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What I’ve Been Up To Lately
- mazel tov to @bluenatic and @grandstreet on the birth of their baby girl 1 week ago
- RT @JTownCrier: Tropper? Kolko? Margulies? Balkany? Dwek? Rubashkin? NO. Moetzes Gedolei Torah condemn AVI WEISS as more offensive. 1 week ago
- Rorschach from Watchmen is the new Freddy Krueger http://bit.ly/7s61Cj 1 week ago
- More updates...
10/03/07
Links for October 3rd
- In Jews, Indian-Americans See a Role Model in Activism
- Archbishop Tutu barred by U. of St Thomas because of criticism of Israel
I’m sorry for Archbishop Tutu; he fell victim to people who discuss words rather than contents, ignorant of the fact that certain terms are not understood in the same way in the Old World as over there. Pointing this out to Tutu would have sufficed, and I don’t have the slightest doubt he’d have clarified himself accordingly. An uncle of mine (from the Catholic side) worked in South-Africa for 60 years till his death and was a friend of Tutu’s; to appoint Tutu to his position was partly done upon my uncle’s suggestion. Having known him, I am 100% confident that he’d never have suggested one for such an important position had he had the slightest doubt concerning his morale integrity and his basically pacifist attitude.
Let me first say that I think that Archbishop Tutu should be allowed to speak wherever he’s invited. Censoring ideas and speech is never a good way to protect our freedom, or our community.
However, I have no sympathy for Tutu. He’s a highly educated man who has been involved in global politics for probably half a century. It is just inexcusable for him to make ‘innocent’ mistakes like conflating Israelis with all Jews (when referring to the powerful ‘Jewish’ lobby.) And let’s not even get into his invocation of the tired old anti-semitic trope of this powerful ‘Jewish Lobby’.
I read his entire speech, and frankly, I am reminded, once again, that philo-semitism is only the flip side of anti-semitism. The ‘Jews’ which he sees are not real, individual people, but a dehumanized, abstract mass onto which he projects his own expectations and attitudes (which are in no small part shaped by his theology.)
I protest the foolish members of the Jewish community who claim to censor speech on my behalf. But will not give a pass to anti-Semitic language and rhetoric, wherever I see it, even spoken by Nobel Prize winners. I recommend that everyone check out April Rosenblum’s thorough and inspiring new pamphlet on fighting anti-semitism in all progressive movements: The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere. http://www.pinteleyid.com/past/. Jews shouldn’t be asked to demand any less of their allies in social justice than we expect them to ask of us.
‘Jewish / Israel lobby’ only has got a negative connotation in the US and in Israel (as widely used in media there); any political activist is a lobbyist. Tongue in cheek, one might be tempted to think that the negative connotation subjectively felt is triggered by in flagranti-embarrassment. If people took offence on Tutu’s choice of words at an earlier happening, they should have pointed it out to him and not waited for another occasion to snub him. That’s simply immature and counter-productive to an effective discourse. Too bad people seem to have forgotten “Dabru Emet”.
I’ve seen many examples of seriously upsetting anti-Catholic sentiments (most bare of any basic knowledge on Christianity and Christian denominations) on “Jewish” sites / blogs. If I want Catholics (or any Christian for that matter; and yes, Catholics is a collective term for several Christian denominations) to speak out against and be sensitive towards anti-Semitism and anti-Semite vocabulary, I need to be able and willing to defend their rights just as well.
I’m pretty sure I’ve met this guy and had a picture of a young me with him. Unfortunately I cannot confirm this, because I destroyed said picture. Maybe there’s another picture from that day, I’ll have to check.
Ray, are you from RSA originally?
No. Was actually some other bishop/archbishop. I asked my mother and sister, but they can’t remember the guy’s name either.
Shouldn’t be too difficult to find out given the comparatively little number of black bishops. If it was an African bishop, chances are high he might be the next Pope, so better don’t destroy any more pictures
I has a papal blessing. I have also destroyed quite a few pictures from my childhood. Class pictures and such.
I can’t avoid the impression that you weren’t too happy as a child.
Clearly you have never worn a meat helmet.
Could you explain that expression to me, please? Afterall, English is a foreign language to me, so I’m not always too familiar with colloquialisms. The best I could find for an explanation was this: http://www.urbandictionary.com.....eat+helmet
Indeed, a helmet made of meat, something of a cross between a barbute and a sallet. Childhood was fine.
And why meat and not cheese?
Cheese does not hold up as well against crushing blows.
Hmmmm, my helmet’s made out of fibreglass…
I go to St. Thomas and just received an e-mail saying the decision to ban Tutu was reversed. I’m very dissapointed by this My school can get far more balanced and logical speakers than Tutu. He was wonderful in S. Africa, but he has no idea what he’s talking about when he speaks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Here’s the text of the e-mail:
For students, faculty and staff
UST president says he made wrong decision, invites Tutu to campus
Father Dennis Dease, president of the University of St. Thomas, has asked that the letter below be sent to St. Thomas students, faculty and staff:
Dear members of the St. Thomas community,
One of the strengths of a university is the opportunity that it provides to speak freely and to be open to other points of view on a wide variety of issues. And, I might add, to change our minds.
Therefore, I feel both humbled and proud to extend an invitation to Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak at the University of St. Thomas.
I have wrestled with what is the right thing to do in this situation, and I have concluded that I made the wrong decision earlier this year not to invite the archbishop. Although well-intentioned, I did not have all of the facts and points of view, but now I do.
PeaceJam International may well choose to keep the alternative arrangements that it has made for its April 2008 conference, but I want the organization and Archbishop Tutu to know that we would be honored to hold the conference at St. Thomas.
In any event, St. Thomas will extend an invitation to Archbishop Tutu to participate in a forum to foster constructive dialogue on the issues that have been raised. I hope he accepts my invitation. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas has agreed to serve as a co-sponsor of the forum, and I expect other organizations also to join as co-sponsors.
Details about issues to be addressed will be determined later, but I would look forward to a candid discussion about how a civil and democratic society can pursue reasoned debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other emotionally charged issues.
I also want to encourage a thoughtful examination of St. Thomas’ policies regarding controversial speech and controversial speakers. In the past, we have been criticized externally and internally when we have invited controversial speakers to campus as well as when we have not. Rather than just move from controversy to controversy, might there be a positive role that this university could play in fostering thoughtful conversation around difficult and highly charged issues? We also might explore how to more clearly express in our policies and practices our commitment to civility when discussing such issues.
I have asked Dr. Nancy Zingale, professor of political science and my former executive adviser, to oversee the planning for the forum. If you have suggestions regarding either the topic or other participants, please contact her at nhzingale@stthomas.edu.
I sincerely hope Archbishop Tutu will accept our invitation. I continue to have nothing but the utmost respect for his witness of faith, for his humanitarian accomplishments and especially for his leadership in helping to end apartheid in South Africa.
Sincerely,
Father Dennis Dease
President
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” S.G. Tallentyre
Adam, no offence meant, but would you consider Tutu ‘logical’ and ‘balanced’ if he had the same opinion you have on the I/P-conflict? Seeing how many people out there disagree with Dan on that very issue and try to ridicule him only just for that matter, do people still understand that frugal discourse requires different opinions? If we don’t admit to different opinions, we easily fall prey to indoctrination – that’s why dictatorships suppress critical intelligencia. I’m pretty certain there are many things Dan and I would disagree on, but can I not just respect him for being a fellow human being that has never done me any harm? May I not appreciate of his intelligence, knowledge and dedication? How do you know Tutu was “wonderful in S. Africa”? Was it because he acted in accordance with your opinion?
I come from an academic tradition that encourages debates as that is the way of exchanging ideas in academia. It’s tough to try to walk insomebody else’s shoes for a mile, but for the sake of understanding the different facets of an issue, it’s well worth it. I can state without embarassement or hurt pride that some of Dan’s positions at least have made me think. Try to benefit from Tutu’s visit just as much. Prepare yourself to ask questions if you feel the need to. Seize the opportunity.
I take issue with Tutu’s the manner of his criticism, such as the use of terms like “Jewish lobby” when referring to what is better described as pro-Israel lobby. It plays off the old stereotype of Jewish power over governments. AIPAC scares me policy-wise, as does Pastor Hagee. But I take issue with statements such as, “People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful. Well, so what?…The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.” Such equivalency is ridiculous. Why not say the British Empire was powerful? While certainly not an ideal example, it is a far better one than Hitler and Stalin.
