In this column:
List of
Signatories to the Open Letter.
An extract from
the article which was published, with the List of Signatories, on
the sites 'The Disorder of Things' and 'Campaign against Arms Trade
Universities Network.'
Although the article is short, it
makes all too clear what
the signatories were opposing, or thought they were opposing.
Profiles of academics (and others) who signed the Open
Letter
List of profiles (to be extended) with links to the profiles
on this page. Before the list, there's a very brief argument for
including profiles on this page and some other pages of the site.
Mona Baker, Professor of Translation Studies (Emerita), Manchester
University: Mona Baker and half-baked monomania.
Catherine Baker, Hull University: jihad and
peacekeeping
Adam Ferhani, Postdoctoral Fellow, Sheffield
University Department of Politics and International Relations
Professor Claudia Aradau, King's College London
Professor Luke Martell, University of Sussex: dystopian
Dr Liam Stanley, Sheffield University Department of
Politics and International Relations
List of Signatories to the Open
Letter
I point out in the introductory material in the column
to the left that the claim made by the organizers of the open letter that
the signatories were all academics is false. Scanning the list will show
that this is so. The majority of the people who signed the list were
academics but the claim that they are 'academics working on topics related
to war, conflict, security, human rights, and international relations' is
false.
Signed by,
Professor Sara Ahmed, Independent
Professor Nadje Al-Ali, SOAS
Professor Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley
Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos, University of Coimbra
Professor Lisa Duggan, New York University
Professor Cynthia Enloe, Clark University
Professor Arturo Escobar, University of North Carolina
Professor Lewis Gordon, Global Centre for Advanced Study; UCONN-Storrs;
Rhodes University
Professor David Graeber, LSE
Professor Derek Gregory, University of British Colombia
Professor John Holloway, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla,
Puebla
Professor Richard Jackson, University of Otago
Professor Laleh Khalili, SOAS, University of London
Professor Saskia Sassen, Colombia University, New York
Professor Vron Ware, Kingston University
Siân Addicott, Swansea College of Art
Dr Linda Åhäll, Keele University
Dr Kirsten Ainley, LSE
Hilary Aked, University of Bath
Simona Alexandra, Demilitarise King’s
Mehmet Ali, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
Dr Jamie Allinson, University of Edinburgh
James Angel, King’s College London
Dr Leonie Ansems de Vries, King’s College London
Dr Claudia Aradau, King’s College London
Dr Gordon Asher, University of the West of Scotland
Dr Grietje Baars, City University of London
Dr Catherine Baker, University of Hull
Professor Mona Baker, University of Manchester
Dr Sita Balani, King’s College London
Dr Victoria Basham, Cardiff University
Mareike Beck, University of Sussex
Dr Laurie Benson, King’s College London
Professor G. K. Bhambra, University of Warwick
Jon Bigger, Loughborough University
Dr Ira Bliatka, Independent
Professor Lindsey Blumell, City University London
Dr Shannon Brincat, Griffith University
Dr Maria Brock, Södertörn University College
Dr Christopher Browning, University of Warwick
Dr Ian Bruff, University of Manchester
Mirjam Büdenbender, KU Leuven
Dr Sarah Bulmer, University of Exeter
Olimpia Burchiellaro, University of Westminster
Dr Rosalind Carr, University of East London
Dr Veronique Chance, Anglia Ruskin University
Dr Catherine Charrett, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Simon Choat, Kingston University
Dr Alex Christoyannopoulos, Loughborough University
Dr Chris Clarke, University of Warwick
Rosalie Clarke, NTU
Dr Thomas Clément Mercier, King’s College London
Professor Cynthia Cockburn, Retired
Lydia Cole, Aberystwyth University
Sam Cook, University of California, Santa Cruz
Amy Cooper, Birkbeck, University of London
Amy Corcoran, Queen Mary University of London
Clare Coultas, LSE
Thomas Cowan, King’s College London
Dr Ruth Craggs, King’s College London
Dr Rhys Crilley, University of Warwick
Dr Giran A. Cutanda, University of Granada
Ida Danewid, LSE
Kelcy Davenport, Anglia Ruskin University
Lou Dear, University of Glasgow
Dr Carl Death, University of Manchester
Dr Maria del Carmen Garcia Alonso, University of Kent
Dr Helen Dexter, The University of Leicester
Sam Donaldson, Solidarity
Jack Doyle, University of Oxford
Dr Synne Dyvik, University of Sussex
Elizabeth Eade, Brighton University
Dr Cassie Earl, University of Bristol
Dr James Eastwood, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Nathan Eisenstadt, University of Bristol
Dr Emmy Eklundh, King’s College London
Professor Miriam Estrada-Castillo, United Nations University for Peace
Catrin Evans, University of Glasgow
Dr Jonathan Evershed, Queen’s University Belfast
Syada Fatima Dastagir, Birkbeck, University of London
Adam Ferhani, University of Sheffield
Peter Finn, Kingston University
Kathrin Fischer, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Adam Fishwick, De Montfort University
Matthew Flinders, UCL
Dr Ludovic Foster, Independent
Dr Maria Fotou, University of Leicester
Guillaume Foulquie, University of Worcester
Dr Sylvia C. Frain, University of Otago & University of Guam
Dr Lola Frost, War Studies, King’s College London
Dr Sol Gamsu, University of Bath
Santiago García de Leaniz, EFA European Film Academy
Craig Gent, University of Warwick
Dr Jill Gibbon, Leeds Beckett University
Professor Emily Gilbert, University of Toronto
