Monthly Archives: October 2012

Poster War on the New York Subway


Poster from American Freedom Defense Initiative


Poster from Rabbis for Human Rights

[The following commentary has just appeared on Anthropology News in my blog there called “Middle East Muddle.: I provide the first paragraph, and the rest of the commentary can be read here.]

In the late 19th century there was little doubt about the gulf between “civilized man” and the “savage,” as anyone reading John Lubbock or Edward Tylor or Lewis Henry Morgan would readily note. Anthropology has come a long way since the cultural evolution scenarios that followed immediately upon the Darwinian revolution in biology. By the time Claude Lévi-Strauss penned Tristes Tropiques in 1955, the tables had turned, with so-called “civilized man” seen as acting the “savage.” Anyone reading Bartolemé de las Casas on the Spanish atrocities in the New World in the early 16th century could have come to the same conclusion. So it is quite un-anthropological today to encounter a poster in the New York subway system about the “war between the civilized man and the savage,” let alone to be urged to “support the civilized man.” Yet, this is the message paid for by the “American Freedom Defense Initiative.”

For the rest of this post, click here.

Since writing this, several groups are now running counter ads in the subways. For more on this, see the commentary by Omid Safi.

Ayatollahs in America (starting in Oz, Kansas)


A few months ago, before Big Bird got his “laid off” notice from Mitt Romney, the state of Kansas passed a law “to prevent Kansas courts or government agencies from making decisions based on Islamic or other foreign legal codes.” This passed by 33-3 in the Kansas senate and 120-0 in the Kansas House. Despite the fact that there is no indication that anyone ever tried to use Islamic sharia or any other “foreign” legal system to thwart existing law in Kansas, the legislators thought it prudent just in case. Despite the fact that the U.S. legal system does not allow any other kind of legal jurisdiction to trump it, who knows how many Muslim clerics may be thinking about moving to Kansas and issuing fatwas. Although Kansas is not the only Republican-controlled state legislature to declare jihad on Islamic law, it does have a reputation for reacting to other great moral dangers in our country, like the teaching of scientific evolution rather than creation in science classrooms. When the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz blurted out ” I *do* believe in spooks, I *do* believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do, I *do* believe in spooks, I *do* believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do, I *do*!”, who would have known how much like the Kansas legislators he was.

Perhaps the Kansas politicians think that after Iran’s Ahmadinejad spoke (and spooked, of course) at the United Nations in liberal New York City that he might turn himself into the Wicked Witch of the East and start chopping hands of thieves and stoning men and women who engage in adultery (which does not appear to have reached epidemic proportions yet in Kansas but could if more Democrats are elected). Of course, this is not about hating Islam (a religion that in some respects can look a like that of the God-fearing Mormons not far away in Utah), but to protect the women of Kansas. As Republican State Senator Susan Wagle expressed it,

“In this great country of ours and in the state of Kansas, women have equal rights,” Wagle said during the Senate’s debate. “They stone women to death in countries that have Shariah law.”

Apart from the fact that the vast majority of countries that use Islamic law do not in fact stone anyone for adultery, you never know who might cast the first stone in a state like Kansas. Continue reading Ayatollahs in America (starting in Oz, Kansas)

It’s still a rocky road


A few weeks ago I wrote a commentary which was eventually published in my “Middle East Muddle” column on Anthropology News. This was entitled “Between the Rock of Ages and a Hard Sell.” This was a month before the debate held earlier this week. Below I provide the first two paragraphs of my commentary, but you can read the whole thing here. After reading it, you can return here and see my update after the first debate.

As the 2012 presidential election draws near, the debate thus far has been anything but civil. Attack ads from all sides have been fact-checked and found wanting. A recent Pew poll found that 17% of registered voters still think President Obama is a Muslim and only 49% said he was Christian. Only 60% of registered voters are aware that Republican challenger Mitt Romney is Mormon. Of those who know Romney is Muslim 19% admit they are uncomfortable with his affiliation. To the extent religion matters, and anyone who thinks religion does not matter in American politics needs to think again, both the current Vice-President Joe Biden and the Republican candidate Paul Ryan are Catholic.

For voters in the Bible Belt this puts the choice on November 6 between a rock and a hard place, making it a hard sell for those who sing “The Rock of Ages” in Sunday morning services. Growing up decades ago in a proudly “fundamentalist” Baptist church in northern Ohio, I was told that Mormons were a cult, the Catholic church was Satanic and Muslims were obviously bound for hell along with all the others who were not born-again Bible believers. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were Baptist, but as astute politicians they did not promote the more extreme beliefs of their faith just as John F. Kennedy did not mandate Catholic doctrine. The last time around Obama was attacked for having belonged to a church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Both Obama and Jon McCain submitted to a religious litmus test in a televised forum hosted by Rick Warren, senior pastor of the one of the largest Protestant churches in America. This time, however, religion is taking a back seat to the economy, but the religious faith of each candidate is still the elephant in the room.

