WH supports more obedient scholars

[babylonsister]

New Scholars Group Seen as Close to White House
By Khody Akhavi

WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (IPS) - A small group of Middle East and African studies scholars in the United States has announced the creation of a new professional association to change the direction of scholarship in the field.

And it boasts several big name albeit controversial scholars, among them Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, two academics who advised the George W. Bush administration's policy towards the Middle East.

Citing the "the increased politicisation 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," the newly formed Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) aims to offer "dispassionate" study of the region.

"Given the importance of these regions, there is an acute need for objective and accurate scholarship and debate, unhampered by entrenched interests and allegiances," said Lewis, who will act as chair of the newly formed association, in a statement last week.

In a brief interview with the online news source insidehighered.com, Mark T. Clark, president of ASMEA, said the goal of the organisation was to be supported entirely by members' dues, in order to preserve its independence. Clark acknowledged that ASMEA had received some "private contributions" in order to get off the ground, but he declined to say who had given the funds.

However, critics argue that while ASMEA presents itself as an independent alternative to the status quo and the "politicisation" of the field, the membership of the newly-formed group suggests just the opposite.

"The most structurally influential bias is the bias we see in our own government's foreign policy," said Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East Studies Programme at George Mason University and the director of "Arabs and Terrorism", a 10-part documentary series that analyses the discourse on terrorism.

more...

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40023

[liberal N proud]

1. I wouldn't believe anyone who advised the bu$h regime's policies

[harun]

2. They only listen to think tanks who they pay to tell them what

they already want to hear.

[rodeodance]

3. lots of those RW/Bush think tanks around and slowly moving into acedemia

[rodeodance]

4. "What [Lewis] is basically saying is a third party is the way forward, but it looks like he's condem

."The most structurally influential bias is the bias we see in our own government's foreign policy," said Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East Studies Programme at George Mason University and the director of "Arabs and Terrorism", a 10-part documentary series that analyses the discourse on terrorism.

"What is basically saying is a third party is the way forward, but it looks like he's condemning his own approach and mode of scholarship, because he is, according to public record, the one affiliated with interests that are more explicitly connected to politics."

In addition to Lewis and Ajami, ASMEA's academic council includes Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, George P. Shultz, who served as secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, and Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian who is also aligned with the neoconservative movement.

Haddad said that the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) -- which ASMEA ostensibly aims to challenge -- was not "ideal", but it had nonetheless set the terms of Middle East scholarship and would continue to be the "signature forum". He said that while MESA was critical of U.S. foreign policy in the region, it was equally critical of the political status quo in the Middle East. ASMEA, he said, would probably continue to "toe the line" for Middle East states, many of which are authoritarian regimes that remain Washington's allies.

" is a protracted knee-jerk reaction that will always be viewed as a political response, rather than institution that is concerned with the Middle East," said Haddad. "It is a response, rather than an organic expression of a desire to learn."