Author: Stanley Kurtz
Publication: National Review
Date: September 23, 2002
URL: http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz092302.asp
An important new organization that
promises to focus public concern on "blame America first" bias in the academy
is in danger of being discredited. The Middle East Forum, under the direction
of Daniel Pipes, has established a project and website called, "Campus
Watch." Campus Watch is designed to monitor Middle East Studies in the
United States, analyzing and criticizing errors and biases, and drawing
public attention to controversies over funding, academic appointments,
etc. Campus Watch maintains that Middle East Studies in the United States
is dominated by professors who are actively hostile to America's interests
in the world. The organization's purpose is to make this problem known
to the American public.
Already, however, as reported by
The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and
a number of professors whose work is listed and criticized on the Campus
Watch website, have begun a campaign of attack. Campus Watch, they say,
is "a hate website," an inappropriate "blacklist," and a "fear mongering"
enterprise that could have a "chilling effect" on campus free speech, especially
for faculty without tenure.
For those unfamiliar with the upside-down
world of today's academy, these complaints might seem plausible. After
all, if some scholars of the Middle East are biased or in error, wouldn't
it be better for other scholars to challenge them to reasoned debate within
the walls of the academy itself? Why stir up partisan passions on matters
best fought out in seminar rooms, scholarly journals, and university press
books?
Well, yes. The best way to challenge
anti-American bias within the academy would be to do so in scholarly venues.
Trouble is, there are virtually no scholars left in the field of Middle
East Studies (or anywhere else) to mount such a challenge. For the most
part, scholars who actually share the perception of America's vital interests
held by the vast majority of the American people have long since been purged
from the discipline of Middle East Studies.
As for blacklisting and its chilling
effect on speech, Middle East Studies today is a field literally founded
upon the principle of the blacklist. Edward Said's "post-colonial theory,"
which provides the intellectual framework for contemporary Middle Eastern
Studies, is nothing but the program of a blacklist, disguised as high theory.
Edward Said objected to the view
of the Middle East portrayed in the work of such renowned scholars as Bernard
Lewis and Ernest Gellner. But instead of presenting a competing portrayal
of the Middle East, Said proceeded to attack Lewis, Gellner - and a whole
list of other scholars - as anti-Muslim bigots in league with "the Zionist
lobby." And Said named names, from Lewis and Gellner to such eminent scholars
and public intellectuals as Elie Kedourie, Walter Laqueur, Connor Cruise
O'Brien, Martin Peretz, Norman Podhoretz...and of course, Daniel Pipes
himself.
What Said saw as shameful and bigoted
in the work of these scholars and writers was the way they insisted on
connecting Islam with terrorism. (Osama bin Laden is the fellow Said ought
to be complaining about on that score.) Having labeled a long series of
respected scholars as anti-Muslim bigots for their daring to note connections
between some strains of contemporary Islam and terrorism, Said concocted
the name "Orientalism" to describe their alleged crime. And Said made it
clear that "Orientalism" was indeed an accusation of bigotry - a word meant
to denote a form of "scarcely concealed racism."
What bothered Said was that "the
Zionist lobby," working in league with these (racist) "Orientalist" scholars,
had garnered "a vastly disproportionate strength," given how few Middle
Easterners were actually Israelis. How, fumed Said, could important public
journals and newspapers make themselves open to such bigoted scholars,
"with no counterweight" to oppose them?
Having successfully branded nearly
all Middle Eastern scholars who did not fall in with his perspective as
scarcely concealed racists in league with the Zionist lobby, Said and his
followers went about taking over the discipline of Middle East Studies
(and many other precincts of the academy as well).
The extent of the blacklisting was
truly breathtaking. In South Asian Studies, for example, scholars who had
nothing at all to say about politics or foreign policy were branded as
bigoted and neo-colonial "Orientalists," simply for studying religious
ritual or family psychology. The very practice of scholarship outside of
Said's leftist political framework was considered to be a subtle form of
imperialism. For example, by writing about Hinduism, or by dissecting the
dynamics of Indian family life, scholars were said to be turning Asians
into "exotic" foreigners - with the subtle implication that such strange
and irrational creatures deserved to be deprived of the right to self-rule.
Perhaps most extraordinary of all,
under the dominance of Said's post- colonial theory, the very subject of
scholarship was transformed. Although some studies of the Middle East or
South Asia continued to be written, much of the work of post-colonialists
was taken up with critiques of previous scholarship. Study after study
was produced, the subject of which was the "subtle" bigotry of conventional
scholarly treatments of non-Western societies.
In effect, the message of Said's
followers to other scholars was, if you're not with us, you're against
us. Having dismissed conventions of liberal tolerance as window dressing
for the oppression of the powerful; having branded nearly all scholarship
from other perspectives as a species of bigotry; having condemned those
who refused to mouth the new academic catechism as fellow-travelers of
the despised Israeli lobby; and having named names and written volumes
detailing the supposed ethical and political sins of the most respected
scholars in several fields, the post-colonialists succeeded in delegitimizing
and purging their opponents, thereby taking over much of the academy.
