Can Culture Be Bought in the Gulf?

[qatarperegrine]

The talk of the campus today is the New York Sun's recent article Can Culture Be Bought in the Gulf?, which slams Education City as well as other plans to bring Western cultural institutions to the Gulf.

The final paragraph of the article reads:

A good example of what can happen when modernity is faked can be found in Qatar, where a pretentious emir, Hamad bin Khalifa, and one of his even more pretentious spouses, Sheikha Mozza, became enamored with the idea of creating a Harvard-like educational atmosphere in a land that is a desert of thought and culture and a center of Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalism. Their billion-dollar ventures with Weill Cornell Medical College, the Rand Corporation, Texas A&M University, and Carnegie Mellon University stand today as an embarrassment. Nowhere near enough qualified Qatari or Gulf Arab students have been found, nor have foreigners, even when offered full scholarships, joined what in effect are gated communities in a society living in the 18th century.

Needless to say, this article has not been well-received in Education City. One of our associate deans responded here; the dean of Georgetown responded here; and, as I write this, one of our students is sitting in the ARC writing her own response.

I'm somewhat perplexed. That's not even an accurate list of the Education City branch campuses (Rand isn't a university, and why didn't he lambaste VCU or Georgetown?), and what exactly does it mean to say "nowhere near enough qualified Qatari or Gulf Arab students have been found"? Nowhere near enough for what?

Then again, the article also says that Dubai and the UAE are rival cities, which is rather embarrassing. Dubai is in the UAE.

I think it's good to have some frank discussion of what these Western Universities are contributing to Qatar, not to mention some skepticism of the materialism rampant in this society. It seems a shame to have it discussed in such a needlessly condescending way, though.

Comments

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

Way to ask the tough questions!
Hey, if I wanted to ask softball questions, I'd send them in to the local press, or better yet, the government. There's nothing quite like getting an answer from people on the ground.

I didn't realize just how small CMU was. This helps explain why the list of students on the Dean's List was so small.

My perception is that there's a significant gap between Arab and non-Arab (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) students. Of course that would be the case on any college campus.
There? Maybe. This certainly was the case in the UAE. As a foreign student in the US, however, I certainly don't feel like an outsider by virtue of my nationality; Americans are as happy to mix with me as with anyone else.

What do you mean by "intellectual exchanges"?
Bit of an open-ended question, that one. Visiting speakers who stimulate discussion, debates held on campus, people getting together for pizza every week while talking about the state of the world, anything, really.

I also forgot to ask you about the consequences for students of being in a newly established institution, one which would presumably have teething troubles, and be bereft of traditions.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

"There? Maybe. This certainly was the case in the UAE. As a foreign student in the US, however, I certainly don't feel like an outsider by virtue of my nationality; Americans are as happy to mix with me as with anyone else."

Yeah. But I shouldn't have expected this to occur seamlessly here.

"Visiting speakers who stimulate discussion, debates held on campus, people getting together for pizza every week while talking about the state of the world, anything, really."

We try to bring in visiting speakers; we haven't had many, so far, but our students can take advantage of the other universities'. And that includes people like Madeleine Albright and Bill Clinton, so no complaints there. I'm not sure the students are as equipped to handle controversy as I'd hope, but the speakers are there.

Same thing with debates -- the Doha Debates go on here, and our students get to participate. Tomorrow I'm going to one on whether veiling is an obstacle to integration.

Talking about the state of the world -- I haven't seen a great deal of that. But it would happen in Arabic, so who knows.

"I also forgot to ask you about the consequences for students of being in a newly established institution, one which would presumably have teething troubles, and be bereft of traditions."

It means they get to create the traditions; they like that part. :-)