Official British
Efforts to support Middle Eastern Studies
At the British
Universities
1947-2008
A proposal
By
Mazin S.
Motabagani, Ph.d
Even though there are a
number of studies on British Orientalism in the past and present, there are no
studies have been undertaken to high light the official British Government
efforts to enhance, encourage and support Arabic And Islamic Studies at British Universities.
Therefore, there is a real need to focus on these efforts at this time when
there is an enthusiastic efforts in Saudi Arabia
In 1944 Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs Sir Anthony Eden had appointed a committee headed by the Earl
of Scarborough and with membership
of officials from the Ministry of Defense,
Air Ministry, the British Council, Ministry of Education and others named "Interdepartmental Commission on
Enquiry on Oriental, Slavonic East European and African Studies". The committee
presented its report to Right Honourable Earnest Bevin, M.P. in 1947.This report
states the objective of supporting these studies by saying: "A significant
contribution to the world peace is to understand and to know our neighbors both
near and distant". And the report goes on to say: "The East makes
great efforts to know and understand the West and our interest and our
traditions require that among the Western powers we of all peoples should
reciprocate."
This report, which consists
of 192 pages, included important chapters such as: the national importance of
these studies, the building up of an academic tradition and the development of
a public interest. It also includes as an appendix a survey of areas of
interests and at the end; it includes some important recommendations to support
these studies
Upon the recommendations of
this committee, a sub-committee was formed in 1959 to study the development in
the fields of Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African studies headed by Sir
William Hayter. This subcommittee submitted its report in 1961. In this report
recommendations were made to further support these studies and allocate grants
for studies in these fields. Sir Hayter gave a lecture five years after that
date in which he gave an evaluation of the committee's work.([1]).
It is interesting to note that this
sub-committee received grants from American philanthropic organizations to
visit ten American universities and two Canadian universities.
The British government went
on to support these studies by appointing Sir Peter Parker to look into the
needs of Britain
During his visit to Saudi Arabia in 2003 Professor Jergon Neilson, reviled
that a committee is working presently to inquire into the fields of Middle East studies.
Since
we, in the Arab and Muslim world, have trailed behind in establishing
studies of other nations and cultures on wide scale, this study intends to attain
the following objectives:
1-
To read thoroughly in the above-mentioned reports and
their applications.
2-
It also intends
to investigate how the different agencies whether governmental or private have
benefited from these studies.
3-
To learn more about these studies through interviews with
members of the present committee on their work.
4-
To prepare a strong case to support establishing area
studies at Saudi Universities.
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