Erdogan's Academics: Middle East Studies Scholars Shill for a Tyrant

Erdogan’s Academics: Middle East Studies Scholars Shill for a Tyrant

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Middle East studies scholars have for years turned a blind eye to subjects disruptive to their politicized narratives, such as the abuse of women in Arab lands, attacks by radical Muslims on Christians and Jews, and the utter failure of Islamism as a path to democracy. As A.J. Cashetta, a senior lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Shillman Ginsburg Fellow at MEF, shows in his latest article for Campus Watch, all it takes for an Islamist politician like Turkey’s Erdogan to gain the tacit support of Western scholars is a free trip to Istanbul. Writing today at the Daily Caller, Caschetta exposes these shameless hacks, which include Michigan’s Juan Cole:

In the days after the July coup attempt against his regime, Turkey’s tyrant Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused a group of scholars attending a conference in Istanbul of conspiring against him and directing the plot. After his widespread paranoid purge of Turkish academia, it seems Erdogan has now found a group of scholars he can live with.

Erdogan’s lackeys in the Turkish press helped him whip up a frenzy against Turkish professoriate, and now his lackeys in the Turkish professoriate who survived the purge are propping up his regime. A conference held in Istanbul on October 8-9, titled “Envisioning a Post-crisis Regional Order in the Sharq Region,” suggests an Islamist takeover of Turkey’s secondary education.

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Winfield Myers

Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.