Dr Ciaran Gillespie, University of Surrey
Dr Rebecca Gould, University of Bristol
Leslie Gonzalez, University of Bristol
Dr Uri Gordon, University of Nottingham
Chloe Gott, University of Kent
Dr Sofa Gradin, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Harriet Gray, University of Gothenburg
Savannah Green, University of York
A Gregg, Independent
Dr Thomas Gregory, University of Auckland
Dr Mark Griffiths, Northumbria University
Dr Sandy Hager, City University of London
Jo Hague, Independent
Joseph Haigh, University of Warwick
Professor Janet Hargreaves, University of Huddersfield
Dr Sophie Harman, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Jason Hart, University of Bath
Dr Lou Harvey, University of Leeds
Dr Susanna Hast, University of Helsinki
Josefin Hedlund, King’s College London
Sita Hidayah, University of Freiburg
Dr Andy Higginbottom, Kingston University
Dr Peter Hill, Christ Church, University of Oxford
Dr Michael Hirsch, STFC
Dr Aggie Hirst, Kings College London
Jennifer Hobbs, University of Manchester
Dr Stephen Hobden, University of East London
Professor Jana Hoenke, University of Groningen
Dr Alison Howell, Rutgers University
Professor Jef Huysmans, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Marta Iñiguez de Heredia, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals
Cody Jackson, Texas Women’s University
Louisa Jane Di Felice, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Professor Christina Jarvis, State University of New York
Dr Jamie M. Johnson, University of Leicester
Dr Katharina Karcher, University of Cambridge
Dr Oliver Kearns, Independent
Dr Paul Kelemen, University of Manchester
Margareta Kern, University of the Arts London
Professor Ruth Kinna, Loughborough University
Dr Paul Kirby, University of Sussex
Dr Sara Koopman, Kent State University
Dr Daniela Lai, UCL
Imane Lauraux, Independent
Dr Andrew Law, Newcastle University
Dr Sophie Lewis, University of Manchester
Matheus Lock Santos, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Matt Lee, Free University Brighton
Iris Loukopoulos, TansActional Athens
Dr Paulette Luff, Anglia Ruskin University
Julian Mair, MCI Management Centre
Dr Nivi Manchanda, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Tracy Marafiote, State University of New York
Professor Luke Martell, University of Sussex
Dr Maria Martin de Almagro Iniesta, University of Cambridge
Nicholas Martindale, University of Oxford
Dr Rachel Massey, University of Manchester
Dr Cristina Masters, University of Manchester
Dr Lauren McCarthy, Royal Holloway University of London
Dr Trevor McCrisken, University of Warwick
Dr Kevin McSorley, University of Portsmouth
Dr John McTague, University of Bristol
Angus McNelly, Queen Mary University of London
Rasika Meena Kaushik, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Dr Akanksha Mehta, University of Sussex
Dr Isabel Meier, University of East London
Dr Katharine Millar, LSE
Colin Millen, Campaign for Unity in Practice and Self-Governance
Amanda Mills, London College of Communication
Dr Laura Mills, University of St Andrews
Dr Lara Montesinos Coleman, University of Sussex
Lena Moore, University of Cambridge
Dr Dalia Mostafa, University of Manchester
Professor Josepa Munoz, Artist
Professor Peter Newell, University of Sussex
Dr Marijn Nieuwenhuis, University of Warwick
Dr Kerem Nisancioglu, SOAS, University of London
Dr Jonna Nyman, University of Sheffield
Dr Ronan O’Callaghan, University of Central Lancashire
Dr Kieran Oberman, Edinburgh University
Dr Louiza Odysseos, University of Sussex
Sofia Olsson, University of Brighton
Dr Ajay Parasram, Dalhousie University
Dr Owen Parker, University of Sheffield
Dr Katy Parry, University of Leeds
Dr Ruth Pearce, University of Leeds
Hazel Perry, Anarchist Studies Network
Dr Simon Philpott, Newcastle University
Dr Veronique Pin-Fat, University of Manchester
Dr Nicola Pratt, University of Warwick
Dr Kandida Purnell, University of Aberdeen
Nat Raha, University of Sussex
Sanaz Raji, Unis Resist Border Controls
Dr Elisa Randazzo, University of Hertfordshire
Dr Rahul Rao, SOAS University of London
George Renshaw, Reading University
Dr Matthew Rech, Plymouth University
Henry Redwood, King’s College London
Anastasia Siniori, Westminster University
Professor Dee Reynolds, University of Manchester
Hannah Richter, University of Hertfordshire
Dr Melanie Richter-Montpetit, University of Sheffield
Dr Judith Roads, Retired
Professor Bruce Robbins, Columbia University
Dr Roberto Roccu, King’s College London
Dr Chris Rossdale, LSE
Professor Eugene E. Ruyle, California State University, Long Beach
Dr Caitlin Ryan, University of Groningen
Dr Myriam Salama-Carr, University of Manchester
Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins, University of Warwick
Paschal Somers, Coventry Justice and Peace Group
Neil Stamper, Wordpower
Lucy Stroud, Aberdeen University
Professor Paulette Swartzfager, Rochester Institute of Technology
Dr Thomas Swann, Loughborough University
Dr Meera Sabaratnam, SOAS, University of London
Dr Elke Schwarz, University of Leicester
Professor Lynne Segal, Birkbeck, University of London
Rasha Shaheen, Academy of Contemporary Music
Dr Laura J. Shepherd, UNSW Sydney
Dr Jonathan Silver, Sheffield University
Dr Tom Smith, University of Portsmouth
Dr Nick Srnicek, King’s College London
Dr Liam Stanley, University of Sheffield
Dr Anna Stavrianakis, University of Sussex
Dr Maurice Stierl, University of California Davis
Dr Henrique Tavares Furtado, University of the West of England
Dr Nicholas Taylor, Goldsmiths, University of London
Sahra Taylor, City, University of London
Diana Teggi, University of Bath
Dr Lasse Thomassen, Queen Mary University of London
