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February 18, 2005
On Ward Churchill
I have not written about Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who compared the victims of 9/11 to little Eichmanns. I have been unable to formulate my view in exactly the correct way. Not surprisingly, someone else did it for me. Michael Faughnan, whose brother was killed in the destruction of the World Trade Center, has a beautifully written open letter to Churchill at Common Dreams. I was led to this letter via Leiter Reports. I quote the same two passages that Brain Leiter quotes plus one additional one.
Mr. Churchill, what I want you to see is the human face behind the rhetoric. Human beings are not symbols, and your essay's dehumanization of the victims of 9/11 reduces them to mere symbols — drones in a capitalist machine. In this way, you are guilty of what you claim to condemn, that is the dehumanization of individuals. It is the inability to see the human face of "the other" that allows the horrible violence in this world to continue.From what I understand after reading your essay, you wish to give the American people a view of the suffering of the Iraqi and the Palestinian peoples, and provide insight into why the attacks of 9/11 may have occurred. This is noble and legitimate. We do need to see and understand the consequences of the actions of our government and the exportation of our culture, and also do what we can to right the wrongs that have been committed. But to make this point is it necessary to forget the individual humanity of those who died in the attacks and reduce them to mere stereotypes?
... Behind the painful rhetoric you use, I sense a nobler goal, the desire to tell the American people that we must be aware of ourselves in the world, take responsibility and work to understand and change the wrongs that have been committed. If this is your greater message, my brother Chris would have agreed with you whole-heartedly. And if this is your message, please state it clearly, and abandon the dehumanizing rhetoric and the pathetic metaphors. If you cannot make your point this way, it is you who is "braying," playing the role of provocateur and not speaking from any coherent moral conviction.Regrettably, you, like many of those who are zealously attacking you — political leaders, talk-show hosts, those who profess their views around the office water cooler — disgracefully use the victims of 9/11 to advance your own cause. In the view of this family, your grossly inappropriate characterization of Chris and the other 9/11 victims has been surpassed in vulgarity only by the misinformed advocates of aggression who used those beautiful innocents who perished on 9/11 as propaganda for immediate and misguided violence and destruction. [emphasis added]
We believe in free speech, but also know the truth of the phrase "with great freedom, comes great responsibility." Shame on the University of Colorado, certain political leaders and others who attack you personally, while side-stepping a deeper understanding of the views that you appear to be raising.
What else need reasonably be said? The letter is amazing. One should read all of it. Interested folks should also read the University of Colorado's rather weak statements and Brain Leiter's learned comments on academic freedom, freedom of speech as they related to Ward Churchill.
Posted by DuaneSmith at February 18, 2005 10:28 AM | Read more on Current Events |
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