[lit-ideas] Re: Fukuyama, Arabists and French Multiculturalists
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 08:51:07 -0700
Well, Omar, I think you misread my comments in the previous note and in the
one before that. I wasn't thinking "personally hostile," but hostile in the
Collingwood sense. You are predisposed to be hostile to the ideas I am
presenting, and as Harold Bloom said someplace, probably in A Map of
Misreading, writers, and perhaps people who are not writers misread those
they disagree with. Nevertheless, it is often unpleasant to get past the
righteous sneer to whatever it is lies beneath.
You comment "well, would you say that 'the expert advise' received from the
likes of Kramer and Pipes worked? Oh right, [sneer] I forgot, the things
are great in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so on. [sneer]"
Kramer and Pipes never received Title VI money and so never provided the
advice the government paid for. The idea behind Title VI was a good one.
Why should the government have a huge diplomatic core to provide advice to
an administration needing it? Why not fund premier universities to engage
in Area Studies, that is, studies of the various areas of the world, and
should the time come, the Administration could call on such people and get
the advice they needed. But Title VI didn't work, and to a great extent its
failure was due to the efforts of Edward Said who campaigned to get "the
most expert people" into Area Studies, namely Arabs who spoke Arabic and
came from the nations in question. Unfortunately, as is a common theme
nowadays, such Arabs were less than cooperative when they were questioned by
an American administration. Though Title VI has been a failure, the
government has been unwilling to cancel these funds knowing in advance that
the Politically Correct will cry "foul" and "racism." So instead, the
Administration calls in outside experts. Prior to 9/11 John Esposito was
called in for advice. After 9/11 it was Bernard Lewis, but I don't know who
else.
As to "things" being "great in Afghanistan, and so on," things are not great
there, but as has been discussed before, the primary task of the
administration in regard to these matters is American security. Secondarily
it is the security of our allies. By "great" I assume you mean flourishing
liberal democracies. Few of the aforementioned experts thinks Bush will be
successful in that, but Bush thinks he will. He is unwilling to listen to
those who argue that Muslim nations are incapable of Liberal Democracies.
He thinks it is a racist argument to insist that Iraq or Afghanistan is
incapable of a successful Liberal Democracy. Experts that are more nuanced
don't think it racist to argue that culturally these Middle Eastern nations
don't have the right building blocks in place to permit the immediate
development of Liberal Democracies. But as I quoted from Bevin Alexander,
"Skeptics of the U.S. efforts in the Middle East say that the difficulties
encountered in trying to set up democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq . . .
show that equitable societies cannot exist in Muslim lands. George W. Bush
believes just the opposite, that democracy is possible throughout the Middle
East. But even if true democracy fails, we will still be partially
successful if we create governments that are merely less oppressive. Such
governments are unlikely to harbor terrorists. And eliminating terrorism is
our principal goal."
I know that every nay-sayer feels a God-given right to sneer inasmuch as
Iraq doesn't have a viable Liberal Democracy in place after three years.
They feel, these nay-sayers, too much hostility to what is going on to even
pretend objectivity or rationality in these matters. But it took much
longer to put our American Liberal Democracy on a sound footing than it did
to develop our first atomic bomb. We managed the latter in less than six
years as I recall, but our democracy was still very much in doubt from
outside attack during the war of 1812 and from internal difficulties until
1865. We see no need for modern nations to go through all the "building
block" steps we took. We know it is possible to take a willing nation, like
Japan, and put them on the fast track, and it is at least conceivable that
if the Iraqis and the Afghans truly want all or most of what we have in the
way of Liberal-Democratic government that they can (like Japan) make it
work, but if the Islamist influence is as great as those in my "roll call"
believe, then as Alexander says, perhaps "equitable societies cannot exist
in Muslim lands."
If on the other hand Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel (Fukuyama's authorities on
these matters) are right, then surely equitable societies can exist; which
is another reason Fukuyama seems to be confused. If only the Jihadists are
to be worried about (as Roy, Kepel and Fukuyama argue), then why can't all
those moderate Muslims set up equitable societies in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Why did Fukuyama abandon the Nation Building of the Neocons when according
to his own belief, there are few to oppose it?
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2006 7:42 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Fukuyama, Arabists and French Multiculturalists
--- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Whenever like now, my note must be to correct
> misapprehensions or
> misconstructions, I hesitate to write it, especially
> if I sense the motive
> behind the note to which I am responding to be
> hostile;
*Personally hostile ? Oh come on, Lawrence, you
haven't really received a hostile reply from yet,
except once in the olden days when I mistook you to be
someone else and so did (that time indeed) misread
your comments.
>
>
> An "Arabist" is one who has embraced the Arab nation
> to which he has been
> diplomatically assigned. He identifies with it,
> takes up its causes, and
> chooses its side. Arabists often took the side of
> their Arab nation against
> the U.S. This is not what is wanted in a diplomat,
> and the U.S. began
> shifting people about in an attempt to overcome this
> malady. The downside
> of such attempts, as Kaplan explains, is that the
> U.S. lost some expertise,
> but the gain in loyalty was a desirable trade-off.
> Martin Kramer's thesis
> in Ivory Towers of Sand, the Failure of Middle
> Eastern Studies in America is
> that the Title VI expenditures have not resulted in
> expert advice about the
> Middle East but instead have produced Arabist
> responses.
*If your point was about diplomatic appointments, so
be it (bow). Most countries have incompetent diplomats
so it wouldn't fair to castigate the US alone for
this.
He didn't used
> that diplomatic term as I recall, but that is the
> effect. The experts
> called upon by the government under Title VI were
> hostile to the U.S.,
> unresponsive, and any advice was likely to favor
> Arab countries. Thus, it
> is good that "Bernard Lewis, Martin Kramer, Daniel
> Pipes and others" are not
> Arabists.
*Well, would you say that "the expert advise" received
from the likes of Kramer and Pipes worked ? Oh right,
I forgot, the things are great in Iraq and
Afhganistan, and so on.
(snip)
>
> You ask "the point of my roll call"? As I indicated
> in previous notes about
> Fukuyama's America at the Crossroads" I criticized
> Fukuyama for accepting
> the arguments of the French experts Olivier Roy and
> Gilles Kepel who are at
> least nodding toward French multiculturalism in that
> they take a "soft view"
> of the Islamist threat. They see the threat
> emanating from a few
> "Jihadists." If they are right then we in the U.S.
> are over-reacting, and
> this is what Fukuyama concludes. However the "roll
> call" as you call it is
> a list of some of the authors I have read who take a
> very different view,
> who see Fukuyama's Jihadists as being the activist
> element of Islamic
> Fundamentalism which is sweeping the Middle East.
> With all of Fukuyama's
> other interests I doubt that he has had time to read
> many of the authors I
> listed.
*Perhaps so, but then the credentials of the authors
whom you read are susepct on several grounds.
He lists only the two, Roy and Kepel, and
> he does not respond to
> the idea that we are at war with Islamic
> Fundamentalism, aka Islamism, and
> not just a few Jihadists.
*I don't want to get into this debate again. "We are
at war with" is a misleading phrase. If you project
yourself as being in war against any stripe of
political Islam, then you will be, soon enough. But
not all Islamists want to be in war with you. In
general I think that crusades, i.e. ideological wars,
are a bad thing. You are entitled to disagree and
maintain that, if there any people in the world who
hold ideas you dislike, you have the right and duty to
go to war against them until Armagedon.
O.K.
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