Professor Charles Thorpe, University of California, San Diego
Dr Joanna Tidy, University of Sheffield
Dr Lisa Tilley, University of Warwick
Dave Tinham, Kingston University
Dr Rebecca Tipton, University of Manchester
Dr Alen Toplisek, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Cornelis van der Haven, Ghent University
Mijke van der Drift, Goldsmiths, University of London
Sara Van Goozen, University of Manchester
Tom Vaughan, Aberystwyth University
Professor Stellan Vinthagen, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Eliana Voutsadakis, London Southbank University
Dr Dereck Wall, Goldsmiths College
Dr David Wearing, Royal Holloway University of London
Alister Wedderburn, King’s College London/Australian National University
Dr Julia Welland, University of Warwick
Dr Ben Whitham, De Montfort University
Professor Annick Wibben, University of San Francisco
Dr Jeremy Wildeman, University of Bath
Dr Joanie Willett, University of Exeter
Dr Al Williams, Rewilding Wales
Dr Elisa Wynne-Hughes, Cardiff University
Jakub Zahora, Charles University, Prague
Dr Chris Zebrowski, Loughborough University
Extract from the piece published on the site 'The Disorder of Things'
and 'Campaign Against Arms Trade Universities Network
https://thedisorderofthings.com/2017/09/18/academics-against-the-arms-fair/
https://caatunis.net/academics-against-the-arms-fair-an-open-letter/
Before giving an extract from the introductory material published on
those sites, a short extract from Karl Popper's 'Conjectures and
Refutations' (Chapter 18, 'Utopia and Violence.) Karl Popper, one of the
most influential writers on scientific method, best known for his work
in the philosophy of science and in particular for his book 'The Logic
of Scientific Discovery' ('Die Logik der Forschung') wrote on many other
subjects, including social and political issues. This is from his book
'Conjectures and Refutations:'
' ... we must not allow the distinction between attack and defence to
become blurred. We must insist upon this distinction, and support and
develop institutions (national as well as international) whose function
is to discriminate between aggression and resistance to aggression.'
The organizers of the Open Letter, the two sites which publicized and
promoted the letter and the naive signers of the letter overlooked this
crucial distinction.
Last week, about 1500 weapons manufacturers and representatives of more
than 100 states descended on London for Defence
and Security Equipment International (DSEI) – the
world’s largest arms fair. The companies have exhibited products ranging
from crowd control equipment and ammunition to fighter jets and military
vehicles, which they displayed to militaries, police forces and border
agencies from around the world. DSEI is a major event for the
international arms trade, and the deals done there play a major role in
reinforcing Western militarism, fuelling conflict, repressing dissent
and strengthening authoritarian regimes.
Two weeks ago, the Stop
the Arms Fair coalition held a week of action in an
attempt to prevent the arms fair from taking place. Anti-militarist
groups, working in solidarity with activists from countries which have
suffered the brutal consequences of the arms trade, held a series of
events to disrupt the setup of DSEI. One event during this week was ‘Conference
at the Gates’, an academic conference held in front of
the arms fair, where participants debated ideas about militarism while
taking action to resist it.
We support this week of action and Conference at the Gates, and
call on the UK government to end its support for DSEI. As academics
working on topics related to war, conflict, security, human rights, and
international relations, we are opposed to the presence of this arms
fair in London, and to the substantial support provided by the UK
government to make it happen. It is wrong to argue, as the government
does, that the arms trade contributes to security – it fuels conflict,
facilitates repression, and makes the world a more dangerous place. In a
world of complex challenges militarism should be regarded as part of the
problem, not the solution.
Profiles of academics (and others)
who signed the Open Letter
These profiles will be revised and
extended. There are only a few profiles
for the time being - the page was added to the site not long ago and it's
the newest on the site, but I intend to add more and more profiles,
and, also
comments on 'The Disorder of Things' and 'Campaign
against Arms Trade Universities Network.'
Reasons for including profiles - on this page and some other pages of
the site.
The world has often been transformed by concepts and ideas - although
none of the concepts and ideas promoted by the signers seem in the least
likely to transform the world - but this world is a material world and a
living world, and a world of action, not just the setting for concepts
and ideas, even when they lead to action. Ideas and concepts are very,
very varied, of course - hideous, bad, beautiful, useful, dangerous,
negligible, very impressive - but, of course, don't have an
existence only in the realm of ideas and concepts. They are accepted by
people, rejected by people, used by people in multifarious ways,
sometimes very constructively, sometimes destructively, and of course
the people are of the utmost variety. Focusing attention on the person,
even when the attention is very critical, can emphasize human values and
the complexity of values. One very significant fact - and it is a fact,
I think - is this: human strengths are often accompanied by weaknesses,
the grotesque contradictions of human nature are so often in evidence.
