1997年イギリス中東学会と1997年北米中東学会に出席して

中西　久枝
（１班aグループ）

Participating at the 1997 BRISMES (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies) International Conference, and the Annual Meeting of MESA (Middle Eastern Studies Association of North America) 1997

Hisae Nakanishi

1. BRISMES

During quite dry summer days in early July 1997, the BRISMES Conference was held at St. Catherine's College, in the University of Oxford. The meeting was held from July 6th to 9th. The theme of the Conference was "Rethinking Islam," which aimed at discussing "divergent views on a subject of current reinterpretation of Islam."

Most participants and presenters lived in Europe, whether ethnically from the Middle East or not. Among presenters, I was the only Japanese, and met one more Japanese in the audience.

About 50 panels and workshops were held. A large variety of subjects were discusses in the panels and workshops. While the Middle Eastern Studies Association Meeting (MESA) focuses on contemporary politicalissues in the Middle East, BRISMES focuses on historical and cultural issues in the Middle East. For example, several topics are ignored at MESA but typical of BRISMES: Muslim communities in Europe, Muslim-Christian relationships in history, Islamic elements in European Architecture, rethinking concept of Jihad, and so on.

One of the most interesting presentations I attended was "Islam and Politics in Chechenya," in which Prof. Anya Zelkina (Oxford) discussed the important roles Sufi leaders played in the resurgence of Islamic movements after the USSR's collapse. Also to be noted was the presentation entitled "Islam and Media," by Christopher Dickey (Director of News Week, Paris). He criticized America's racist attitude for distorting the images of Muslims, and criticized American feminism for portraying Muslim women as backward.

I made a presentation entitled "British and American Cooperation and Conflict during the Musaddeq Era", at the Panel called "Pahlavi Iran." My study examined the determinants of British and American cooperation and conflict regarding their policies toward Musaddeq. By investigating the concept of "the communist threat," my presentation clarified that it was British rhetoric but American reality. While Britain used this rhetoric to motivate America's involvement in the dispute, America sought international security. Britain pursued their regional economic interests; America, as a superpower, sought to secure Iran from Communism. This fundamental difference in their objectives, as I argued, produced alternating pattern of trust/cooperation and distrust/conflict between two nations.

Three more panelists filled out my panel. Negin Nabavi (University of Manchester) talked about the resurgence of Islamic festivals in the 1970's in Iran as a form of national authenticy. Farian Sabahi (SOAS) evaluated the impact of the Literacy Corps in a village in Pahlavi Iran. Ali Massoud Ansari (SOAS) talked about the myth of socio-economic change in the White Revolution. The panel was attended by about 25 scholars. The Panel's Chair, Prof. Sheikholelami (Oriental Institute, Oxford) said that my paper was one of the most balanced works on the Musaaddeq era. A question was raised to my presentation by Ziba Mir-Hosseini, an Iranian scholar from Cambridge University, who asked what the place of the populace was in my current study. I answered that my presentation this time was from a rather different perspective, a diplomatic perspective, yet I was aware of the role of the masses in supporting Musaddeq's policies.

During the reception dinner, a British Minister of Foreign Office gave an hour-long speech on the prospect of the Palestinian problem. He highly evaluated the role of the EU in the peace-process in the past five years, particularly the EU's leading role in the Palestinian election of January 1996. Moreover, he implicitly criticized Israeli's expanding Jewish settlement in the outskirt of East-Jerusalem. He concluded that negotiation, not military action, should promote further peace between Israel and Palestine, and that the United Kingdom would play a key role.

2. MESA,1997

The 30th Annual Meeting of Middle Eastern Studies Association of North America　(at San Francisco, Nov. 22-25, 1997)

MESA is the biggest academic association in the study of the Middle East. Thus, the 1997 conference had about 130 panels and workshops in which about 500 speakers talked for 3 days. Approximately 2000 participants attended.

The presentations covered a wide range of themes. Historically, topics ranged from early Islamic to the contemporary period. Geographically, most presentations delt with the Middle East, with some coverage of Muslims in Indonesia and Central Asia. Scholars' academic disciplines also varied: Anthropology, Political Science, History, Sociology, Political Economy, and so on.

The following topics seemed to be trendy in this conference: democratization in Middle Eastern societies, ethnic and religious pluralism in the Middle East and Central Asia, politics and economics in the post-Gulf War Arab societies, women writers and women's consciousness in the Middle East.

Three Japanese scholars made presentations in this conference: Mr. Hidemitsu Kuroki (from Institute for Asian and African Languages and Cultures at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), Ms. Akiko Motoyoshi (graduate student at Indiana University), and myself (Hisae Nakanishi from Koryo International College). Mr. Hidemitsu Kuroki discussed socio-economic conditions in Aleppo at the time of Napoleon invasion in Egypt. Ms. Motoyoshi examined "Ekphrase of the Alhambra Palace in Ibn Zamrak."

My presentation concerned the significance of the International Oil Consortium which was established a year after the downfall of the Musaddeq government. I analyzed it from three different perspectives: first, as a solution for the Anglo-Iranian Oil dispute; second, as a means of preserving British oil interest in Iran, and third, as a security issue in American foreign policy. This was my 5th presentation at MESA, yet my panel "Pahlavi Iran" attracted the largest audience of all the panels where I read papers: about 90 scholars attended.

The range of quality of papers presented was great. Yet, there were many interesting presentations. One of them was by Mahmood Sariolghalam (National University of Teheran) in the special session entitled "Perspectives on the Iranian Revolution: Views from Around the Gulf." Based on a national poll, he analyzed the attitude of Iranian people toward the Iranian Revolution of1979. The other is by Soraya El-Torki (American University in Cairo) who discussed recent trends in feminist activities in Cairo. Overall, more monographical and comparative case studies were observed than theoretical works on various aspects of Muslim societies in the Middle East.

Copyright(C)1997-2002, Project Management Office of Islamic Area Studies, All rights reserved.