|
October 22, 2001
Hani
Shukrallah
Capital
Strikes Back
October 21, 2001
Donald
Rumsfeld
The
al-Jazeera Interview
Mark
Scaramella
Nuclear
Anxiety
October 19, 2001
Mohammed
Sid-Ahmed
Bush's
Palestinian State
Michael
Colby
A
Mailroom Manifesto
October 18, 2001
Mahajan
and Jensen
Avoiding
a New Cold War
Patrick
Cockburn
US
Planes Pound Taliban
Jamey Hecht
Gerald Ford
and the CIA
Mokhiber
and Weisman
3
Arguments
Against This War
October 17, 2001
Ballinger
and Marsh
Music
and War Resistance
Steve
Perry
The
Anthrax Chronicles
Chris
Kromm
Operation
Infinite Disaster
Susan
Block
Sex
Not Bombs
David Vest
Osama Speaks
October 16, 2001
Steve
Perry
War
Without Frontiers
Douglas
Valentine
The
CIA and Anthrax
Patrick
Cockburn
The
Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif
John
Troyer
Return
to Normal?
Moji Agha
A
Jihad Against Ignorance
October
15, 2001
Tariq
Ali
Alternatives
to War
John
Pilger
War
American Style
Umberto
Eco
The
Roots of Conflict
Marwan
Bishara
Clash
of Civilizations? Hardly
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 3, 2001
8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
October
22, 2001
The "Patriotic" Attack
on
Democracy and Higher Education
By Robert Jensen
Based on the mail of the past month,
a lot of people still want me fired from my teaching position
at the University of Texas for my antiwar writings in the aftermath
of Sept. 11.
Many accuse me of being "anti-American,"
but ironically it is their call to limit political debate that
is anti-American, for it abandons the core commitment of a democracy
to the sovereignty of the people and the role of citizens in
forming public policy.
Some of the folks writing to
me -- and to the president of my university -- do not mince words:
Jensen is not supporting the war effort. So, he should be fired.
Other people, perhaps aware
that such a call violates any reasonable conception of free speech
and academic freedom, take a slightly more nuanced position:
Because Jensen is so political in public, he cannot possibly
teach in a fair and objective manner (though none of them has
ever visited my classroom). They reach the same conclusion: He
should be fired.
Both arguments are attacks
on any meaningful conception of democracy and higher education.
Let's test the logic of those calling for my firing.
In several essays between Sept.
11 and Oct. 7 (posted on CounterPunch and at the No
War Collective site, I (along with many others in the antiwar
movement) argued against military retaliation, on moral and practical
grounds -- innocent civilians abroad likely will die, making
future terrorist attacks more likely by deepening the anger and
resentment against the United States in the Arab and Muslim world.
Once the war began, I continued to oppose the reckless Bush policy
that has created a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan as the
war blocks significant food distribution and the civilian death
toll mounts. Events in the world suggest this analysis coming
from opponents of the war has been painfully accurate.
Throughout, I have suggested
that Americans should confront the ugly history of U.S. attacks
on civilians in such places as Southeast Asia, Latin America
and the Middle East to understand why so many around the world
see us not as the defender of freedom but as a violent bully.
If I had supported the president's
decisions and endorsed a military strike, would anyone have suggested
I should be fired? Clearly not; many academics have done that
without criticism.
Whatever the merits of either
the prowar or antiwar position, one thing is inescapable: Both
are political. So, my correspondents' real objections cannot
be that I am political, but instead that my political ideas are
unacceptable to them. That means their actual argument is that
in times of crisis, certain analysis and ideas are not acceptable
and certain views should be purged from public universities,
which sounds pretty anti-American.
It is of course dangerous to
label any idea "anti-American," because the term suggests
that there can be political positions that are fixed forever.
But the foundation of the U.S. system is (or should be) an active
citizenry; being a citizen should mean more than just voting
every few years. We have the right -- maybe even the obligation
-- to involve ourselves in the formation of public policy, and
in that process no one can claim that some proposals cannot be
voiced.
If that's true, then those
calling for my firing are anti-American to the bone; their patriotism
is supremely unpatriotic.
In my writing and speaking
since Sept. 11, I have not supported terrorism or minimized the
depth of the pain that Americans feel. I simply have suggested
that it is important to understand the reasons that terrorists
were willing to fly jets into buildings. Our president's claim
that terrorists "hate our freedoms" is embarrassingly
simplistic, to the point of being childish. It is time to face
honestly the way in which U.S. foreign policy -- so often cruel,
callous and indifferent to the suffering of innocent people --
must be understood as part of this story.
Those are political arguments.
No matter what one thinks of the soundness of the arguments,
expressing them is an act of citizenship. In a democracy, we
do not surrender to leaders the right to make policy undisturbed
by the people.
If people want to eliminate
spirited political discussion from the universities, what is
left of higher education?
If they want to punish the
exercise of citizenship, what is left of democracy?
Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the
University of Texas at Austin, a member of the Nowar
Collective and author of the forthcoming book Writing Dissent:
Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream. He can
be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
|