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Bernard Lewis
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For the founder of the River Island retail chain, see Bernard Lewis (entrepreneur).
Prof. Bernard Lewis
Prof. Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis (born May 31, 1916, London) is a Jewish-British-American historian, Orientalist, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and specializes in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West. He is especially famous in academic circles for his work on the history of the Ottoman Empire.
In the West, Lewis is a widely-read expert on the Middle East. His advice is frequently sought by right-wing policymakers, including the current Bush administration. [1] In the Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing Martin Kramer, whose Ph.D. thesis was directed by Lewis, considered that, over a 60-year career, he has emerged as "the most influential postwar historian of Islam and the Middle East." [2]
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Born to middle-class Jewish parents in Stoke Newington, London, Lewis became attracted to languages and history from an early age. While preparing for his bar mitzvah ceremony at the age of eleven or twelve, the young Bernard, fascinated by a new language, and especially a new script, discovered an interest in Hebrew. He subsequently moved on to studying Aramaic and then Arabic, and later still, some Latin, Greek, Persian, and Turkish. As with Semitic languages, Lewis's interest in history was stirred thanks to the bar mitzvah ceremony, during which he received as a gift a book on Jewish history. [3]
During the Second World War, Lewis served in the British Army in the Royal Armoured Corps and Intelligence Corps in 1940–41, before being seconded to the Foreign Office where he advised on policy on the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. After the war, he returned to SOAS, and in 1949 – as he was one of the very rare specialists – he was appointed to the new chair in Near and Middle Eastern History at the age of 33.[5]
[edit] Views and influence on contemporary politics
In the mid-1960s, Lewis emerged as a commentator on the issues of the modern Middle East, and his analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the rise of militant Islam brought him publicity and aroused significant controversy. American historian Joel Beinin has called him "perhaps the most articulate and learned Zionist advocate in the North American Middle East academic community ..." [10] Lewis's policy advice has particular weight thanks to this scholarly authority. [7] U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney remarked: "...in this new century, his wisdom is sought daily by policymakers, diplomats, fellow academics, and the news media."[11]
[edit] Criticism and controversies
[edit] Debates with Edward Said
Lewis is known for his literary sparrings with Edward Said, the Palestinian-American literary theorist and activist who "deconstructed" Orientalist scholarship. Professor Edward W. Said (Columbia University) defined Lewis's work as a prime example of Orientalism, in his 1978 book Orientalism. Said asserted that the field of Orientalism was political intellectualism bent on self-affirmation rather than objective study,[15] a form of racism, and a tool of imperialist domination.[16] He further questioned the scientific neutrality of some leading Orientalist scholars such as Bernard Lewis or Daniel Pipes on the Arab world. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Said suggested that Lewis' knowledge of the Middle East was so biased it could not be taken seriously, and claimed "Bernard Lewis hasn't set foot in the Middle East, in the Arab world, for at least 40 years. He knows something about Turkey, I'm told, but he knows nothing about the Arab world." [17]
Edward Said considered that Lewis treats Islam as a monolithic entity without the nuance of its plurality, internal dynamics, and historical complexities, and accused him of "demagogy and downright ignorance."[18]
[edit] Lewis' response
Rejecting the view that western scholarship was biased against the Middle East, Lewis responded that Orientalism developed since then as a facet of European humanism, independently of the past European imperial expansion.[2] He noted the French and English pursued the study of Islam in the 16th and 17th centuries, yet not in an organized way, but long before they had any control or hope of control in the Middle East; and that much of Orientalist study did nothing to advance the cause of imperialism. "What imperial purpose was served by deciphering the ancient Egyptian language, for example, and then restoring to the Egyptians knowledge of and pride in their forgotten, ancient past?"[19]
[edit] Opinions in regards to Armenians and the alleged Armenian genocide
In a November 1993 Le Monde interview, Lewis said that the Ottoman Turks’ killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 was not "genocide", but the "brutal byproduct of war".[20] He further suggested in the interview that "the reality of the Armenian genocide results from nothing more than the imagination of the Armenian people."[21] A Parisian court interpreted his remarks as a denial of the Armenian Genocide and on June 21, 1995 fined him one franc. The court ruled that while Lewis has the right to his views, they did damage to a third party and that "it is only by hiding elements which go against his thesis that the defendant was able to state that there was no 'serious proof' of the Armenian Genocide."[22]
