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MESA boycotts US Govt's plan to teach arabic to students in Govt services.
Ivory towers on sand ^ | Martin Kramer

Posted on 09/24/2002 1:19:41 PM PDT by 1bigdictator

Since 9/11 MESA Boycott

The directors of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) have announced a boycott of the National Flagship Language Initiative (NFLI), the U.S. government's plan to establish government-supported academies for critical languages at a few select campuses. The initiative is part of the highly successful National Security Education Program

Why the boycott? As the MESA statement makes clear, the professors oppose teaching Arabic to students who commit themselves to government service. The government will be offering student fellowships for study at NFLI centers, in return for a period of service. The MESAns abhor the idea that they might offer instruction to persons committed to serving the U.S. government, especially in defense and intelligence.

Read about the boycott in the Chronicle of Higher Education . Read the colloquy that accompanied the article, and read this critique of MESA's boycott by Stanley Kurtz of the Hoover Institution. Read the item devoted to the controversy in Martin Kramer's MESA Culpa in the fall issue of the Middle East Quarterly. And read the new reply to the MESA Board submitted by four members of the association, challenging the boycott resolution.

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Title VI Battle A battle is brewing this coming fall over U.S. government funding for Middle Eastern studies.

Late last year, a Congress stunned by 9/11 authorized a massive increase in funding for area studies generally, and Middle Eastern studies in particular. Millions of additional dollars were appropriated under the rubric of Title VI, a Department of Education program. Joel Beinin, the president of MESA, celebrated the windfall in a spring letter to MESA members: "This is excellent news for MESA and for the future of area studies more generally; and there is good reason to hope that this trend will continue."

Is there? Martin Kramer, in an essay entitled Arabic Panic, questions the wisdom of the new appropriation. "It's difficult to see how this new investment in Middle Eastern studies could produce a return that serves the national interest. Given what goes on in some Middle East centers, perhaps the government should pay them, like farmers, not to produce anything." Stanley Kurtz, in an article subtitled The Scandal of Title VI, writes that "it's high time that the scam being run on the American people via Title VI funding for academic area studies programs was exposed."

David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, has responded with a letter to Congress defending Title VI. (The Council has even issued talking points against Kurtz.) And no wonder: some leaders of Congress have shown interest in the issue.

Now is the time to share your own opinion about Middle Eastern studies and Title VI with members of the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services and Education. And return to this website for new developments. The Title VI battle has commenced.

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The Middle East Forum has launched a new project, Campus Watch, devoted to monitoring Middle Eastern studies on campus. Read Martin Kramer's comment on the significance of the new project.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; Israel; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: academialist; terroraid

1 posted on 09/24/2002 1:19:41 PM PDT by 1bigdictator
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To: 1bigdictator
What are they trying to hide?
2 posted on 09/24/2002 1:24:42 PM PDT by Bigg Red
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To: 1bigdictator
Right after 9/11 I was all full of piss and vinegar and called the local armed forces recruiters. They laughed at me because of my age. So, my next thought was that there would be a real need for speakers of Arabic, Farsi, and Dari, and I checked the local universities' foreign language programs. Nothing.

I agree with the article that there is a real shortage of classes in Middle Eastern languages.

3 posted on 09/24/2002 1:25:56 PM PDT by white trash redneck
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To: 1bigdictator
In reading the link, and then reading MESA's statement, they state that they fear that requiring students to accept a governmental service obligation in order to get the funding under this program will make it difficult to get the cooperation of Middle Eastern governments, schools, organizations, etc. to work with these students, and by extension their teachers. The fear would be that such groups would see these students as budding spies.

Now, if all the government is paying for is for undergrads, etc.., to learn Arabic, that's one thing. But if we are talking about graduate and post-graduate study, where doing significant work in such areas often means that you are generally directly involved with such entities, I can see where requiring people accepting such funding to then sign up for a term with the military or intelligence agencies would have a chilling effect on the whole object of the program, which is to learn more about the Middle East. At this level, you don't just work out of books. You become one of the people who is going to write such a book, and you can't do it by watching Al-Jezeera (sp?). You've got to go on site, or work with people who are on site, and that's where the sticking point is.

Now, I haven't read all the papers, etc., that are linked. But such an argument has some validity on the face of it, anyway. If someone wants to read deeper, fine.
4 posted on 09/24/2002 1:32:46 PM PDT by RonF
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To: 1bigdictator
This is strange! We are at a point in the US where the Arabs/Muslims who are here must make a choice, they are either with us or against us. Those with us should have no problem enhancing our military/intelligence capabilities. Those against us should have their visa status checked and their 'phones tapped.

Unless, this is anther one of those educational union things. The guys who make big bucks today for translations and such don't want a lot of of new, patriotic competitors, so they protest.

5 posted on 09/24/2002 1:33:49 PM PDT by Tacis
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To: 1bigdictator
Traitors. It's none of their business what the students do with their skills.
6 posted on 09/24/2002 1:40:42 PM PDT by swarthyguy
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To: Bigg Red
better yet, who are they trying to protect?
hint - it aint America
7 posted on 09/24/2002 1:59:10 PM PDT by Texas_Jarhead
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To: Bigg Red
What are they trying to hide?

Nothing. Read the source, and then check the link giving MESA's actual statement. What they're saying is that Middle Eastern institutions won't want to work with students who will then be obligated to go on to work for American defense and intelligence agencies.

Again, if this is something where the students involved are undergrads that are going to be learning Arabic, etc., from local resources, then I don't think that there should be a problem. But if we are talking about graduate and post-graduate students, who will be working with institutions based in the Middle East, then I can see what their concern is.

8 posted on 09/24/2002 2:44:31 PM PDT by RonF
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To: RonF
Sounds like a bunch of professors (most of whom are radical anti-Israel types) trying to protect their rice bowl with the typical silly arguments. We are supposed to believe that Middle Eastern governments can track the majors of American college students without institutional cooperation? Their parents can't even do it!

Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America by Martin Kramer discusses the problem in depth. As has happened in so many other disciplines ravaged by political correctness, reputable Middle Eastern scholars are going to have to migrate to the think tanks and institutes that now give the university radicals such well deserved competition.
9 posted on 09/24/2002 3:11:07 PM PDT by cosine
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To: *Academia list
Add to Academia list please
10 posted on 09/24/2002 3:22:33 PM PDT by texasbluebell
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To: cosine
We are supposed to believe that Middle Eastern governments can track the majors of American college students without institutional cooperation? Their parents can't even do it!

The reporting requirements that Middle Eastern governments place foreigners under are one hell of a lot more stringent than those that we place Middle Eastern college students under.

Again, if this is an issue of dealing with undergraduates, then I have no consideration for the thesis here. But, if we are talking about graduate and post-graduate study, it's a different story. Such people don't readily change their field of study at all, there's far fewer of them, and they'll be tracked much more closely by both their host institution and the government that said institution is closely tied to. And such study is much more important to defense and intelligence purposes than a bunch of undergrads trying to make sense of "Dick and Jane" in Arabic.

11 posted on 09/24/2002 3:29:52 PM PDT by RonF
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To: white trash redneck
They told me it would be all special forces and that I would basically be digging s*** on some base in the South( and they were right).
12 posted on 09/24/2002 5:14:13 PM PDT by weikel
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To: 1bigdictator
As they appear to be against defending the US, let's boycott MESA and send them all back to the mid-east.
13 posted on 09/24/2002 5:49:37 PM PDT by XBob
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To: 1bigdictator
Sleepers are everywhere!
14 posted on 09/24/2002 10:06:26 PM PDT by eclectic
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