Professor Herbert Mason, R.I.P.

MASON, Herbert Warren II Of Newbury, MA, died suddenly on New Year's Day. He was Emeritus University Professor and William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of History and Religious Thought at Boston University and President of the Association des Amis Louis Massignon, Paris. Herbert Mason translated many of Massignon's works from French to English. An eminent scholar and translator, writer and poet, he has lived for long periods of time in France and Ireland, and has traveled extensively in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Japan. His books have been translated into numerous foreign languages, including French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Japanese. His verse narrative Gilgamesh, an interpretation of the ancient Sumerian epic poem transcends boundaries of age, language, religion, and time. It was nominated for a National Book Award and is taught in high schools and colleges. He is survived by his wife, Jeanine Young-Mason, his children Cathleen Mason, Paul Mason, Sarah Mason and their families and his step sons Scott Angell, Gregg Angell, and Glenn Angell and their families and his sister, Sarah Nelson and her family. A Funeral Mass will be offered at Immaculate Conception Church, Newburyport, MA on Friday, January 6, 2017 at 10:30 with interment at Mt. Auburn Cemetery immediately following the Mass. There will be a public memorial service on April 22, 2017 at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. A fuller obituary will follow at a later date. The family is establishing an International Writing Prize in his name to be awarded annually.

Published in The Boston Globe on Jan. 5, 2017- See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bostonglobe/obituary.aspx?n=herbert-warren-mason&pid=183342560&#sthash.ckKHEDPw.dpuf

R.I.P. Professor Rouhoullah "Ruhi" K. Ramazani

Ruhi Ramazani, the doyen of Iran scholars in North American, was a distinguished University of Virginia scholar, an elegant and optimistic human being, and a man whose generous heart was legion among those who knew him.  He and his beloved wife Nesta were wonderful hosts and keen interlocutors who often opened their home to students, young and upcoming scholars and fellow colleagues.  Ruhi's passing is a time of sadness but also an occasion to remember and celebrate his seminal work.

Nice tribute to Elizabeth Fernea

My earlier obituary of "B.J."

Ahmed Seif, a man of courage and principle, 1951-2014 (R.I.P.)

When I was privileged to meet with Ahmed Seif I was impressed by his energy, his integrity and his selfless commitment to the cause of human rights in Egypt.  His voice is needed as much now as ever as a new dictator repudiates the notion of shared human rights in Egypt.  

Kenneth Love, R.I.P.

Kenneth Love, the former New York Times correspondent in Cairo and Tehran, died May 13, 2013.  He was 88.  His Suez: The Twice Fought War is a gem.  The book remains a riveting and invaluable account of the 1956 Suez war and the June war of 1967.  He had impressive contacts in Egypt, and he was a master of wonderfully researched reportage.  I admired his talent.

The dauntless Marie Colvin falls in Baba Amr, Homs after filing yet another no holds barred report--“a complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists…the Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians.”

Links to Marie Colvin's last TV interview on February 22, just hours before she and Remi Ochlik were felled by Syrian fire.  Other pertinent connections are found in the Telegraph piece.  On February 21, 2012, she was featured on the BBC giving a first hand and trenchant account of persistent, indiscriminate Syrian tank and artillery fire.

Remi Ochlik, the 28-year old French photojournalist, was killed at Colvin's side.  His photographs from Libya were honored last month with a first prize from World Press Photo and much of his work may be viewed at his website.

Reports from the scene suggest a purposeful efforts by the Syrian forces to target anyone--whether seasoned correspondent or citizen-journalist attempting to get news out of the city.  "Abu Abdu al-Homsi, an opposition activist, said the Syrian Army had cut phone lines into the city and were bombing any buildings where they detected mobile phone signals."

Just the day before, Rami el-Sayed the Syrian blogger whose videos regularly gave lie to Syrian government claims that its forces were not targetting civilians or pursuing a scorced earth strategy.



"He was killed because his pictures portrayed truth..."  Allah yirhamu.

In a tribute on Bambuser, his call for action was posted:

"Babaamr is facing a genocide right now. I will never forgive you for your silence. You all have just give us your words but we need actions. However our hearts will always be with those who risk their life for our freedom. I know what we need! We need campaigns everywhere inside Syria and outside Syria, and now we need all people in front of all embassies all over the world. In a few hours there will be NO place called BabaAmr and I expect this will be my last message and no one will forgive you who talked but didn't act."

"In a class of his own"--Emile Nakhleh on Anthony Shadid

Anthony Shadid's untimely and tragic death brings sorrow to all of us who have followed mass protests in the Arab world in the past year.  The New York Times' obituary this morning describes his grace, perception, intellect, and writing.  I would add, however, that his visceral appreciation of his culture and his burning desire to educate Western readers on the lives of normal people through elegant and graceful reporting are the hallmark of his short but awe-inspiring career.

The Stimson Center's "Seismic Shift" report last year on why so many Americans failed to anticipate the change in the Arab world in 2011 stated that only two groups understood the region well--NGO activists who have worked in the region for years and expert journalists who have covered the popular revolts that toppled dictatorial regimes.  Anthony Shadid headed the list of those journalists.  He was by every measure a distinguished journalist and a gentleman.  I had the honor and pleasure of listening to him at a number of meetings in Washington in recent years and was always impressed by his well-constructed arguments and his passion and compassion for the subjects of his reporting.  When the New York Times hired him from the Washington Post, the Times' management rightly admitted he was a great catch.  It's no exaggeration to say that Anthony Shadid was in a class of his own when it came to reporting, writing, and analyzing the complex cultural context of the societies he was covering. Often, government analysts would read Anthony Shadid’s analytic articles in the Times and before that in the Post whenever they wanted to learn about the cultural nuances in Arab societies. While many journalists focused on the "high politics" of ruling elites, Anthony Shadid delved into the "low politics" of the average people who struggled daily under the repression, corruption, and nepotism of those same ruling elites.  The annals of American journalism will be a vacant place without his reporting.  He will be missed sorely.  I personally will miss reading his elegant and informative reporting in the Times.  May God bless his soul.  Allah yerhamu [God have mercy on him]!

Emile Nakhleh

Former Senior Intelligence Office and author of A Necessary Engagement:  Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World 

Devastating, horrible news--Anthony Shadid dies with his boots on in Syria

I have been reading Anthony's House of Stone, his pitch perfect and beautifully wrought chronicle of his struggle to bring his ancestral home in Marjayoun back to life.  The last phone conversation I had with him was a couple of years ago in Lebanon.  I reached him in south Lebanon and he described himself captured by the challenge of restoring his great grandfather's house.  I will have more to say about the book shortly, but for now I must simply express my profound sadness about Anthony's death.  So many who crossed paths with him will be pained by the loss of this gifted, brave and astounding man.

After the rose petals fall, the scent remains...

Earlier posts here on Anthony Shadid's work.

R.I.P. Joseph "Yossi" Kostiner (September 29, 1949-August 19, 2010)

On August 19, 2010, Yossi Kostiner left this world.  He was a longtime faculty member at Tel Aviv University. I first met him 26 years ago, and I have felt a fondness for him ever since.  Yossi was a bridge builder, a man of moderate politics.  His great generosity, humor and intelligence are indelibly etched in my memory.  His historical scholarship, especially on Arab tribes, was widely revered.  Among his respected works is a book that he co-edited with Philip Khoury of MIT, Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East.

R.I.P. Tony Judt (2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010)

Tony Judt was widely admired for his intellectual courage, his keen mind and his contempt for self-justifying dogmas, particularly those that deployed to rationalize collective pain and cruelty.  He not only wrote pungently of Communism, but of Israel as well.  His prescient and remarkable 2003 NYRB essay remains essential reading for understanding Zionism's failure.

Adam Shatz offers a fitting and affectionate appreciation of Judt's intellectual honesty and his legacy.

Professor Emeritus Richard T. Antoun R.I.P.

Those of you who periodically read “From the Field” will have noticed that I have not posted in some time. Since my return from Baghdad and al-Najaf, and later England, I have been up to ears in a variety of projects, in additional to tending to my students. I will try to resume a more active rhythm in the coming weeks, including a long-promised post on the Hawza, and a reflection on the important Nasrallah programmatic statement.

More urgently, I would like to comment on the horrible news that Richard Antoun has been murdered in his office in Binghamton on November 4, 2009, reputedly by a graduate student who he had worked with some time. I did not know Antoun well enough to count him as a friend, but he did have a formative impact upon me. When I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, more than 30 years ago, he was a visiting professor in anthropology. While I was studying political science at the university, I did foray from time to time into the anthro department (and, of course, I now spend a good part of my professional life in an anthropology department). I fondly recall his wonderful course on Middle East culture, for which I wrote a long paper on conflict resolution that I later drew upon during hot moments in Lebanon. I recall Professor not just as a gentleman, but as a gentle, soft-spoken person who was always sensitive his interlocutor’s feelings. It is hard to imagine him saying anything offensive or cruel. In many ways he always impressed me as content to return to an idyllic Jordanian village far away from the mayhem and corruption of urban life. He was unquestionably a leading figure in Middle East studies. I join, as I hope you will his wife Roslayn in remembering his life and his work.

BJ remembered

From a University of Texas conference in honor of "BJ" Fernea.



See my earlier posts, as well as this personal tribute by "Kamil Pasha".

