I just read Joseph Massads latest piece on Egypt in the Electronic Intifada which I will not link to. It is an extremely hateful and shallow piece, conflating all Egyptians in time and space, constricting any one he doesnt like to a thieving ruling class. Egypt has never really cared about Palestine, only itself, he argues, and goes on to say that the entire intellectual class are craven thugs. The only kind word he has for all of Egyptian history and culture is, a bit ridiculously, for the monarchy. It is actually a very hateful and even racist piece, one I can hardly imagine him writing even about his sworn enemy, Israel, and I cant understand what the Electronic Intifada hopes to gain by alienating all Egyptians in this way. Imagine replacing the word Egyptian here with Israeli, American or Frenchman, I doubt Massad would have the nerve. [Luckily, one need not rely on Massad or other supposed critical intellectuals who rely on this kind of insulting argumentation to derive staunch support of Palestine, as one is more than capable of noticing rank injustice when they see it without the translation efforts of comfortable intellectuals rife with internal contradictions in New York.] A broader question I have, though, is: when did being critical devolve into screaming and self-richeousness and pinning people to positions without a good faith willingness to even listen to the other side? Why the insistence on drawing mono-causal links when they are tenuous at best? For example, in Massads piece, he calls out by name Egyptian economists, journalists, novelists and other intellectuals that supported Sisis military intervention last year and totally conflates that decision with support for Israels actions in Gaza. But of course, as any minimally trained scholar should know, those are two very separate events that unfolded according to different logics and internal and external factors. Isnt spelling these out and weighing them carefully what academics are trained to do? And if you do take a position based on that analysis, shouldnt one honestly state their reasoning rather than rely on demonizing the other side? Is Massad training his graduate students at Columbia to actually understand Zionism from the perspective of Jews who support the ideology (something I view as essential and basic for any scholar of the conflict), or is he training scholars of Egypt to understand where Sisi supporters are coming from and what their concerns are/were? Or has this ego-maniacal intellectual as executioner vocation gotten so out of hand that we must attack anyone who actually thinks? And even if one is too personally disgusted to cover the other side and wants to conscientiously object from their duties as a scholar, is it fair to replace that mission with merely teaching their own ideology to students? I would not accept that from anyone, staunch zionist or staunch anti-zionist. There is a lifestyle academic that seems to be emerging that seems big on the moralizing approbation and mean-spiritedness toward those they disagree with and a bit lower on careful consideration of historical fact, understanding all sides of an issue, and in so doing, even, once in a while, showing some compassion. Ive found it really hard to do what I consider to be basic, careful work on the situation in Egypt as it appears to Egyptians because of this intellectual sucker punching. Its really a shame, but facts have a way of just sitting there and making their presence felt despite all the noise.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:36:18 +0000