This could be regarded as a truism, except that it's often ignored -
again and again, people think in terms of absolutes, of people as wholly
good or almost completely good, or wholly bad, or almost completely bad.
There are two profiles on this page which particularly illustrate this
dichotomy, the profiles of Liam Stanley and Professor Matthew Flinders.
Professor Flinders isn't one of the signers and I regret including a
short profile of him but since he illustrates the co-existence of
strength and (comparative) weakness, I think I can justify his
inclusion. He doesn't appear in the black list below, which is a list of
signers, but in the column to the right.
Mona Baker, Professor of Translation Studies
(Emerita), Manchester
University: Mona Baker and half-baked monomania.
Monomania: 'exaggerated
or obsessive preoccupation with one thing.'
Example
of usage: 'Although Mona Baker has a wide range of interests and
prejudices, her preoccupation with Israel and its actions amounts to
monomania.'
Half-baked: not fully thought through: lacking a
sound basis.
Examples of usage: 'A half-baked conspiracy theory. By
failing to take account of a wide range of evidence, such as the
legality of same-sex relations in Israel, gay pride events in Israel and
the criminality of same sex relations in Gaza and the execution of
individuals for same sex relations in Iran, Mona Baker demonstrates that
again and again, her thinking is naive, distorted and half-baked.'
Some background information from Wikipedia followed by background
information of mine.
Wikipedia:
In 2002,
Mona Baker removed two Israeli academics, Dr. Miriam
Shlesinger of Bar-Ilan
University and
Professor Gideon
Toury of Tel
Aviv University, Israel,
from the editorial boards of her journals Translator and Translation
Studies Abstracts, based
on their affiliation to Israeli institutions.
...
Subsequently, Baker announced that Translator will
no longer publish any research by Israeli scholars and will refuse to sell
books and journals to Israeli libraries.
Response from
Professors
In an email sent to Professor Toury on 8 June 2002, Baker asked him to
resign and warned him that she would "unappoint you" if he refused. Baker
justified her action by stating that "I do not wish to continue an official
association with any Israeli under the present circumstances", although she
also stated that her decision was "political, not personal" and that she
still regarded Professor Toury and Professor Shlesinger as friends.
Professor Toury subsequently responded that "I would appreciate it if the
announcement made it clear that 'he' (that is, I) was appointed as a scholar
and unappointed as an Israeli." Toury also stated that "I am certainly
worried, not because of the boycott itself but because it may get bigger and
bigger so that people will not be invited to conferences or lectures, or
periodicals will be judged not on merit, but the identity of the place where
the author lives."
Dr
Shlesinger responded that: "I don't think [Israeli prime minister] Ariel
Sharon is
going to withdraw from the West Bank because Israeli academics are being
boycotted. The idea is to boycott me as an Israeli, but I don't think it
achieves anything."
Criticism
Baker's
actions were sharply criticised by Professor Stephen
Greenblatt of Harvard
University and
the president of the Modern
Language Association of America, who called
the firings "repellent", "dangerous" and "morally
bankrupt". Greenblatt described Baker's
actions as an "attack on cultural cooperation" which "violates the essential
spirit of scholarly freedom and the pursuit of truth" ...
In the British
House of Commons, an Early Day Motion (EDM
1590) condemning Baker's actions was passed, stating that Parliament
"deplores discrimination against academics of any nationality, as being
inconsistent with the principle of academic freedom, regards such
discrimination as downright anti-semitic while pretending simply to be
opposed to Israeli government policy... and calls upon UMIST to apologise
for this disgusting act and to dismiss Professor Baker."
...
The National
Union of Students (NUS),
in addition to condemning academic boycotts as a whole, specifically
condemning Baker's sackings of the two Israeli professors as "racist." Mandy
Telford, president of the NUS, stated that "The National Union of Students
stands firmly against all forms of discrimination. This is an abuse of
academic freedom that can only have a negative impact on students at Umist...
In 2002
the European
Society for Translation Studies condemned
the ousting of Toury and Shlesinger, both members of the Society, arguing
that "in their intellectual work they are not representatives of their
country but individuals who are known for their research, their desire to
develop translation studies and to promote translation and intercultural
dialogue."
From my
page on Israel:
An extract from an article by Robert L. Bernstein published
in the 'New York Times,'
'As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years
and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never
anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch
had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic
freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on
the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel
into a pariah state.
'At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic
societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the
ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial
press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.
'That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and
nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We
wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral
equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing
attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in
the Soviet gulag — and the millions in China’s laogai, or labor camps.
'When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70
countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with
increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and
closed societies.
'Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The
region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights
records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more
condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any
other country in the region.
'Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human
rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected
government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a
politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the
amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other
country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
'Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million
people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or
no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit
from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human
rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s
Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.
'Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which
Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations
that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields.
These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly
declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews
everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
'Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to
wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming
neighborhoods into battlefields.'
Above, gay pride event in Tel Aviv. The events are attended by about
250,000 people annually.
In Gaza, 'homosexual activity' (fully legal in Israel) is illegal and
can be punished by imprisonment for ten years. In Iran, it can be
punished with death by hanging.