The first daily tracking polls after the debate, which the pundits gave to Romney hands down, show that there has yet to be a big bounce on the ground; even Rasmussen (which usually leans Republican) has Obama ahead nationally by 2 points on Thursday and Friday. Beyond the polls and pundits, however, it is still a very rocky road for Romney, whose etch-a-sketch performance in the debate will be hard to stretch against all the things he has been saying previously. Today’s drop in the unemployment rate to 7.8%, the same as when Obama took office, will blow out the tires of a campaign bus already in the ditch. But to my mind, the biggest mistake Romney made was promising to end the career of Big Bird. I realize that 8-year olds cannot vote (and depending on their skin color may not find it easy to vote when they grow up in certain states), but they can grab onto their parent’s arms and beg them to save Big Bird and Sesame Street. If Romney loses by a nose, it will be a combination of his own Pinocchio moments and the beak of an unemployed Big Bird.

Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility


“Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David, 1787, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility:
A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers of the Middle East

Attempts to undermine professors’ abilities to teach and do research are increasingly directed at scholars who seek to provide a contextualized and critical view of recent international developments and their interaction with US foreign policies and practices.

The first draft of the handbook was based on research undertaken by the Taskforce on Middle East Anthropology to understand available institutional resources, as well as on ethnographic interviews conducted with academics who have encountered obstacles in their teaching and scholarship. The handbook was revised in 2012 by a group of current graduate students and recent PhDs in Middle East Anthropology, at the behest of the original handbook committee.

The revision aimed to evaluate the current atmosphere of academic freedom via a survey distributed to faculty and graduate students studying the Middle East, update the document to reflect legal changes that impact the ability of academics to carry out their scholarship and teaching, review major controversies over academic freedom since the original version of the handbook was published, and update links, citations, and contact information.

The handbook provides concrete suggestions for how to respond to attacks on academic freedom and to avoid them in the first place. It considers the potentials and limitations of internal university structures, professional organizations, legal recourse, and media outlets. Finally, it contains useful pedagogical tools for dealing with difficulties in the classroom, and an informative bibliography of recent writings on academic freedom.

“Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility: A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers of the Middle East” (2012). Click here for information on how to download a pdf of this report.

Eric J. Hobsbawm (1917-2012)

by Anouar Majid, Tingitana, October 3

Eric J. Hobsbawm, the great British historian, has died. I spent many hours and days with him in the first years of this new millennium, reading his account of the long 19th century, with its ages of revolution, capital, empire and, if the short 20th century is added to this panoramic view, of extremes. Born in Egypt in 1917, orphaned early through the loss of his two parents, he moved to England, excelled in his studies, and championed communist ideals even after they had long been discredited in our brave new world order of unbridled capitalism.

The ages he covered changed our world irrevocably. Tea, Morocco’s national drink, was introduced to that country in the heyday of the age of capital (1848 – 1875), when free trade ruled the British waves. British products and habits, invented at home or borrowed from others, were the hallmarks of a good life. British arms and tea were part of the same deal. Then the UK entered a process of decline and was eventually supplanted by the United States as the world’s newest capitalist superpower. And now, Hobsbawm told us in On Empire (published in 2008), America’s power is also waning. It is true that the world adores American culture and its products, but such Americanization is not necessarily an expression of America’s power. Nineteenth-century Britain introduced soccer, tennis, golf, alpinism and skiing, as well as business wear, but such things today have nothing to do with the power of Britain.

Hobsbawm’s prophetic voice came through despite his quiet, introvert ways. He stayed true to Communism because he believed in a better world. “I still think,” he told the New York Times in 2003, “it was a great cause, the emancipation of humanity. Maybe we got into it the wrong way, maybe we backed the wrong horse, but you have to be in that race, or else human life isn’t worth living.”

New Online Issue of CyberOrient


CyberOrient, the online journal of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association, has just published its 2012 issue on “The Net Worth of the Arab Spring.” The guest editor is Ines Braune, who writes in the Introduction:

When I was asked to be the guest editor of the current issue of CyberOrient, I realized this is a welcome opportunity to arrange and re-sort some aspects, points, and arguments about the role of the media during the Arab Spring. In the course of the events late in 2010 and early in 2011, I felt enthusiastic and overwhelmed – not primarily as a scholar with a background in Middle Eastern and media studies, but as someone who was part of the peaceful German revolution in 1989 as a young teenager. Upon reflection, I took up the role of a media researcher considering how the use of media shaped these events. Though much has already been said and written about the media and Arab Spring, it would be worthwhile after a bit more than a year to reflect and reevaluate the relationship between the media and revolutions. Due to my involvement in this edition, and after numerous discussions with colleagues, and students in my media seminar in the summer term, I frequently came across the following three points: the significance of mediatization processes, the online-offline dichotomy, and various kinds of amnesia.

The articles discuss the role of social media in Egypt, Iran, and Al Jazeera, along with two book reviews.