Silber on Foreign Policy

Dear Editor, Please note the length of my response to Professor Silber’s comments on Arab and Muslim matters in the last issue of DFR. I feel that the issues are of primary significance and they need to be fully addressed. I’ll be glad to discuss with you any suggestions regarding publication. Sincerely, Shakir Mustafa Visiting Assistant Professor Dept of Mod Foreign Langs and Lits

Response:

I would like to commend the Daily Free Press for the extended interview it had with Boston University Chancellor John Silber in late December on matters of foreign policy. Certainly, a dialogue such as that offers opportunities for reflective exchanges of ideas for those directly engaged in it and, more important perhaps, for the paper’s wider audience. My intervention here endeavors to extend the dialogue by revisiting two of the issues addressed by Professor Silber and his interlocutor, Mr. Ray Henry. Especially in the past few months, Muslim and Arab matters have become sore spots of continuing controversy, and often subjects for misrepresentation or superficial coverage in scores of editorials and columns. Despite the fact I take issues with some of the positions Professor Silber expresses, the prolonged discussion in the DFP interview was a welcome departure from the general media practice of hasty or disinterested coverage.

Let me first begin by questioning the thesis of the “clash of civilizations,” a thesis for which Chancellor Silber gives a qualified approval to explain differences between the West and the Muslim worlds. This theory has been circulating since 1993, thanks to an essay Samuel Huntington published to envision a new worldview for the post cold war era. Huntington’s clash suggests the irreconcilability of Western culture with other cultures, such as the Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, and Slavic. His essay, however, gives Islam its most attention, and hence came the popular perception of the thesis as a polarization of the West and Islam. One major attraction in this thesis is its massively reductive formulations of histories and relations through convenient abstractions. Islam, for instance, is conflated with the numerous, diverse cultures embracing the religion, and typically associated with backward, tribal, parochial, or atavistic modes of living and thinking. Similarly, but conversely, the West is portrayed as a monolith representing the civilized part of the globe. One needs not be particularly perceptive to note that Huntington’s theory merely recasts a host of simplistic notions under the dichotomy of “us” and “them.” These notions dominated colonial and racist thinking and practice and, especially in the twentieth century, gave rise to extremist ideologies like Nazism and Fascism.

True, Professor Silber offers only a qualified recognition of the theory since Islam, as he correctly notes, is too diverse to be subsumed under an abstracted rubric. But his qualification has an interesting take: “You’re talking about the civilization of Islam. That’s just too broad because the Islam that’s radical and is behind this terrorist movement is an element of Islam that’s largely Arabic. … The Arabian Muslims are essentially the group that is behind the terrorists.” Elsewhere in the interview, Professor Silber says, “[t]he Taliban forces are primarily Arabs, not Afghans. And their leadership has come from outside, not from Afghanistan.” This is simply wrong. The vast majority of the Taliban forces is composed of Pashtun Afghans and Pakistanis, and its leadership is almost exclusively Pashtun. Either way, to relate a terrorist ideology like that embraced by the likes of Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network to a specific ethnic group is a puzzling oversimplification. Bin Laden and his closest associates are Arabs, indeed, but their network has Afghans, Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks, among other nationalities. “The American Taliban,” “The shoe-bomber,” and a bunch of British, French, and Australian nationals associated with al-Qaeda are reminders that subversive ideologies are not only transnational but as trans-everything as it gets.

Terror has no nationality or color and it can come from all directions. It is not confined to religion, either. Otherwise how would we explain the existence of terrorist splinter groups of the Irish Republican Army and the Spanish Basques in Europe, even if we accept Huntington’s thesis of a privileged Western civilization? As today’s villains, Arabs or Muslims only replace yesterday’s foreign villains in the popular imagination. For much of the twentieth century, those villains had Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or “Russian” faces. Here, it is instructive to quote the Israeli writer Amos Oz who wrote three days after September 11th reminding his readers that “chauvinistic and religious extremism” can be Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, and that the terrorist attacks were part of a “battle between fanatics for whom the end … sanctifies the means, and the rest of us who ascribe sanctity to life itself.” The terrorists who boarded the planes on September 11 severed their ties with Islam when they severed them with common humanity. Their religious or ethnic identification is irrelevant.

If we are to qualify the “clash” thesis, then we can do so by remembering the contributions of Arabo-Islamic civilization to the entire world through the work of men like Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Tufail, or the great historian Ibn Khaldun, whom the West now recognizes as the father of the social sciences. Medieval Arabic translations of Aristotle have been lauded for preserving that distinguished philosopher’s work until the West was ready for them. For instance, the tenth century Arabic rendering of Aristotle’s Poetics by Abu Bishr is still useful in constructing the Greek text. During that period, too, Muslim rule in Spain demonstrated for seven centuries not only Muslims’ willingness to assimilate and contribute to non-Muslim cultures, but also Muslim tolerance of ethnic, social, and religious differences natural in an alien environment. Jews, in particular, flourished during that era, and when they were forced out of Spain in 1492, the majority went to a Muslim country, Morocco.

Receptive traditions such these continued to the modern era. For instance, nineteenth-century renaissance in what is now the Arab world began with re-establishing cultural contacts with Europe, especially France, Italy, and Great Britain. And after WW II, much of this Arab world looked to the United States as a country inspiring liberation, political as well as economic. If Arab culture could/can be open enough to interact in numerous ways with Western cultures for about fourteen centuries, shouldn’t we look with suspicion at current theses that assume either Arabo-Islamic civilizations’ radical clash with the West, or their inability to assimilate Western civilizations?