Professor Baker and other signers: if Israel were unable to defend its
borders with advanced weapons, it would be invaded by ISIS or another
radical group that would make the situation for gay people impossible,
with arbitrary killing not just of these people but of other Israelis,
including Israelis of Arab origin. Advanced weaponry protects Israel.
The signers, with no weapon but words (and platitudes) offer no
protection to anyone. Their claim that only something amounting to a
revolution of ideas offers effective protection is simply false. When
the protection of weapons is removed, there is no chance at all for
their words to have any impact at all. The signers' ability to make
their pleas would be at an end. If anyone wants to come to the aid of
Mona Baker, to argue in her defence, then I'd be glad if they could
publicize their arguments. I'd be glad to make this site available for
the purpose but this shouldn't be necessary, given the resources
available to the signers and other people who share their views.
Catherine Baker, University of
Hull: jihad and peacekeeping
Above, screen shots from the LSE Sociology video published on YouTube, 'On
Jihad, Empire and Solidarity,' published March 30, 2021. Top left, Mahvish
Ahmad. Top right, Catherine Baker. Bottom left, Tarak Barkawi. Bottom right,
Darryl Li. The faces have been blocked out here for one reason only: so as
not to infringe copyright. I take the view that the images here amount to
'fair dealing.'
The text in the images comes from the sub-titles to the video. Watching a
video with subtitles turned on - when the option is available - can be an
instructive way of watching. The extract / transcript below of what
Catherine Baker had to say comes from the imperfect subtitles, making
corrections where the subtitles are obviously in error about the wording.
I've promoted the video in a very restricted sense by watching it, taking
the page views to the current total of 141 views but this is a video which
has to be criticized very severely: amongst other things, Catherine Baker
finds an equivalence between jihadis and peacekeers. This video shown
vividly, depressingly the debased values, distortions and illusions to be
found in some sectors of 'higher' education.
This is the transcript,
followed by material on jihadism in Bosnia which is very, very different
from the version supplied by Catherine Baker, ideologist.
From the introduction to the video:
No contemporary figure is more demonized than the Islamist foreign
fighter who wages jihad around the world. Spreading violence, disregarding
national borders, and rejecting secular norms, so-called jihadists seem
opposed to universalism itself. In a radical departure from conventional
wisdom on the topic, Dr Darryl Li's new book, The Universal Enemy: Jihad,
Empire and the Challenge of Solidarity argues that transnational jihadists
are engaged in their own form of universalism: these fighters struggle to
realize an Islamist vision directed at all of humanity, transcending racial
and cultural difference. In this event, Dr Li discusses his new book with
Prof Tarak Barkawi (LSE) and Dr Catherine Baker (Hull), with questions and
answers from the audience. The discussion is moderated by Dr Mahvish Ahmad
(LSE).
The video promotes a view of people engaged in
violent jihad as people struggling 'to realize an Islamist vision directed
at all of humanity, transcending racial and cultural difference.' This is a
despicable view, not one I share in the least or the people whose lives have
been damaged by jihadi terrorism would share.
Catherine Baker, the signer of the Open Letter which opposes arms and
armaments, is also the Catherine Baker who makes excuses for violent
jihad, who seems to find no objection to their use of arms and armaments.
This blatant contradiction is surely obvious. The peacekeepers she never
praises in the video have to be armed to defend themselves and to defend the
people they are trying to protect. Are the peacekeepers to be denied arms?
She's oblivious to the implications of her views. Recommended: a viewing of
the video. Look at the expression on the face of Darryl Li. Doesn't he look
utterly bored?
Transcript (hesitations, repetitions, awkward
phrasing, copying of fashionable phrases as in the words spoken):
16.36: 'First of all, Daryl, I really need to congratulate you on this
book. This is the kind of book I've wanted to exist for many years.' [At
the end of the transcript is one reason for welcoming the book:
so congratulations on this book and may it inspire others as I've found that
my work has been able to help inspire yours.' Catherine Baker as
inspirational thinker, or Catherine Baker the self-promoter.]
I
think I thought if I make a contribution to theorizing this step where I
try to do in that book it makes status like this more possible' this
particular theoretical contribution together 'so you know this was
one of the many questions which was sort of eating away at the veiling
kind of frameworks for the anthropology of post-socialism and you know
of course the mujahid whose mobilities you explore so sensitively here
are another example of mobilities which even the new anthropology of
post-socialist post-conflict Bosnia and the rest of the region we're
still being slow to recognize even a decade or so ago despite all the
advances that has been made in deconstructing the politics of ethnicity
which of course was such an essential step in de-centering the primacy
of ethnopolitics in how researchers understand the region when we're
only looking for ethnic relations between South Slav ethnic groups in
Bosnia we miss these global connections and we miss as well the ability
to connect the region into the contemporary racialized global politics
of security which has been so urgent to do or indeed into the global
history of anti-colonialism which connected Yugoslavia and the countries
of origin of many of the M. through the non-line movement and we see
this in the book's first example you know of Iraqi and Baghdadi former
M. who came to Bosnia not as Marzan Guatanamo
What's the difference indeed between foreign mujadin travelling to a
region and foreign peacekeepers travelling to a region who do both
exercise power across boundaries. Do both have visions of social
transformation to implement and do both get into awkward and asymmetric
intercultural and interlinguistic encounters with the local population.
