks, Middle East studies were no longer under the strict purview of the "academies." He didn't mention that higher education's failure to adequately address the subject has been the cause of this evolution.

The late Columbia University English and comparative literature professor Edward Said was the undisputed godfather of the day, with countless references to his theories on post-colonialism and Orientalism. Like Said, several speakers rejected what they saw as Western condescension and hostility towards the Muslim world. Yet it was they who seemed mired in antagonism.

Discussion about the plight of women in the Muslim world was marred by anti-Western sentiment. Professor of gender and women's studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Minoo Moallem, dismissed such concerns as being part of an "imperialist narrative."

University of Washington anthropology and law professor Arzoo Osanloo picked up on this theme by decrying "Western, paternalistic attitudes towards Muslim women." Osanloo was concerned that "Islamic liberalism" would be "obscured by Western involvement," particularly in Iran.

Osanloo tried to focus on "Islamic feminism," but her insistence that women had made great strides in post-Islamic revolution Iran through the use of Sharia law was a stretch. It didn't help that she omitted any reference to the Iranian regimes' current crackdown, including brutal beatings, on unveiled women and their arrest and detention of Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Osanloo's stated desire to "move beyond the binarism of East vs. West" was belied by an attitude of stubborn opposition to everything Western. There was no acknowledgement by any of the women present that Western culture has given them lives that would be the envy of their counterparts in the Middle East.

Similarly, the willful blindness of a group of scholars and students denouncing the West from their positions of power and privilege in the favored surroundings of Stanford University came across as utterly hypocritical.

Hamid Dabashi and Minoo Moallem's reliance on academic jargon added to the esoteric nature of the proceedings. Schooled on a philosophical foundation of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and the obsession with semantics over objective reality found therein, both speakers were largely incomprehensible.

Expressions such as "diasphoric cultural mediators," "amphibian intellectuals," "contextualization," "performance of the self as its own other," the "inability to handle the otherness of the other," "Eurocentric partriarchy," "imperialist masculinist," "gendered Orientalism," and the obscure statement, "regions are not facts but artifacts," provide just a sampling. It was excruciatingly boring at times, and the fact that they read straight from their own work only made it worse. The young man nodding off in his chair during Moallem's talk was an indication that the audience may not have been entirely engaged.

Thankfully, the other speakers spoke in plain English and Yalman even stated at one point that he was "uneasy with the abstract nature of the conversation." Indeed, those concerned with the negative influence such academics may be having on future generations should be comforted by the very real possibility that their students rarely understand a word they're saying.

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British Muslim school teaches antisemitic curriculum

The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs" and has refused to withdraw them. Dr Sumaya Alyusuf confirmed that the offending books exist after former teacher Colin Cook, 57, alleged that children as young as five are taught from racist materials at the King Fahd Academy in Acton.

In an interview on BBC2's Newsnight, Dr Alyusuf was asked by Jeremy Paxman whether she recognised the books. She said: "Yes, I do recognise these books, of course. We have these books in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve." In another exchange, Dr Alyusuf insisted the books should not be scrapped, saying that allegedly racist sections had been "misinterpreted".

The school is owned, funded and run by the government of Saudi Arabia. Mr Paxman asked: "Will you now remove this nonsense from the Saudi Ministry of Education from your school?" Dr Alyusuf replied: "Just to reiterate what I said earlier, there are chapters from these books that are used and that will serve our objectives. But we don't teach hatred towards Judaism or Christianity - on the contrary."

During the programme Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool Riverside and chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement, accused the school of inciting racial hatred and hit out at Ofsted inspectors for failing to discover the textbooks. She said: "This whole situation is unacceptable. It is incitement. It is part of a deliberate Saudi initiative to install Wahabbism extremism among Muslims and in the rest of society. If Ofsted has not drawn attention to this, that is a failing of Ofsted. "It is unacceptable and we should look to see if this is happening in other schools as well. This is about teaching children. I think the school should take immediate action and so should the regulatory authorities."

In his employment tribunal claim Mr Cook, who taught English at the school for 19 years, has accused it of poisoning pupils' minds with a curriculum of hate. Arabic translators have found that the books also describe Jews as "repugnant".

Dr Alyusuf initially claimed that the books were "not taught currently", saying: "We teach a different curriculum. We teach an international curriculum." Asked by Mr Paxman, "Would you discipline any teacher who has used these teaching materials?", she replied: "Of course I would." The principal, who has been in the post just under six months, also claimed: "I monitor what is taught in the classrooms. I have developed the curriculum myself."

Asked by Mr Paxman whether she agreed with the suggestion in teaching materials that non-believers in Islam are condemned to "hellfire", she said: "We don't teach that. We teach Islam and it is important for our students to assert their identity."

Mr Cook, of Feltham, was earning 35,000 pounds a year and is seeking 100,000 in compensation. In legal papers submitted to a Watford employment tribunal, he alleged that pupils as young as five are taught that religions including Christianity and Judaism are "worthless". He also alleges that when he questioned whether the curriculum complied with British laws, he was told: "This is not England. It is Saudi Arabia".

Pupils have allegedly been heard saying they want to "kill Americans", praising 9/11 and idolising Osama bin Laden as their "hero". Mr Cook claims he was dismissed last December after blowing the whistle on the school for covering up cheating by children in GCSE exams. He is bringing a tribunal claim for unfair dismissal, race discrimination and victimisation. The school is vigorously defending his claims.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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