Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Liberta' di parola nel paese delle liberta'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1843543,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
The land of the free - but free speech is a rare commodity
You can say what you like in the US, just as long as you don't ask
awkward questions about America's role in the Middle East
Henry Porter
Sunday August 13, 2006
The Observer
It used to be said that academic rows were vicious because the stakes
were so small. That's no longer true in America, where a battle is
underway on campuses over what can be said about the Middle East and US
foreign policy.
Douglas Giles is a recent casualty. He used to teach a class on world
religions at Roosevelt University, Chicago, founded in memory of FDR
and his liberal-inclined wife, Eleanor. Last year, Giles was ordered by
his head of department, art historian Susan Weininger, not to allow
students to ask questions about Palestine and Israel; in fact, nothing
was to be mentioned in class, textbooks and examinations that could
possibly open Judaism to criticism.
Students, being what they are, did not go along with the ban. A young
woman, originally from Pakistan, asked a question about Palestinian
rights. Someone complained and Professor Giles was promptly fired.
Leaving aside his boss's doubtful qualifications to set limits on a
class of comparative religion - her speciality is early 20th-century
Midwestern artists such as Tunis Ponsen (nor have I) - the point to
grasp is that Professor Giles did not make inflammatory statements
himself: he merely refused to limit debate among the young minds in
front of him.
This might be seen as a troubling one-off like the story involving the
president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, who suggested that innate
differences between the minds of men and women could be one reason why
fewer women succeed in science and maths careers and was then ousted.
But Giles's sacking is far more important because it is part of the
movement to suppress criticism of Israel on the grounds that it is
anti-semitic. A mild man, Giles seems astonished to find the battle for
free speech in his own lecture theatre.
'It may be sexy to get on a bus and go to DC and march against war,' he
said to me last week. 'It is much less sexy to fight in your own
university for the right of free speech. But that is where it begins.
That is because they are taking away what you can talk about.' He feels
there is a pattern of intolerance in his sacking that has been
encouraged by websites such as FrontPageMag.com and Campus Watch.
Joel Beinin of Stanford University is regularly attacked by both.
Beinin is a Jew who speaks both Hebrew and Arabic. He worked in Israel
and on an assembly line in the US, where he helped Arab workers
understand their rights. Now, he holds seminars at Stanford in which
all views are expressed. For this reason, no doubt, his photograph
recently appeared on the front of a booklet entitled 'Campus Support
for Terrorism'.
It was published by David Horovitz, the founder of FrontPageMag.com who
has both composed a bill of rights for universities, designed to take
politics (for which read liberal influence and plurality) out of the
curriculum and a list of the 100 most dangerous academics in America,
which includes Noam Chomsky and many other distinguished thinkers and
teachers.
The demented, bullying tone of the websites is another symptom of the
descent of public discourse in America and, frankly, one can easily see
the attractions of self-censorship on the question of Middle East and
Israel. Read David Horovitz for longer than five minutes and you begin
to hear Senator Joseph McCarthy accusing someone of un-American
activities.
At Harvard, a few weeks after what was called Summers's 'mis-step', a
much greater row ensued when John Mearsheimer of the University of
Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard published a paper called 'The
Israel Lobby'. Brave because the alleged distortion of US pro-Israel
foreign policy is unmentionable in American public life.
Their paper was printed only in the UK, in the London Review of Books.
In America, there then followed what has been described as the massive
'Shhhhhhhhh!' Apart from the mud-slinging from sites such as Campus
Watch and FrontPageMag, it has had little mainstream circulation and
there has been no real debate.
I have read it several times and cannot disagree with an early point
made by the authors. 'There is a strong moral case for supporting
Israel's existence, but that is not in jeopardy. Viewed objectively,
its past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it
over the Palestinians.' That is the crux. All Americans, to say little
of the British who have been reluctantly welded to US policy, surely
deserve the chance to know about the influence that lobbies such as the
American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) exert at times like
these.
'The bottom line,' say Mearsheimer and Walt, 'is that AIPAC is a de
facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress,
with the result that US policy is not debated there, even though the
policy has important consequences for the entire world. In other words,
one of the three main branches of the government is firmly committed to
supporting Israel.'
Later they say: 'The lobby's influence causes trouble on several
fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face,
including America's European allies. It has made it impossible to end
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a situation that gives extremists a
powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorist and
sympathisers and contributes to Islamic radicalism in Europe and Asia.'
You could add that the lobby's influence may, in the long run, be very
much against Israel's interests.
That is my belief, but these things are rarely discussed in America.
People look vaguely queasy when you raise the subject of the Israeli
lobby, as though the only concern in American discourse is not to
appear anti-semitic, a fear which, I suggest, is sometimes shamelessly
played upon.
The right of people like Mearsheimer, Walt, Beinin, Giles and even
Summers to say what they think must remain inviolate if we are not to
lose the values the West insists its fighting for. A little boldness is
called for on both sides of the Atlantic to question the pressure
coming from both Jewish and Muslim quarters not to discuss issues
openly because of various sensibilities.
In Britain, we should deplore with equal vehemence the temptation to
give into special pleading from, for instance, the Muslim businessmen
who do not want the film of Monica Ali's Brick Lane made in their area.
They have no right to dictate to this ancient democracy of ours - now
theirs - and so stifle free expression.
Last week, during Jon Snow's fascinating Channel 4 documentary about
Muslim attitudes in this country, a woman said that British society was
too decadent for her to allow her children to integrate completely. A
moment's thought suggested that British democracy had much to offer
over the appalling civic values found in most Muslim countries, the
oppression of women in Islam, the untold domestic abuse and the tens of
thousands of children sold into bonded labour in Pakistan - her
husband's country of origin. Her prim separatism fails to grasp the
value of our democratic institutions when set against societies run by
Sharia law and so undermines them.
My view is that in America and Britain, we should think of free speech
as an article of faith, as one of the ways that we define our
civilisation against the forces that were to be unleashed on us this
week, as well as the influences that stifle criticism of Israel and so
enable the disgraceful actions in south Lebanon.
The interests of extreme proponents of Muslim and Jewish faiths combine
in one way or another to assault our ancient democratic traditions and
we must resist them.
Let the students like those in Douglas Giles's class ask whatever they
like.

 there has been no real debate.
Evidentemente nessuno voleva perdere tempo a leggere stronzate e
perdere soldi pubblicandole.
Comunque, se volevano pubblicare il libro, potevano benissimo farlo.
Bastava usare 
www.lulu.com
 e potevano stampare e vendere anche un solo
libro alla volta a chi era interessato.
Ma evidentemente considerano un "diritto inalienabile" essere
pubblicati e distribuiti dalle case più importanti.
Alla fine è stato letto in pratica solo dai suoi avversari ideologici?
Penosi o Pelosi?
E taglio sul resto che sono cazzate immense.
Mirco

they like.
Certo. Loro possono chiedere tutto quello che vogliono.  Giles invece e'
pagato per insegnare solo alcuni argomenti.  Se vuole parlare di altro
lo fa al di fuori dei momenti in cui viene pagato.
-Stefano

>criticism.
ROTFL
L'ANP, l'Arabia Saudita e la Siria devono essere molto piů libere.
Lě, l'antisemitismo a scuola non solo č permesso: č obbligatorio.
Tb
Ps: pezzo davvero comico
-- 
Diario di guerra
www.tonibaruch.blogspot.com