Unsolicited Middle East advice for the new president

A number of scholars of the Middle East came together last September to pay tribute to a departed friend, Louis J. Cantori. A collection of short papers were presented in Lou's honor at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, which met in Washington in early September. What follows is the introduction to the papers, which now comprise an article in Winter 2008 issue of Middle East Policy. The complete article is available here. The contributors include Bahman Baktiari, Eva Bellin, Eric Davis, Michael Hudson, and Kristin Smith Diwan.

A quarter century ago, about the time that the Middle East Policy Council was created, little serious attention was paid to the Middle East at the annual meetings of the leading disciplinary associations, including the American Political Science Association (APSA). Professor Louis J. Cantori and a small group of colleagues, including this writer, decided in 1983 to create the Conference Group the Middle East (CGME), which convened for the first time in 1984. Just a few months ago, the group convened for the twenty-fourth time in conjunction with the national meeting of APSA in Boston. From the start, it was Lou who cheerfully assumed the leadership of the group, as well as the administrative burden of organizing the annual meeting.

Over the years, the CGME provided a forum for several dozen younger scholars the Middle East, who, thanks to the support of the Ford Foundation, often gained the opportunity to participate in their first U.S. meeting. The CGME focused on myriad themes, including U.S. foreign policy in the region, Islam and politics, the domestic determinants of foreign policy in Middle Eastern states, women and politics, and the prospects for political reform.

Several of the annual meetings inspired collections of articles in this journal and several other respected periodicals. This year, the CGME invited participants to offer advice to the next president and the resulting pieces follow.

Sadly, Lou Cantori was not in the room when the group convened. With his customary humor and courage, Lou confronted a degenerative disease that took far longer to complete its grim course than the best doctors predicted. Lou finally succumbed on May 12, 2008, after a rich academic career that included studies at al-Azhar University in Cairo and professorships at UCLA and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

Lou had been a Marine, and, while he was often deeply critical of U.S. security policies, he loved the customs and traditions of the military. He served for a year in the 1980s on the West Point faculty as a visiting professor. Then, as though he had won a soldier-scholar trifecta, he went on to visiting appointments at the Air Force Academy and the USMC Command and Staff College at Quantico, where he savored the idea of Sergeant Cantori lecturing to large audiences of bright field-grade officers from the Corps.

Lou was a generous man in every respect. All who knew him will always remember his compassion and his endearing, hearty laugh. Anyone who had been around the field of Middle East studies knew that laugh, which came from some special place deep inside him; it was his fingerprint. We know that Lou would have appreciated the articles that follow, and they are dedicated to his memory. It is fitting that they appear in Middle East Policy, since he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Council.

Elizabeth "BJ" Warnock Fernea R.I.P.

Elizabeth W. "BJ" Fernea (1927-2008), I am sad to have to note, died yesterday afternoon (Dec. 2, 2008). A friend reports that she died peacefully holding the hands of her husband Bob and daughter Laila. She left this life with a smile on her face. BJ's many friends will know that tell-tale smile, which was so often accompanied by a knowing nod. Arrangements are still being made, but the funeral will be in Austin.

Added: A memorial page where you may leave your memories of BJ.

It is common to hear friends refer to BJ and her tireless energy, but she wearied like all of the rest of us. The difference was BJ’s capacity to drive herself even when she was pooped; all the while without relinquishing her humor or her impatience with silly rules. She did not know the meaning of “can’t” so she was hard to refuse–though you might have ten things on your to-do list, you knew that she had twice as many. BJ inspired people to reach down inside themselves and to do good things that they had never considered doing before. She was a mentor long before the word became a cliche.
I knew BJ, usually from a distance, for about a quarter century. During a brief stint as a visiting professor at UT in the mid-1980s, I spent some long, memorable days with her. At day’s end, I would discover that she had already organized a dinner party that would have her home brimming with delightful people, or that there was a dizzying evening agenda yet to come of meetings, receptions or lectures.
I cherish her memory as a caring, wise friend, an exemplary teacher, and, most of all, as a women who truly loved humanity, and who showed that love through her films, her books and her relentless compassion.
arn, December 5, 2008

UT-Austin Center for Middle East Studies obituary.

Austin newspaper obit.

LATimes.

London Telegraph.

Zaman (updated)

Salim Amin Nasr R.I.P.