Nothing Daniel Pipes's Campus Watch
has come up with can hold a candle to the hate-filled, fear-mongering,
intellectually intimidating technique of blacklisting already invented
by Edward Said. And you know what? As deeply as I reject and repudiate
the views of Edward Said and his many followers, I do not argue, and have
not argued, that the post-colonialists ought to be banned from making their
case. Let them name names. Let them attack the Zionist lobby. Let them
write volumes that purport to reveal the subtle racism of anyone who dares
refuse to follow them.
My only concern is that a substantial
number of scholars who take issue with the post-colonialists - scholars
who see things more along the lines of Bernard Lewis, Ernest Gellner, and
the rest (yes, and even Dan Pipes!), be allowed back in to the academy.
My hope is that someday, the argument with Said's followers that today
can play out only on the web-site of Campus Watch might someday be readmitted
to the academy itself.
How piddling and pathetic are the
few and brief little "dossiers" that Pipes has compiled on the most egregiously
biased scholars of Middle Eastern Studies. How these "dossiers" pale by
comparison to the battalions of university-press books already launched
against Dan Pipes and his colleagues. And how unsurprising that even Pipes's
limited efforts to start a real debate should have brought down on him
the same old bogus accusations of bigotry by which a generation of less-than-leftist
scholars have already been purged from the academy.
Post-colonialists without tenure
afraid of a challenge from someone who actually disagrees with their premises?
Perish the thought! But where were the reporters when grad students who
refused to hold with post-colonial theory were prevented by tenured radicals
from ever making it into junior faculty positions to begin with? The most
effective way to stifle debate, after all, is to deprive a scholar of the
chance of trying for tenure in the first place.
Come to think of it, why aren't
our finest colleges and universities wooing scholars like Daniel Pipes
and Martin Kramer with offers of fabulous salaries and department chairmanships?
Why does this happen only to Cornell West? When Daniel Pipes steps onto
a college campus, he's got to be surrounded by body guards and protected
from attack - no doubt, attack by the same sort of people who recently
prevented former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking
at Montreal's Concordia University. But maybe - just maybe - if proponents
of more than one point of view on matters Middle Eastern were actually
allowed to teach on our college campuses, we would see less shouting down
of speakers, and more civil debate. That is the state of affairs Campus
Watch is trying to bring about.
As for me, I very much hope that
college administrators do take Campus Watch seriously when it comes to
tenure decisions. If some untenured follower of Edward Said has made statements
worthy of criticism, let him be criticized. He is free to answer back.
The debate will be healthy (and in today's academy, unfortunately, totally
unprecedented). But what administrators really need to attend to is the
dearth of scholars on campus with views compatible with mainstream public
opinion. There is nothing wrong, and everything right, with Campus Watch's
claim that our colleges and universities are failing if they cannot make
a place for honest debate between scholars of many shades of opinion -
certainly including mainstream opinion.
And more power to Campus Watch for
inviting students to alert it to egregious cases of professorial bias.
True, such reports must be taken with a grain of salt. Student complaints
about professors are often themselves biased and self-interested. In only
very rare circumstances should a professor be disciplined for a statement
made in class. It is important that Campus Watch exercise caution in vetting
students complaints. But it is fair to criticize professors for their substantive
views, and fair as well to express concern about professors who do not
allow balanced discussion in their classes. Students are often at the mercy
of professors for grades and recommendations, and are themselves often
under tremendous pressure to toe a professor's political line.
No, it is not ideal to have to create
an organization like Campus Watch. Far better to have the kind of intellectually
diverse faculty that would make honest and substantive intellectual debate
possible on campus. Far better to have professors with sufficiently diverse
views that students could find and work with like-minded mentors, while
also challenging themselves by taking classes with professors with whom
they disagree. Far better to have a college or university that functions
the way an educational institution was meant to, instead of as a training
camp for leftist activists. But that is not the world we live in. And until
it is, projects like Campus Watch must be welcomed and nurtured.
Edward Said was concerned about
the disproportionate influence of a few million Israelis on American opinion.
(Could it have had something to do with Israel being a democracy?) Edward
Said was concerned about exposing Americans to divergent perspectives on
the Middle East. Edward Said named names. And Edward Said and his followers
prepared prosecutorial dossiers at multi-volume length. The problem is
that Edward Said got his way - and proceeded to commit every sin he once
condemned. Divergent opinions were driven out of the academy, a minority
opinion was allowed to silence mainstream American views, and blacklisting
was raised to a high art.
Daniel Pipes's attempt to right
these wrongs isn't even close to committing the sins of Said. And the very
folks now screaming about Pipes are the ones who have prosecuted the most
vicious and successful campaign of blacklisting in the history of the American
academy. Long live Campus Watch - as long as it takes.
(Stanley Kurtz is a research fellow
at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.)
