Bernard Lewis’ Valediction

[Valin]

PJ Media:

David P. Goldman

5/9/12

 

 

Prof. Bernard Lewis has just published a memoir which is as much a valedictory statement of his views as a reminiscence about a remarkable life; I review it today at the Jewish webzine The Tablet. Lewis has of course been denounced from the left (by the sulfurous Edward Said) as an “orientalist,” which used to mean scholar of Semitic languages but now means “neo-colonialist.” That is an absurd charge by an incompetent and mendacious scholar, but it ruined Middle Eastern studies in the politically correct (and Arab-funded) world of academia. From the right, he has been denounced as an “Arab apologist” by Pamela Geller and as a “Pied Piper of Islamic Confusion” by Andrew Bostom.

 

One should be cautious about attacking Prof. Lewis, whose analysis of Muslim rage did more to galvanize Western support for the idea of a war on terror than any other single source, and who drew more opprobrium from the academic left than any other personality. His optimism about Islamic democracy ultimately was misplaced, in my view, but should be understood in context. As I wrote in Tablet:

 

(Snip)

 

We’re not going to make the world safe for democracy, or bring about the end of history, or get rid of evil. Nor are we summoning the West to a last stand against the encroaching Jihadi hordes. Islam is dying, too (not quite fast enough for our convenience). This isn’t the struggle against Communism. It’s a nasty, dirty, mopping-up operation. Done correctly, it wouldn’t be too expensive (for us, that is). The term “inglorious” comes to mind. Our epoch is a mediocre and nasty one, rather like the second half of the Thirty Years War. That’s the part no-one remembers; the really interesting participants (Richelieu, Olivares, Wallenstein) had all died and their epigonoi kept the war going until butchery became boring. People don’t like to find themselves in the sort of history that no-one will want to read about in the future. But we have to play the hand we are dealt. And it is not the hand that Prof. Lewis thought it was.

 

(Snip)

 

Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian