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Nasser Ghaith, an Emirati expert spent nine months in jail as he was charged with insulting top government officials online social forums and persecute government critics—either through arrests or campaigns of verbal and sometimes physical intimidation, the groups say. Authorities recently revoked the citizenship of six naturalised Emiratis because of their ties with a local Islamist organisation. One of them was fired from his job at a national university. In March, Emirati officials closed the offices of the National Democratic Institute, a democracy-promotion organisation backed by the US government. Today in the UAE “there’s less academic freedom, less freedom of expression, less freedom of assembly,” says a reformist Emirati writer who asked to remain anonymous. “There’s been a complete regression. And the worst thing is, nobody cares.”
On the Sidelines Asked about the incidents of repression that have taken place over the last year, students, faculty, and administrators at NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus plead ignorance, minimise the events, or choose their words diplomatically. Whatever may be happening elsewhere in the Emirates, “there was a guarantee that we can enjoy academic freedom, and it has been implemented in every way,” says Mr Bloom, the chancellor. “There is no interference, no sense of concern, fear, or anxiety.” But “in the public realm,” he adds, “there is a sense of commitment to being a guest in a host country which may have different cultural and legal expectations. It’s important for us to respect them when those restrictions don’t erode the basic educational and intellectual mission of the college.” University faculty argue that they teach the same classes they would in New York, and that restrictions on freedom of expression off-campus exist everywhere, including the United States. What’s happened in the UAE in recent months is “an issue of concern because people are getting arrested,” says Nathalie Peutz, an assistant professor of Arab crossroads studies. “It’s not an issue of concern for my teaching.” The case of Mr bin Ghaith launched a lively debate on the NYU-Abu Dhabi campus, if one that didn’t travel much beyond its walls. And Ms Peutz notes that she has assigned articles on the Holocaust to her students, although teaching the subject is banned in Emirati schools. “We talk about everything from religion to government to politics,” she says. “There is no need to
self-censor in any way except to take into account the different assumptions students are coming with.” A UAE researcher who asked to remain anonymous dismisses such freedom as the right to “let the elite speak about things in a controlled environment. You can always stop it.”
The Future Emirati leaders and NYU administrators alike insist that they can’t envisage their experiment foundering. The relationship is built on “the basis of good will,” says Mr Al Nahyan, the education minister. “The intentions are good on both sides. If you get married, you don’t want to talk about ‘What if it doesn’t work out?’ There’s no use speculating.” NYU will not comment on what recourse it might seek if it felt that the agreement had been violated. One student, April Xiong, expressed her mixed feelings about the university’s position in the New York campus’s student newspaper last year. Sometimes, she wrote, “It feels like we’re not actually accomplishing anything here, and that we were falsely promised the opportunity to create change in this country.” But, she cautioned, “It would be foolish to jeopardise everything we could accomplish in the future...by making brash comments right now. Remember, any critical comments made by a faculty member or a student of NYU-AD, although made individually, could cause the government to completely lose trust in NYU-AD as an institution.” Emile Hokayem, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who worked in Abu Dhabi from 2008 to 2010 as a columnist at a national newspaper, agrees with such caution. “These societies are young and developing, and change is going to take a long time,” he says. “There is a real risk that foreign institutions are going to be seen as patronising and disloyal” if they voice criticism. But Mr Davidson, the former professor at Zayed University, says ruling governments count on such self-censorship. Foreign universities and other joint cultural ventures are a form of foreign policy, he says, “investments that will remind the West that these countries are our friends and we should protect them if need be.” In the midst of this debate, Matthew Silverstein, an assistant professor of philosophy at NYU, struggles with the significance of his own presence in Abu Dhabi. “If my reasons for being here were contingent on my belief that my presence will revolutionise the Emirates, I wouldn’t be here,” he says, sitting in the small, lush garden on the campus. “Similarly, if I was sure that NYU-AD would have no effect at all, I also wouldn’t be here.” “It’s hard to see how being home to a world-class university couldn’t have an effect on the guiding norms for society about religion or politics or freedom of expression,” he says. It’s just soon to tell, he adds, what that effect will be.
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