A man of majestic integrity died on Sunday, September 21, 2008. He was a man enormously dedicated to his country and he was moved by a quiet passion for fundamental ideals of fairness and justice. We met nearly 25 years ago. By the late 1980s, Salim conceived and headed the Center for Peace and Reconstruction in Lebanon, a far-sighted effort to bring together leading moderate Lebanese dedicated to reviving civility to Lebanon. I remember the meetings as gatherings of impressive, courageous people intent upon supplanting the war society that then still prevailed in Lebanon.
Later Salim, a gifted sociologist, became a program officer for the Ford Foundation in Cairo. In that capacity he worked very hard to construct a network of Arab social scientists united by their commitment to political reform and improved governance. He was a passionate supporter of the project that Farhad Kazemi and I headed at NYU, the Civil Society in the Middle East program. The program was designed as an effort to evaluate the vibrancy of associational life in the Middle East, as well as examine the mechanisms and tactics regional states used to impede civil society. This was no two-aspirins-at-bedtime approach to political reform but a clear-headed effort to imagine a better future for the region's societies.
Salim might have stayed on at Ford, the foundation certainly wished him to do so, but he decided to return to Lebanon in mid-1990s, where he worked hard on reform and governance issues at the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, then headed by Paul Salem.
I have special memories of Salim, perhaps none so poignant as a high quality conference in Italy, when this rigorous, serious intellectual was moved to tears recounting an episode during the civil war when his life hung by thread at a checkpoint. Colleagues around the room could not control their own tears. He cared deeply about his work because he knew that he was not engaged in a sterile academic exercise, but work that might truly make a difference.
He loved good music, when he was in Manhattan he would make a quiet excursion to a little cafe in Greenwich Village, La Lanterna di Vittorio. In the Cafe di Vittorio there was usually fine opera being played and he would savor wonderful coffee and something sweet. He loved that place.
I last saw him more than a year ago in Jubayl (Byblos), Lebanon. Salim's wonderful wife Marlene asked me to talk to him, to ask him to slow down. He had been ill for several years, and he was quite frail, but I told her he could not slow down, his work kept him going.
He was so very proud of his son and daughter, Amin and Zeina. I am sure they will honor their father with their loves. They, and their mother, have lost a wonderful man, but Lebanon has lost a extraordinary son.
Those who would like to honor Salim's memory are asked to donate in his name to the Lebanese Red Cross.

[Thanks to EB for helping me remember the incident recounted above.]

Lucian W. Pye R.I.P.

Even late in life Lucian Pye was a delightful raconteur and a shrewd observer of Asia. I well remember several very pleasant chats with him in and around Cambridge.

MIT professor Lucian W. Pye, leading China scholar, dies at 86 - MIT News Office: "met to discuss Asia-related research and policy. These included the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S.-China Relations Committee and the Asian Foundation.

'Lucian was a giant in the intellectual world that went well beyond our field of political science,' said Charles Stewart, head of MIT's Department of Political Science. 'For anyone ever called 'hero' or 'scholar' by Lucian, we must now live up to those titles he so cheerfully bestowed upon us.'

His dominant intellectual concern was to explore the cultural differences that help explain why the game of politics differs so greatly from one nation to another. Widely regarded as one of the foremost contemporary practitioners and proponents of the concept of political culture, Pye attempted to penetrate beneath the surface of political life to the deeper layers of attitude, value and sentiment that motivate political behavior.

The unique understanding that he brought to his studies of China, in particular, came in part out of his experience of growing up as a child of Congregational missionaries in Shansi Province, in northwest China. Born in 1921, he lived primarily in China until he went to Minnesota to attend Carleton College. There, Pye met fellow student Mary Toombs Waddill of Greenville, S.C., whom he married in 1945. She would become his partner"

Elias Khoury remembers Darwish

The Poet is dead - The National Newspaper

Abie Nathan R.I.P.

The quixotic Abie Nathan offered a vision of peace to Arabs and Israelis, and, as I was well remember, his "Voice of Peace" pirate radio from "somewhere in the Mediterranean" provided rock music in the service of peace. He was also willing to pay the price of breaking taboos, including at least one stint in an Israeli prison. He made a difference, well beyond his beloved Tel Aviv diner.
Abie Nathan, 81; Israeli activist founded 'Voice of Peace' radio - The Boston Globe

An eloquent tribute to Darwish

Mourid Barghouti is himself a distinguished Palestinian poet who lives in Cairo.
Mourid Barghouti on Mahmoud Darwish, one of the great Arab poets of modern times | Books | The Guardian:

Mahmoud Darwish, 1941-2008

Mahmoud Darwish

Rich, beautifully written 2001 article by Adam Shatz on Darwish.

Darwish's tribute to Edward Said.


Added:

Several people asked me the meaning of the poem that opens M. Darwish's web site. Here is my rough translation. Please, if you can offer a more elegant rendering, please share it.

If you will not be rain my dear one…be a tree.

One enveloped in profuseness…be a tree.

And if you are not a tree oh my dear one

One enveloped in its moisture…be a stone.

And if you are not a stone oh my dear one…be a moon.

In the sleep of your sweetheart…be a moon.

Thus it was said by the princess for her son in his eulogy.

Mahmoud Darwish (roughly translated by ARN, and with thanks to As'ad for a correction)