Malone Ripples The Malone Journal
National Council on US-Arab Relations Ron Stockton
University of Michigan-Dearborn May 17, 2012
My career was changed in July of 1987. That was when the National Council on US-Arab Relations took me on a month-long program in Jordan as a Malone Fellow. There were 20 of us on that trip, half Malones and half Kerrs, and we were scheduled to the hilt. We usually did three or four events a day, meeting cabinet ministers, political leaders, activists, intellectuals. We also visited sites such as Jerash, Petra, Wadi Rum, and the Desert Castles. I had never encountered such a rich and intense engagement with ideas and politics and history.
My academic career had started in Africa. I lived in Kenya for two years in the 1960s on a US program to send secondary teachers to that newly independent country. For a kid from a small town in Southern Illinois who had never been anywhere, that was a remarkable experience. I returned to Kenya a few years later to do my doctoral field work and was ultimately hired by the University of Michigan-Dearborn to teach non-western politics. I taught African politics, among other things.
Dearborn is famous for two things: the Ford Motor Company and its Arab population. I had some units in my classes on Middle-East-related issues but nothing significant. In Comparative Politics I had a unit on the Israeli party system and in my class on Revolution a unit on the PLO. I have to say that on many Arab issues I was a bit weak. I remember one afternoon when four Palestinian students came to my office. They said I had misunderstood the Palestinian positions. They had documents and publications (some banned from the US. I never asked where they got them). They had obviously decided I was going to be around a long time, that I had good will, and that investing in my education was worth the effort. They could have challenged and
confronted me, but they didn’t. Their positive approach taught me a lesson about how to handle such matters. I also learned a second lesson: where controversial issues are concerned, use primary source documents.
In 1978 our campus experienced repercussions from the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon. We had quite a few Lebanese students, many being refugees from the
Lebanese Civil War earlier that decade. Quite a few were from Bint Jbail and Tibnin, near the Israeli border. When Arab students put up anti-Israeli posters, a Jewish faculty member began tearing them down. There were some bad words exchanged.
We had in Anthropology a colleague who was a specialist in Arab culture. He came to my office one day and noted that we did not have a single course in our
I was nervous but agreed. In fact, it worked out fine. The Jewish and Arabic students felt they were treated as fairly as possible, given that their instructors were neither Jewish nor Arab, and the students in general thought they had learned something.
The next year my colleague left the university and I had to decide what to do with that course. I didn’t feel fully qualified to teach it but didn’t want it to die either. I
decided to continue, but with some additional education. I joined the Middle East Studies Association, drove to Ann Arbor for a couple of classes on the Middle East, and attended some conferences. I also decided to spend part of my coming sabbatical in the Middle East. Most of that sabbatical was in Africa, where my heart and career were, but a week was in Israel. I did mostly tourist things. I did not interview any academics, meet any political leaders, or attend any political events, but I came back with a sense of how the land looked, how long it took to get from one place to another, and what the city of Jerusalem was like. Those kinds of things are important.
By 1987 I had my first publication relevant to the region. It was in the Middle East Journal and focused on the concept of Christian Zionism as reflected in a public opinion study I had done. For academics, you are not credible until you publish something that other academics want to read, so this was the point at which I officially knew something about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Within two years, I had published two other pieces in the Journal of Palestinian Studies analyzing death patterns in the Intifada. This was the result of a month of interviews and data gathering in Jerusalem following an NCUSAR program in Egypt. But more about that in a minute.
Back in 1987 I had never been to the Arab world, with one exception. My wife and I spent a week in Egypt in 1966 on our way back from Kenya. In early 1987, my friend Barbara Aswad of Wayne State University (Barbara later was president of MESA) gave me a flyer announcing a month-long program in Jordan. She said if I were
interested it could be a good experience.
I had never heard of the National Council on US-Arab Relations but I got very excited. In my application, I specified what commitments I would make to use my new knowledge. Upgrading my classes was obvious. I also did public speaking and promised to pursue that. I had written a couple of analytical opinion pieces for the Detroit News and Free Press and promised to follow up with more. I was trying to sell myself, but was also saying, “I speak your language. I think these things are important and if you will let me join this program I will make you glad you did.”
I was thrilled when I was admitted to the program. We went to Washington for a pre-departure training where I first realized how serious this organization was about education. We had speaker after speaker, each giving rich insights into the region, the issues, and the program. I met the other Fellows and was very pleased.
My second rule was never to complain. Later when the National Council asked me to lead Kerr programs into the region, I told my 17-year-old charges that complaining is a disease. It wrecks the spirit of a group. I told them that they should especially not complain about the food. Someone else’s food is the hardest thing for some Americans to accept. If you don’t like cucumbers for breakfast, keep it to yourself and eat something else. If your head hurts it is likely that everyone else’s head is also hurting and they are not interested in your grumbling. If you are hot or tired, so is everyone else. If the bus breaks down, use it as an opportunity to look around. Complaining will not speed up the arrival of the missing part. Tough love? Maybe. Good advice? Definitely.
Once I led a Malone group to Jordan and Syria and found out how true this rule was. There were two or three Malones who complained about everything, the local host, the food, the program, the litter in the Syrian streets (you don’t see this in Jordan), the schedule. They even complained to the President of the University of Aleppo that they had been slighted because did not get to meet President Assad. That was a poisoned trip, the only bad experience I ever had with a National Council program.