When Lewis received the prestigious National Humanities Medal from President Bush in November 2006, the Armenian National Committee of America took strong objection. Executive Director Aram Hamparian released a statement of pointed disapproval:
“ The President's decision to honor the work of a known genocide denier — an academic mercenary whose politically motivated efforts to cover up the truth run counter to the very principles this award was established to honor — represents a true betrayal of the public trust.[23] ”
The ANCA Press Release noticed that early in his career Lewis asserted the holocaust of Armenians in his 1961 book, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (p. 356): "A desperate struggle between [the Turks and Armenians] began, a struggle between two nations for the possession of a single homeland, that ended with the terrible holocaust of 1915, when a million and a half Armenians perished."[24]
[edit] Lewis' response
Lewis argues that:
“ There is no evidence of a decision to massacre. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence of attempts to prevent it, which were not very successful. Yes there were tremendous massacres, the numbers are very uncertain but a million may well be likely,[25] ...[and] the issue is not whether the massacres happened or not, but rather if these massacres were as a result of a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government... there is no evidence for such a decision.[26] ”
Lewis thus believes that "to make [Armenian Genocide], a parallel with the Holocaust in Germany" is "rather absurd."[25] In an interview with Haaretz he stated:
“ The deniers of Holocaust have a purpose: to prolong Nazism and to return to Nazi legislation. Nobody wants the 'Young Turks' back, and nobody wants to have back the Ottoman Law. What do the Armenians want? The Armenians want to benefit from both worlds. On the one hand, they speak with pride of their struggle against the Ottoman despotism, while on the other hand, they compare their tragedy to the Jewish Holocaust. I do not accept this. I do not say that the Armenians did not suffer terribly. But I find enough cause for me to contain their attempts to use the Armenian massacres to diminish the worth of the Jewish Holocaust and to relate to it instead as an ethnic dispute.[27] ”
[edit] Noam Chomsky
In a 2002 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "Hot Talk" program, Noam Chomsky detailed what he claimed was a series of comments from a declassified Eisenhower Administration memo:
“ President Eisenhower, in an internal discussion, observed to his staff, and I'm quoting now, "There's a campaign of hatred against us in the Middle East, not by governments, but by the people." The National Security Council discussed that question and said, "Yes, and the reason is, there's a perception in that region that the United States supports status quo governments, which prevent democracy and development and that we do it because of our interests in Middle East oil. Furthermore, it's difficult to counter that perception because it's correct. It ought to be correct. We ought to be supporting brutal and corrupt governments which prevent democracy and development because we want to control Middle East oil, and it's true that leads to a campaign of hatred against us."[28] ”
Chomsky claimed that Bernard Lewis, in his writings on the Middle East, omitted this and other evidence of Western culpability for failures in the region. Chomsky claimed:
“ Now, until Bernard Lewis tells us that, and that's only one piece of a long story, we know that he's just a vulgar propagandist and not a scholar."[29] ”
[edit] Lewis' response
On the same program the next month, Lewis responded:
“ Well, Mr. Chomsky's views on Middle Eastern history are about as reliable as my views on linguistics, but I'll let that pass. Obviously imperialist powers are not blameless in this respect. They did contribute, but they are not the cause of what went wrong. What went wrong is what enabled them to come and conquer these places. And the record of the Imperialist powers is by no means uniformly bad. They did some bad things, they also did some good things. They introduced infrastructure, they introduced modern education, they established a network of high schools and universities that previously did not exist, and many other things. They even tried to introduce constitutional government, parliamentary and constitutional government. It didn't take in the Islamic lands, but it worked quite well in India.
The other point he raises, I am in agreement with him, much to my surprise. That is the, how shall I put it, the offense of propping and maintaining repressive governments. I don't think the Shah is a good example of that. The Shah's government was certainly not democratic, but it was a Scandinavian democracy compared to what has happened since in Iran.
It's not our business what goes on inside these countries. Let them have tyrants as long as they're friendly tyrants rather than hostile tyrants. This is the familiar method that's been used in Central America, Southeast Asia and other places.[30]
”
[edit] Stance on the Iraq War
Most recently Lewis has been called "perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq", who urged regime change in Iraq to provide a jolt that — he argued — would "modernize the Middle East". [31] Critics of Lewis have suggested that Lewis' allegedly 'Orientalist' theories about "What Went Wrong" in the Middle East, and other important works, formed the intellectual basis of the push towards war in Iraq.[32]
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