Not surprisingly, the American Historical Association has voted on a resolution voicing its opposition, collectively as "Historians," to the war in Iraq.
Now, most Americans probably don't care what AHA has to say about the war; it's a personal and professional interest for me. I find some parts of their resolution agreeable, such as taking the Bush administration to task for "excluding well-recognized foreign scholars; condemning as 'revisionism' the search for truth about pre-war intelligence" and "re-classifying previously unclassified government documents." While I might disagree over some specifics in these points, I think such issues should fall under the watchful eye of a scholarly organization. But the remaining resolution is merely partisan points masked as professional concern. I think that former AHA President James Sheehan (who is critical of the Iraq war) says it best (via Spinning Clio):
He said that there are two problems with the resolution. First, he said, “it seems to me that people join the AHA with certain expectations, and the fact that the association will take political positions is not one of them. In a way, you are violating the conditions of membership, and I suspect a few people will leave.”
Second, he said it was important for the association to take political stands on issues “narrowly concerned with the interests of scholars in general and historians in particular.” So he said it was important for the AHA to speak out as it does against visa denials to foreign scholars or restrictions on access to presidential records. “But by taking more general stands, we weaken our moral authority and we become identified with partisan positions,” he said. “There is only a certain amount of moral capital that we have.”
Indeed. Related thoughts by Anthony Paletta.
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