My third rule was to take extensive notes. Too many people view overseas programs as experiential, as if being there is the education. I viewed them as systematic data gathering. Like an obsessed undergraduate, I would write down everything a speaker said. I would describe what was on the wall, what the speaker wore, what the building was like, how things smelled. I would describe the countryside as we drove to a different city, and the types of journals and books in the university library. When we visited a historic site, while others would wander off to take photos or explore, I would hang near the guide to understand why this place was significant.
I was not sure of the purpose of this, but if you want to know what the PLO representative told us in 1987 I can tell you. If you want to know about Crac de Chevalier and its history and construction and architecture, I can tell you.
Later when I began organizing delegations to the Model Arab League, those journal became invaluable. When I needed to know how the Kuwaitis felt about
education or women’s issues, I could go to my notes and see what I wrote about the girls’ school we visited or what the head of the Muslim bloc in parliament told us about the possibility of a female member of parliament. When I wanted to know the Syrian view of Lebanon or Saddam Hussein or the Palestine issue, I could see my notes from our visit with the speaker of the parliament or our interview with Vice President Qaddam.
Those journals will be donated in time to the Bentley Library in Ann Arbor, the state archive, which will house my papers. Maybe someday someone will find them of use.
In September of 1987, after our July trip, I was in Washington for our political science conference and set up a meeting with John Duke Anthony. I had written a lengthy feedback report on that Jordan program, praising its strengths and making suggestions for change. I had concluded that the National Council was a quality organization that ran quality programs and I wanted to contribute whatever I could to their success. I told John and Ron Cathell, then John’s right hand man, exactly that. Two things came up almost immediately. One was the idea of having a Michigan-focused Malone program to go to Iraq the following year. John asked if I would serve as deputy escort of that event.
going to Baghdad did not seem like a good idea so they shifted the program to Egypt. I always regretted not getting to meet Tarik Aziz or whoever would have been the ranking official we met, but Egypt was also very good. We met academics and security advisors and religious leaders at Al Azar University. I also met Alison Richards for the first time. She had arrived in Egypt before the delegation. When we got off of the plane, she walked up to me in a crowd of Malones and said, “Hello, Ron.” If her husband and my wife will forgive me, she had me at hello. She is one of the most efficient, focused, composed, intelligent, and charming people I have ever known.
Soon after we got back, there was a reunion of Michigan Malones in my living room. John Duke Anthony was there and we created the Michigan Committee on US-Arab Relations. I was chosen head of that program. We had a small budget and ran some conferences and events. It was never big but it was good. It was a creative effort to localize and enhance the impact of the Malone programs.
The other thing that came up at that 1988 DC meeting was the Model Arab League. I immediately volunteered to organize a delegation. We have been regular participants now for 34 years. I am proud to say that in most of those years we have won delegation awards. Our award streak is now twelve years, most of which saw us take the top award. Our students really get into the competition. I tell them they have a tradition to uphold and we are not in this for the silver. I tell them to come back with their shields, or on them. They like this and respond to the challenge.
The delegates approach the event with a mix of excitement and apprehension but come back with confidence and pride. They have to study their country’s positions on different issues and also the positions of other countries. Each delegate writes two resolutions their country would like to see passed. These are critiqued at group meetings and rewritten until they are in proper form and content.
Frequently students tell me how important this event was. One young woman who was very shy told me that in the first committee break she went off by herself and cried at the stress, but then realized that her delegation was counting on her so she went back to the meeting and did her job. She was very proud. A Jewish student representing Palestine told me he could not advocate for certain Palestinian political positions but would be happy to be on one of the other committees. He and one of the Palestinian students became best friends as a result of their shared effort to represent Palestine faithfully. Another student told me that she would never have gotten through her law orals had it not been for the Model Arab League. Stories like this are very common.
one of those who called me Uncle Ron. When she walked onto my front porch she embraced my wife and greeted her as Aunt Jane. It was perfect.
A few weeks ago, I received a notice announcing that Sonya had received her doctorate. There are a lot of similar stories, with only the names changed. When we empower a young person, we are setting great things into motion. I realized some years ago, as I got to know the people affiliated with the National Council, that this is what they see themselves as doing: empowering people and turning them lose. It is hard to think of anything more worthy than that goal.
Once I was in Washington for a Kerr training program. There was a Malone group being trained at the same time. John asked me to speak to them. I remember very well two things I told them. First, a lot of people have contributed to make this program possible. You have to return the favor in some way. You have to change your curriculum to incorporate what you learned, you have to give public talks on what you saw, you have to be available to civic groups that need a speaker, and maybe you even have to put yourself on the donation list.
The second thing was something I learned from experience. Having lived in Kenya for three years, I have never gotten that land out of my system, and would not want to. Every time I read something about East Africa, I can add something about the situation that is not in the story. I know how Kenya smells and feels and laughs and hurts. But something about the Arab world is different. There is a unique intensity. Once you engage that land, it pulls you back. It is like an onion. You think you understand something and then you realize there is more to understand. It gets into your DNA.
All faculty evolve over their careers but in the past 25 years my career has moved in a direction I could never have imagined. My class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is my signature course. Students line up to take it. I have written many op ed pieces on the Middle East and the local Arab community, and am frequently interviewed on radio and television. My engagement with that community led me and my colleagues to organize the most systematic public opinion study ever conducted among that population. We interviewed a representative sample of 1,016 Arab Americans and Chaldeans in southeast Michigan. Our book Arab Detroit After 9/11 is definitive in its field.