He also speaks of his pain for Palestinian refugees, but remains silent on the nearly a million Jewish refugees from Arab lands. While the occupation of the West Bank certainly causes many hardships, so do internal causes such as corruption and gang-like violence between differing parties with the Palestinian community. And while I staunchly supported the withdrawal from Gaza a few years ago, the fact that there are rockets launched daily form there and that along the West Bank where the separation wall has been built, has remained relatively peaceful is hard to ignore. Tutu condemns Israel for the occupation but mentions Palestinian terrorism only in passing. This does a disservice to debate.
Criticism of Israel does not automatically mean antisemetism, by any means. And I do not believe that Tutu is antisemetic himself. It is the picture that he, such a prominent figure, paints that is far from complete that I take issue with. He elevates the suffering of the Palestinians and leaves out facts that show the situation to be the complex reality that it truly is. This oversimplification of the conflict is a result of an “underdogism” that many, sadly, subscribe to today.
Debate is important, and needed, but it can only be beneficial when it is honest and complete. The presentation of intentionally incomplete and fallacious arguments serves no good and can, in certain circumstances, cause great harm. I have several Arab friends who I do not agree with on this issue, yet we can debate each other, civily, and remain good friends because we acknowledge the complexity and do not fall back on oversimplification. It would be nice if Tutu could do the same.
As I mentioned above, Europeans – and supposedly Africans as well – would understand “Jewish / Israeli lobby” to be groups taking action for Jewish / Israeli causes and not associate it with anti-Semite remarks that others have made using this term – that term hasn’t even hit the media over here, and even though I read news from the biggest US press agencies every day, I wouldn’t have come across that term either had I not encountered it on Jewish blogs / sites. (BTW, there also are Evangelical lobbies, Catholic lobbies, Episcopalian lobbies etc. in the US.)
As for intentionally incomplete portrayals of international conflicts, have you ever compared and observed how much media coverage of the I/P-conflict differs between US, British, French, Belgian, Austrian, Swiss, Luxembourgian and German media? I will therefore not assume that somebody does intentionally not know or report matters as I’m aware the access to information can be limited. (Having encountered a few white Protestant South-African guest students, I can say that anti-Semitism is still strong there.) When I was in NYC the summer before last, I was not able to obtain one recent single copy of any German daily newspaper in midtown and downtown Manhattan (or any European paper besides ‘The Times’ and ‘The Daily Telegraph’ for that matter). So you may be able to imagine that you cannot always get access to information just as you please.
Your above quotation made me think of a line I occasionally tell my students, “Excusing crap by crap totals up to crap²”. It is never really possible to compare cases of injustice, unfairness etc., partly because their perception is highly subjective, partly because not all sides share the same legal or cultural predispositions. As far as I’m concerned, I think those cases shouldn’t be compared at all to avoid dishonouring the remembrance of the respective victims. But I’m aware many other people feel different about legitimateness of such comparisons.
Asking a person with lots of tiny bits of knowledge to cram his stance into a speech / lecture always results in oversimplification. A university professor who would be at wits’ end at the end of a lecture would neither be worth his money nor his academic title. I was once asked to do a lecture on the editorial history of the ‘Protocols of the Learnt Elders of Zion’ within the framework of a series of lectures being held on the evolution of anti-Semitic stereotypes; cramming all what I found essential into those ninety minutes was simply not feasible, so all I could do was to outline a few key facts, describe the effects the ‘Protocols’ have had and showed the audience a select few examples of how the forgery could be scientifically-proof determined. That time, the lecture worked out fine. Other times, the feedback from the audience told me that I hadn’t quite been able to bring my points of interest across the way I would have wished, and lesser-important aspects had stuck with the audience. Doing a single lecture on a topic or a speech alone does not really compare to teaching a class for a whole term, where you have the time to actually evolve a topic, progress towards an issue and make sure there is common basic knowledge. In my lecture on the ‘Protocols’, I had to assume the audience to be familiar with Macchiavelli, Montesquieu (and each’s political theory), Napoleon III., Tsarist Russia, Rasputin etc. – there simply is not time to brief the audience in on such things in a 90-minute lecture. So I do advise you that if you can spare the time, attend Tutu’s speech, prepare your questions, and try to seriously and constructively be critical. Do not belittle Tutu’s intelligence from the start.