“There’s a pattern here that NYU doesn’t want to acknowledge”
Interview with Mohamad Bazzi, NYU professor barred from the UAE
By
Josh Varlin
23 January 2018
Mohamad Bazzi, an associate professor of journalism at New York University (NYU), was denied the security clearance and work visa needed to teach at NYU’s campus in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Along with Bazzi, Arang Keshavarzian and a third, unnamed professor were denied entry.
Bazzi and Keshavarzian are both US citizens born overseas with Shia Muslim backgrounds, and had to report this information to UAE authorities to be authorized to work at NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus. Under the Trump administration, the United States is attempting to forge an anti-Iranian alliance with reactionary Sunni Persian Gulf oil monarchies, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The UAE’s alliance with Saudi Arabia and the US government is exemplified by the Saudi-led, US-backed war in Yemen, which has led to a humanitarian catastrophe, including famine and a cholera epidemic, in the impoverished country. One of the stated aims of the war is combating Iranian influence in the region. The UAE has contributed troops and air support to this near genocidal war that has left millions on the brink of starvation.
Human Rights Watch recently accused the US government and other Western powers of painting a “rosy picture” of conditions in the UAE, and seeking to “paper over a much darker reality—of disappearances, torture, and detainee abuse, and their own potential complicity in these abuses.”
The same charge can be leveled against NYU, which opened its Abu Dhabi campus in 2008—the first major step in its quest to construct a “Global Network University” after receiving a $50…