Professor Silber and his interviewer then introduce us to more Arab malice when they take up the impact of the Sept 11 terrorist atrocities on the relations between the United States and Israel. It is not my intention to question that impact, but to draw attention to the implications of demonizing Arabs that surface in the context of the conversation. In responding to Mr. Henry’s question about such an impact, Chancellor Silber refers to the Palestinian suicide bombings and observes that “there is a growing awareness that the Arabs are not going to be content or satisfied until Israel is destroyed.” I hope Professor Silber does not really believe that, and if he does, then perhaps a look at Middle Eastern realities might help persuade him otherwise. Arab countries started a process of naturalizing relations with Israel since the mid 1970’s during which diplomatic and economic ties with Israel started to form and develop. Regrettably, Ariel Sharon’s hawkish policies are disrupting this drive to normalize the region.

With regard to the Palestinians, their positions towards Israel, even before the Oslo accords, do not reflect the kind of destructive tendencies of which Professor Silber speaks. In fact, these positions made direct negotiations with Israel since 1993 possible. The Palestinians remain receptive to a peaceful settlement of the conflict. According to an article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, a recent survey of 1,357 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza “found that 71 percent said they support a return to negotiations with Israel, while 73 percent said they were in favor of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation after a peace agreement, based on the establishment of a Palestinian state recognized by Israel.” The article goes on: “militant Palestinian Islamic groups have also suffered a drop in popularity, which now stands at 25 per cent, down from 27 percent last July” (12. 26. 2001).

Arabs, especially the Palestinians, recognize Israel’s right to exist. The rhetoric of destroying Israel is outdated even by the standards of the Arab world. It largely originated in the political bankruptcy of the Arab regimes responsible for the 1967 defeat in the war with Israel. In the occupied territories in particular, the Palestinians are struggling under an occupying force and are in no position even to approach jeopardizing Israel’s existence. Ironically, the rhetoric of destroying Israel has been appropriated by extreme elements in Israel to push for denying the Palestinians themselves the right to exist as a separate nation. These elements are not a marginal force in Israel, and they are part of Sharon’s government now. One of their spokesmen, the Tourism minister, continuously speaks of “transferring” the Palestinians. A thinly disguised euphemism for ethnic cleansing in Israel.

In citing support for the assumption that Arabs, or Palestinians, have internalized destructive tendencies towards Israel, Professor Silber claims that Palestinian textbooks violate the Oslo accords by teaching “hatred against the Jews.” I lived much of my life in the Arab world and can readily testify to embarrassing material in Arabic textbooks when their subject matter is Israel. But in the past two decades Arabic textbooks have been revised, and they can still be better revised. What Professor Silber and his interviewer fail to refer to, however, is the post-Oslo revisions of textbooks in the area under the Palestinian Authority (PA). In the past, Palestinians used Jordanian or Egyptian textbooks, simply because they did not have their own. Here, let me refer to a detailed study of Palestinian textbooks by Nathan Brown, Professor of political science at the George Washington Elliott School of International Affairs. Brown concludes that the PA did indeed revise the textbooks, but misleading reports by the “Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace” frequently “obscure rather highlight the changes.” Ironically, Brown point out that the Israeli authorities did not allow these revised books to be used in Palestinian schools under their control in East Jerusalem because the books were written under PA supervision. In other words, the Palestinians have been criticized for using textbooks by non-Palestinians, and when they write their own they are still on the receiving end of harsh criticism. Moreover, a memo submitted by the PLO to the Sharm El-Sheikh fact-finding committee cites Israeli praise for the revised Palestinian textbooks (April 2001).

In the same context of textbooks, Professor Silber says “Jews would not be teaching Jewish children to hate Palestinians.” Unfortunately, this is not true. In surveying a number of academic studies of Israeli textbooks and children’s storybooks, Maureen Meehan concludes that these books “portray Palestinians and Arabs as ‘murderers,’ ‘rioters,’ ‘suspicious,’ and generally backward and unproductive” (The Washington Report on the Middle East, September 1999). Many of the studies Meehan examines are by Israeli academics, and hence one would hardly suspect deliberate misrepresentations of the material. Meehan also alerts us to the impact such books have on their readers: “One Israeli high school student told the Washington Report that the contents of the schoolbooks and the viewpoints expressed by some teachers indeed have a lasting negative effect on youngsters’ attitudes toward Palestinians.” The PLO memo I referred to also complains of racist and misrepresentational material in Israeli textbooks. Maps of Mandate Palestine, for example, show the country as void of Arabs, and current maps of Israel collapse Palestinian occupied territories into Israeli territory. What would explain such engagement by both parties in harmful practice is not inexplicable or deviant natures, but the relentless pressures of a long and tragic political conflict.

In his reference to the “madrasas” Muslim extremists use to produce fanatics, Professor Silber notes the urgency of changing their curricula. I couldn’t agree more. Education has been instrumental in preparing communities for peaceful coexistence or misguided behavior. But the past few months must have also taught us something about the need for education in the United States as well. The deluge of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiments and actions across the nation in the aftermath of the September terrorist crimes cannot and should not be justified in any way. If the driving force behind the racism that targets individuals and groups with a color, religion, or background deemed by some as “different” is malicious ignorance, then an educational approach in our schools and universities that is truly global should be one of the remedies. The world is getting smaller, and what happens in a school in a remote part of Pakistan or in a town in Arizona can influence lives everywhere. One does not need a bunch of terrorists to remember that. Arabophobia and Islamophobia are not the products of crimes recently committed by a demented and suicidal gang, but they are sore ills in American culture and they, too, need to be addressed.