Chicago Indymedia : http://chicago.indymedia.org/archive
Chicago Indymedia

Commentary :: Civil & Human Rights

Churchill, Alam and MEALC

Academia is under attack, with the coronation there is a new McCarthyism sweeping accross campus' throughout the US.

These are just shoot accross the bow, the right won't stop here!
R&R!: The Bush Agenda 2005: Rolling over critical thought, open debate, and truth.

The campaign against dissent in the universities has escalated with the Bush’ inauguration:

-- Ward Churchill, professor at the U. Colorado, author, and American Indian activist, was targeted by a right-wing hate-email campaign threatening death and violence if he were allowed to speak in a panel discussion - "The Limits of Dissent" - at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Churchill was singled out for his consistent anti-imperialist and anti-patriotic politics. (The mass media has made much of an essay he wrote a few years ago about the suicide bombing of the world trade center and the motivations of the bombers. The Wall Street Journal called on Hamilton alumni not to donate to the college because of this situation.) The college administration submitted to the right-wing intimidation and withdrew his invitation to speak. A few days later, Churchill was removed from his position as chair of the Ethnic Studies department U Colorado, and his tenure is being threatened by that school's administration.

-- M. Shahid Alam, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, published an essay, “America and Islam: Seeking Parallels,” in Counterpunch on December 29, 2004. A day after the essay appeared, all at once he began to receive “nasty and threatening e-mails”. Professor Alam found out that this email campaign was orchestrated by www.littlegreefootballs.com and followed by jihadwatch. Org; campuswatch.org; frontpagemag.com; freerepublic.com, etc. On February 1st Professor Alam received an e-mail from Fox News requesting an interview as they were producing a program on him. The O’Reilly factor planned to focus on Professor Alam as the second in a “series” of “un-American” professors.

-- The MEALC Department at Columbia University Following this pattern of witch-hunting, at Columbia University a small group of pro-Israel students (with the support of an outside group, “The David Project') have targeted faculty in the Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Culture department, specifically Professors George Saliba, Joseph Massad and Hamid Dabashi. A few far-right students accuse Columbia faculty of suppressing student opinion, in and out of class. The accused faculty have received hate-mail and death threats, such as an email to one professor calling him a "pathetic typical Arab liar" who should leave the country. The university administration has convened hearings to investigate the faculty. Professor Dabashi, who is Iranian, told the NY Times "To me, these are dark ages," he said. "This is not the United States I moved into in 1976. I don't recognize it." The "David Project' is engaged in similar fascist initiatives at other universities around the country.

These confrontations are part of a broad assault on intellectual dissent and academic freedom. In early 2002, Lynne V. Cheney, wife of VP Dick Cheney, spoke out about a list of 117 quotes that she felt showed how US universities are “dangerously” out of step with the Bush government and its new war. In other words, she was putting out a call: colleges and universities serving as forum for debating and questioning US war moves and the reasons why 911 happened will not be tolerated. Critical inquiry is forbidden!

In the Churchill controversy, the Governor of Colorado went further: "... I deplore the behavior displayed by some students at the regents' meeting. Their abhorrent behavior underscores the culture of violence that can be spawned by inflammatory speeches and essays such as those by Mr. Churchill." His remarks echo Bush’s often repeated statement that “if you raise dissent, then you're with the terrorists.”

This campaign against dissent in the universities echoes the Nazification of Germany in the 1930s. At that time, they launched a program under the slogan “Gleichschaltung” – which means “getting every one in step.” Today the slogan is: “get in line or else.” Rightwing college students are being mobilized to check progressive professors and students – to report on their words and activities. There are threats of firing and funding cut-offs.

There has been some resistance – university professors and students have defended Prof. Churchill and spoken up for the faculty under attack at Columbia. But much more is urgently needed. These attacks will not stop until all critical thinking and protest - on or off campus - is suppressed. That is the Bush Agenda -- a repressive domestic agenda connected to the war on the world.

Join Refuse & Resist! and help to build a national resistance movement! It's All One Attack!

The quote from Martin Niemoeller, a German clergyman imprisoned by the Nazi government during WWII, resonates even more profoundly today:

First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
 
 

Donate

Views

Account Login

Media Centers

 

This site made manifest by dadaIMC software