Bassam Tibi


Bassam Tibi, is a German political scientist and Professor of International Relations. He was born in 1944 in Damascus, Syria to an aristocratic family, and moved to Germany in 1962 where he later became a citizen in 1976. He is known for his analysis of international relations and the introduction of Islam to the study of international conflict and of civilization. Tibi is known for introducing the controversial concept of European Leitkultur as well as the concept of Euroislam to discussions about integration of Muslim immigrants to countries in Europe. He is also the founder of Islamology as a social-scientific study of Islam and conflict in post-bipolar politics. Tibi has done research in Asian and African countries. He publishes in English, German and Arabic.

Academic career

He studied in Frankfurt am Main under Max Horkheimer, obtaining his Ph.D. there in 1971, and later habilitated in Hamburg, Germany. From 1973 until his retirement in 2009, he was Professor for International Relations at Göttingen University. Parallel to this appointment he was, from 1982 to 2000, at Harvard University in a variety of affiliations, the latest being a 1998 to 2000 stint as The Bosch Fellow. Currently, he is an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. Tibi had eighteen visiting professorships in all continents including fellowships in Princeton University, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and most recently at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Washington D.C. Tibi was also a visiting senior fellow at Yale University. After his retirement in 2009, he published "Islam's Predicament with Cultural Modernity", a book embodying his life's work.

Views

On Islam

Tibi is a Muslim, but criticizes Islamism and advocates "reforming" Islam. Tibi also suggests that Muslim immigrants should refrain from engaging in religious missionary activities, Dawa.

On Europe

When it comes to Europe, Tibi distinguishes positive and negative elements of European culture. The positive ones are, according to Tibi, enlightenment, pluralism, civil rights and secularization. Tibi argues that there is a need for Europe to defend these values, especially in times of globalization and migration from Muslim countries. On the other hand, Tibi argues that racism is a European invention, and that Europeans must overcome what he calls "Euro-arrogance" and xenophobia to integrate immigrants.
He criticizes European imperialism, arguing that it disrupted and deformed other cultures. Acknowledging that Muslim conquerors also did some wrong, Tibi argues that at least Muslim conquests were not driven by any kind of racism, unlike the European conquests.

On Germany

He has criticised the left-green dominated German media for stifling debate about Islam in Germany, leading to ordinary people being afraid to state their opinions. As an example he gives Uwe Tellkamp, who expressed criticisim against the German policy of migration and was attacked in mainstream media and painted as a right-extremist. He has also criticised authorities in Germany for not standing up to the large organised Islamic community organisations like the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs and for not supporting liberal Muslims like Seyran Ateş and Necla Kelek.

On Israel

Bassam Tibi has criticized the Likud party of Israel as blocking the peace process. He states that in the 1990s, the Likud adopted the "Three Nos" policy:
"No to the Palestinian State, no to dividing Jerusalem, no to returning Golan Heights to Syria.

According to Tibi, the Likud government of 1996 engaged in provoking Arabs by constructing Har Homa in Arab Jerusalem, and digging a tunnel under the Temple Mount, and thereby exposing Israel to terrorism.

Awards

In 1995 he was decorated by the President of Germany, Roman Herzog, with the Bundesverdienstkreuz, cross of merits first class. In 2003, the Swiss Foundation for European Awareness granted him in Zurich with the annual prize.

Published works

Books in English