I'm so glad you're asking by the way well where is all the translation
and interpreting happening because that's you know one of the most basic
everyday questions you know that we need to ask you know about
peacekeeping or you know any other kind of military contact so we know
if we find you know that kind of juxtaposition unsettling between
mujadin and peacekeepers as we might do we need to ask ourselves why and
perhaps we might reply well the difference lies in the legitimacy and
statehood of the entities which sent their troops as peacekeepers or the
endorsement of the u.n. security council gave to these peacekeeping
operations but we can't deny once you've put it in these terms that
non-alignment international peacekeeping and the international jihad in
Bosnia all invoked universalism of a kind and how we morally regard each
one forces us to articulate what we believe are tacit principles of
international order are now these are only some of the contributions of
this frame-changing book it does so much more than document the
mobilities of the jihad and bosnia even though it does that with
incredible richness and nuance it globalizes how we can think about
mobilities of security in the post-Yugoslav space and it de-centres
western order? how we think about peacekeeping there it makes non-white
peacekeepers from the global south central to the history of ? it
helps write religious mobilities back into the non-aligned movement it
creates more space for future scholars who aren't racialized as white to
see themselves as potential ethnographers in Bosnia and it explicitly
names coloniality and the global hierarchies of race as part of the
context of the Yugoslav wars and what happened next in Bosnia so
congratulations on this book and may it inspire others as I've found that
my work has been able to help inspire yours.'
Another perspective, from Wikipedia:
[The jihadis=
quickly attracted heavy criticism from people who claimed their
presence was evidence of violent Islamic
fundamentalism in Europe.
The foreign volunteers even became unpopular with many of the Bosniak
population, because the Bosnian
army had
thousands of troops and had no need for more soldiers, but rather for
arms.
US intelligence and phone calls intercepted by the Bosnian government show
communication between Al-Qaeda commanders and Bosnian mujahideen.Several
of the mujahideen were connected to Al-Qaeda.Osama
Bin Laden sent resources to the Bosnian mujahideen.Two
of the five 9/11 hijackers,
... had fought in Bosnia in 1995. Bosnian
Salafi leader and mujahideen veteran Bilal
Bosnić was in 2015 sentenced to seven years in prison for
public incitement to terrorist activities, recruitment of terrorists to
fight with ISIS in Syria.
In a 2005 interview with U.S. journalist Jim
Lehrer, Richard
Holbrooke said:
There were over 1,000 people in the country who
belonged to what we then called Mujahideen freedom fighters. We now know
that that was al-Qaida. I'd never heard the word before, but we knew who
they were. And if you look at the 9/11 hijackers, several of those
hijackers were trained or fought in Bosnia. We cleaned them out, and
they had to move much further east into Afghanistan.
So if it hadn't been for Dayton, we would have been fighting the
terrorists deep in the ravines and caves of Central Bosnia in the heart
of Europe.[50]
Evan Kohlmann wrote: "Some of the most important factors
behind the contemporary radicalization of European Muslim youth can be found
in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the cream of the Arab mujahideen from
Afghanistan tested their battle skills in the post-Soviet era and mobilized
a new generation of pan-Islamic revolutionaries".
Adam Ferhani, Postdoctoral Fellow,
Sheffield University Department of Politics and International Relations
I've done my best to find out as much as I possibly can - or as much as
I practically can - about Adam Ferhani. I've had an exchange of emails
with him, which has confirmed the adverse view in the heading above. All
the same, this is a tentative judgement. He may have many strengths, but
I've not been able to find many and none of them distinctive or far
greater than the ordinary skills to be expected of any academic in his
field. His abilities as a speaker and explainer are poor. This video,
Simon Rushton and Adam Ferhani on Bordering Practices and Global Heath
Governance During Covid-19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfOz4JQs3Tk&t=138s
gives evidence. He's far less accomplished than Simon Rushton. He
stumbles often and repeats himself often:
'I mean ... you know ... you know ... you know ... if that makes
sense... I'm not sure I've explained that very well.
He wasn't very articulate in giving answers concerned with his
specialism, border controls during the Coronavirus epidemic. He has
opinions on other issues to do with border controls, surely, such as
management of migration. (This is supplementary material, before I come
to the issue of borders and armaments.) I'd be interested to hear his
answers if asked direct questions such as these: should the people who
cross the channel in rubber dinghies, people who fail to claim asylum in
the first country of safety, all be allowed to stay in this country? If
not, what criteria should be used to determine who is allowed to stay?
The cross-channel journey has obvious dangers. Should people be deterred
from risking the journey? If so, what methods would you suggest?
When it came to the issue of signing up to the Open Letter, like all the
people who signed, he didn't need to answer direct questions, questions
he might find difficult to answer. He obviously felt he knew enough
about military matters and armaments and this further aspect of border
security to sign. What would be his answer to these direct, difficult
questions?
Are there effective ways of deterring an aggressor from crossing the
border into a country which make no use of armaments?
Are there effective ways of deterring an aggressor from crossing the
border into a country which make no use of armaments?
Is transforming attitudes throughout the world, including attitudes in
totalitarian countries so that the leaderships of these countries in
future decide never to invade?
Is it an achievable objective to ban
armaments throughout the world so that the leadership of these countries
aren't able to obtain armaments even if they wanted them?
Is Ukraine
justified in fighting Russian forces - using, of course, armaments?
Would Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland be justified in
opposing a Russian incursion into their borders using armaments?
