Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
My two-part interview with Riz Khan of Aljazeera English regarding my new book, Engaging the Muslim World, is now available at YouTube.
Part I:
and Part II of the interview:
Engaging the Muslim World
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/26/2009 12:05:00 AM
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Muslim Denunciations of al-Qaeda and Terrorism
Suggested Books about the Middle East
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Awards
Winner, October 5, 2007, Scott Nearing Award for Courageous Scholarship (Awarded by the Graduate Students of the Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania).
Winner, 2005 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, Hunter College.
Winner, 2004 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog
Winner, 2004 Koufax Award for Best
Posting
2 Comments:
Warlords and empire builders expoit division - to rally their troops, to build their empires. Demagogues can manipulate the uneducated by painting them into their corner, and painting their proposed victims into the enemy corner. Iraq has been an opportunity for several varieties. Amongst other things, you can be sure that those expelling Sunni families were convinced they were avenging not only the evils of Saddam, but also those committed by individuals who left this earth more than a thousand years ago.
Trust will not return until there is a clear message from current or emerging Shia leadership, or at least brave individuals, that this ethnic cleansing is as much of crime as the atrocities committed by Al-Qaeda-who-didn't-used-to-be-in-Iraq. Otherwise the suspicion will remain that it is a convenience, as is the reporting of the Al Qaeda atrocities in retaliation, with effective silence on the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad. Warlords, empire building.
Some Muslim groups are quite a way behind Israelis in producing individuals who openly distain the behaviour of those they are unfortunately associated with.
Without this Iraqi Sunnis will en mass assume that the Shia see them as nothing more than the incarnation of every hate figure, every greivance they nurture. Societies that don't, to a sufficient degree, leave this sort of thing behind, tend not to do so well. Without this, there will probably be another Saddam to keep the lid on things.
What a vast difference between the Khan and Colbert interviews! Colbert is of course an entertainer, and has used his comedic gifts in what I think is a beneficial way. But I was disappointed at the wastage by Colbert of Professor Cole's presence. He subordinated the opportunity to inform to the opportunity to entertain. It was rather like watching the Today show (years ago) cut away from an extraordinary interview of Yassar Arafat so they could do their precious commercials. America has a profound dearth of the ordered, well paced kind of interview that Khan orchestrated, where the search for information, relevancy, and perspective outweighs glibness, outrage, obsequiesness, or advertising. I would love to see Colbert invite Professor Cole to return and have a substantive interview where Colbert's lightening mind is not concentrated solely on the next laugh. But I am not holding my breath.
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