[Andalusi Studies] Arabism and democracy

[Antonio Giménez]

Dear Cristina,

I find García Sanjuán's message to be very pertinent to this or any 
other email list: publicly branding whole human communities as savage 
and inhuman (or as the height of nepotism, if I may suggest some further 
"readings": 
https://twitter.com/joseramirezdel2/status/1175351309341548544 + 
https://twitter.com/joseramirezdel2/status/1180586840744550401) should 
never and nowhere be overlooked as mere "political or religious ideas" 
(religious, seriously?) and automatically deemed irrelevant or unrelated 
to academia: provided no one is defamed, nor is his private life 
violated, etc., just let people know or ascertain the facts and judge by 
themselves, or even ignore the whole story, if they wish. Otherwise, it 
could be somehow inferred that you mean to protect Ramírez del Río from 
his own very public and deliberate statements, by concealing them from 
our colleagues, particularly those across the pond less acquainted with 
Spanish politics (and, so to speak, "arabistics") or not on García 
Sanjuán's track:
https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/journal-prize-ah-ribs-journal-of-medieval-iberian-studies-best-article-prize/

Were I to tweet, for example, that all of my in-laws belong to one 
African tribe or another (Aït Chiker, Aït Mezdouy, Boqqoya, etc.), which 
happens to be true, I wouldn't mind this being repeated elsewhere, or 
even coping with others calling me "biased" on these grounds, but I 
surely wouldn't understand a colleague telling another not to quote my 
tweet for the pure sake of democracy. I wonder what sort of democracy or 
"democratic netiquette" requires scholars not to quote crystal-clear 
tweets, be they from fellow scholars, politicians or 
scholars-cum-politicians, purportedly in order to save the latter from 
uncertain reprisals (not foreseen by themselves?), and to keep academic 
competition healthy.

As a reminder, political neutrality in Spain is only imposed upon the 
military (Ley Orgánica 9/2011, de 27 de julio, de deberes y derechos de 
los miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas, Preliminary Title, Article 7).

-- 
Antonio Giménez
huesteantigua at yahoo.es