Would Israel be justified in using armaments to oppose an incursion into
Israeli territory through their border with armaments - assuming the
invading force to be ISIS or an Iranian-backed terrorist force, which
would impose a radical fundamentalist regime if it got the chance?
I wonder how effective Adam Ferhani would be in answering questions like
those. I wonder how the other signers would cope.
The expertise which is valued in universities is necessarily in limited areas. In such fields as quantum mechanics,
thermodynamics, atomic and molecular structure, biosynthesis and all the
other fields which contribute to the massive, overwhelmingly impressive
achievement of science, extreme specialization is essential. In the
social sciences too, academics have their specialisms, perhaps with the
hope that one day, it will be their claim to fame, or at least wider
recognition by the academic community.
Many of the contributions
of these social science academics are impressive for one reason or
another, or for many reasons. The analytic skills on display may be
substantial. Sometimes, their contributions are genuinely useful.
But in science, impressive achievement in one minute area isn't usually
taken as an indication that the scientist has anything of value to
contribute to science generally or to the world of value judgments,
political decisions, ethical issues. In the social sciences, all too
often, people with achievement in one limited sphere are eager to show
that they can 'make a difference' in the wider world.
All too
often - very often - the expert in one field is shown up as a dilettante
in another. War studies - an intensely demanding field, demanding a
detailed knowledge of military history in modern times, surely. This is
a golden age of military history writing, and has been for a long time.
There are many non-academics in the field but the achievement of
academics has been massive.
The academic dabblers who wander into the field and who think they can
stake their claim are deluded. They underestimate the scale of the
challenge.
Whatever gave Adam Ferhani the idea that he should sign up to this
deluded manifesto? His specialism, or one of his specialisms, is in a
field far removed from the harsh world of military realities.
This is from one of his publications (written in collaboration with
Professor Simon Rushton):
The International Health Regulations, COVID-19, and bordering practices:
Who gets in, what gets out, and who gets rescued?
Abstract
Bringing insights from critical border studies and exploring the varied
ways in which the response to the COVID-19 crisis has been “bordered,”
we argue that a much broader understanding of “borders” is required in
the IHR and by the WHO, given that much of the exclusionary bordering we
find takes place away from physical points of entry.
The language of this, ' ... much of the
exclusionary bordering we find takes place away from physical points of
entry' is far removed from the extremities of language and experience
necessary to do justice to such events as the Battle of Stalingrad, the
bombardment of Ukrainian cities by the Russians, the mass executions
which have taken place in their millions when a state has not had the
necessary military power to withstand the actions of aggressors. And
those aggressors obviously aren't open to persuasion by anything that
appears in 'The Disorder of Things' or by such trivial-disturbing events
as the Signing of the Open Letter.
I'll give my
conclusion: Adam Ferhani was one of seven people from Sheffield
University who signed the Open Letter. Sheffield University, in
particular, the Department of Politics and International Relations,
contributed a larger number of signers than any other institution apart
from King's College, London. Given the gross irresponsibility of the
manifesto, its refusal to recognize realities - the case argued on this
page - I think that anyone thinking of applying to this Department would
be well advised to think of again.
Professor Claudia Aradau, King's College,
London
Above, screenshot from a video promoting the
MA in International Conflict Studies - Dept of War Studies at King's
College London
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDBxL-o0VFc&t=46s
Professor Aradau's face
has been blocked out here for one reason only: so as not to infringe
copyright. I take the view that the image here amounts to 'fair
dealing.'
King's College, London provided the greatest number of signors to the
naive / disturbing Open Letter which invited the democracies of the
world in effect to abandon armaments - which are, the introductory
material accompanying the Open Letter claims - 'part of the problem, not
the solution.'
Various people took part in the video. I confine
my attention to Professor Aradau. Watching Professor Aradau's
contribution with subtitles turned on - not possible with all videos, of
course - makes the occasion even more informative and off-putting. I
found the content very off-putting, and not because I have an aversion
to theory - but I do have a knowledge of the kind of theoretical
approach she uses.
A transcription of Professor Aradau in action at two places in the
video. Did she have to repeat herself to such an extent, did she have to
make the false claim to uniqueness, did she have to give so much
Standard Stuff, did she have to give routine information served up in
such a routine way? And did she have to produce an insipid offering of
almost complete generality?
This is it:
'What makes the programme in international conflict studies unique is the
way in which it brings together innovative conceptual and theoretical
approaches with an understanding and practice of method. So basically
how do you deploy conceptual toolboxes, how do you deploy concepts that
you learn about in particular empirical sites of conflict, violence and
insecurity.
And later:
'In this programme you will be introduced to a whole series of innovative
and critical methods to give just a few examples ethnographic methods,
discourse analysis, visual methods, historical methods. These are skills
of analysis that you can deploy that you can use in your future careers.
But no matter how off-putting this is, the most off-putting thing by far
about Professor Aradau is the fact that she, and so many others at
King's College London signed a letter which raises very disturbing
questions about King's College London - not all of its teaching
and research but some of it, a very important part.
Students of biological science, in such branches of the subject as
ecology, often go on field courses to give them practical experience.
It's often unthinkable for King's College Students in the Department of
War Studies to go on fieldwork - to a battlefield or an active conflict
zone, where opposing forces are on active service, or to territory
subject to severe terrorist action. But if, hypothetically, they ever
did, what lessons they would learn! Lessons about harsh realities and
the naive irrelevance of a substantial part of what the curriculum has
served up. I put it cautiously. It may well be that most of what they
have been expected to take seriously has none of the seriousness of
witnessing life and death in these places, that the 'conceptual
toolboxes' they have taken with them are stuffed full of irrelevancies.
Professor Luke Martell, University of
Sussex: dystopian
Blocking of part of the image is for one reason only - to comply
with copyright. The image comes from a You Tube video, 'University of
Sussex Professorial Lecture: Luke Martell - Alternative Societies.'
Watching videos of this kind with subtitles (where available) turned on
can be recommended - not so as to appreciate more fully the nuances, so
as to miss any of them - there are no nuances - but to realize even more
fully the mediocrity of the performance. It can't be claimed that this
is any more than a performance, a poor performance. There's drudgery
here, no exhilaration at all. It would be pleasant to report that there
was a trace of exhilaration, the exhilaration of ideas which had at
least a trace - even a faint trace - of originality, but I couldn't find
any. However, I must admit that I didn't stay until the end. I gave up,
I'd had enough.
This is yet another academic falsely claimed by the organizers of the
Open Letter to have expertise in matters to do with security.
Professor Martell's exploration of utopianism is extraordinary. He seems
not to realize the difference between 'difficult to achieve' and
'impossible,' between thought experiments and actions in the real world.
Signing a letter which in effect calls upon democracies to do without
armaments to defend themselves isn't an optimistic move, undertaken in
the hope of creating a much better world. It would abruptly lead to a
world in which the democracies go under and the victory of tyrannies.
His utopian hopes are futile. If he and the other signers had any power
to influence events, they would be very harmful. Their actions - if you
can call signing a letter and play-acting, trying to acting the part of
responsible academics outside the venue of the Arms Fair- are much
closer to dystopian than utopian.
From Karl Popper's 'Conjectures and Refutations,' Chapter 18, 'Utopia
and Violence'
'I consider what I call Utopianism [this is surprising and unnecessary,
since the term 'utopianism' was one with a long history before
Karl Popper wrote - this was obviously not a term he coined himself] an
attractive and, indeed, all too attractive theory; for I also consider
it dangerous and pernicious. It is, I believe, self-defeating, and it
leads to violence.' [the expression is obviously too strong: 'it may
lead to violence' would be preferable.]
'That it is self-defeating is connected with the fact that it is
impossible to determine ends scientifically. There is no scientific way
of choosing between two ends. Some people, for example, love and
venerate violence. For them a life without violence would be shallow and
trivial. Many others, of whom I am one, hate violence. This is a quarrel
about ends. It cannot be decided by science. This does not mean that the
attempt to argue against violence is necessarily a waste of time. It
only means that you may not be able to argue with the admirer of
violence. He has a way of answering an argument with a bullet if he is
not kept under control by the threat of counter-violence ... you cannot,
by means of argument, make people listen to argument, you cannot, by
means of argument, convert those who suspect all argument, and who
prefer violent decisions to rational decisions. You cannot prove to them
that they are wrong ...
...
'That the Utopian method, which chooses an ideal state of society as the
aim which all of our political actions should serve, is likely to
produce violence can be shown thus. Since we cannot determine the
ultimate ends of political action scientifically, or by purely rational
methods, differences of opinion concerning what the ideal state should
be like cannot always be smoothed out by the method of argument. They
will at least partly have the character of religious differences. And
there can hardly be tolerance between these different Utopian
religions.'
Recommended: a reading of the complete chapter, which includes these
recommendations:
'Work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the
realization of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing happiness by
political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete miseries ...
fight for the elimination of poverty by direct means ... or fight
against epidemics and disease by erecting hospitals and schools of
medicine ... But do not try to realize these aims indirectly by
designing and working for a distant ideal of society which is wholly
good.'
Te return to the superficial video.
The slogan to the right in the image above reads,
you + us
Making the future
Help us
attract the best people, deliver world-leading programmes and create
inspiring places to learn, work and live.
These are weary aspirational platitudes that you find again and
again. Is Professor Martell is one of those 'best' people, able to play
a part in delivering world-leading programmes and creating inspiring
places, on the evidence of this lecture? Surely, not. His plodding style
does put him at a disadvantage but the vacuous content is a much greater
disadvantage.
However, this is an impression based on his public face and on the
evidence of one video. I don't discount the possibility that he has
hidden depths, that he has had to work hard and to struggle against
disadvantages, that he has many virtues.
Dr Liam Stanley, Sheffield University
Department of Politics and International Relations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWl9niwIFf0&t=327
In this
video, Dr Stanley introduces his book, 'Britain Alone: How a decade of conflict remade the nation.'
His presentation is impressive: a thinker in action, a clear and incisive
thinker with obvious strengths in analysis - on the evidence of the video.
Another video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
introducing the MA in International Political Economy at Sheffield gives a
very different impression, of a presenter of routine academic platitudes
which may fool a prospective student and get one more paying student to sign
up but which don't enhance the academic's reputation in the least. But his
own signing up to the disastrously misguided Open Letter on the Armaments
Fair calls his reputation into question more fundamentally. Can he really
have been so naive? He really was, it seems. This is one piece of evidence,
one of many, that should discourage thoughtful students from studying
Politics and International Relations at Sheffield, I believe. Here, as
often, the combination of strengths and weaknesses is very striking - almost
grotesque.
