I Support Neve Gordon, do you?

For those of you who follow me on this blog, through facebook or on twitter may have discovered that I try to remain as non-descriptive of where I am working as possible. It is not because I am afraid of where I work, it’s not really even that I fear someone coming to find me at my work because honestly if any of you really wanted to dig to figure it out, I’m sure you could with enough time. I also try to remain cryptic so that it’s hard to tell what I am writing is true and what is merely artistic. Often my writing is artistic in nature, pulling from different sources so that only people who need to know what it is about will know.

The main reason for all of this anonymous stuff is to attempt to allow myself to not fear for my job. Why would this be an issue? Well, I work in a country and in a part of that country that is deeply conservative and ignorant of the realities of this world. Most of them supported and likely still support the US Invasion of Iraq and our continued massacre of people in Afghanistan. I’m surrounded by people who fear black people, who likely assume the Muslim couple walking through Walmart are secretly terrorists and most would not agree with me when I am critical of Israel. Now, there are exceptions to this and many of them are my students and friends.

So, while I do not fear for my own safety, I fear that something I say will be used against me as they attempt to find reasons to fire me.

Case in point: Israeli professor Neve Gordon in an opt-ed discussed the need for boycott in order to stop the apartheid oppressive state that was occurring within Israel. He was immediately criticized and called unpatriotic of his own country since he is an Israeli. As an Israeli Jew, his voice has more power in the US & in Israel than that of an Arab (unfortunately). However, it was not the article or the backfire that I have a problem with. It was the fact that people are calling on him to be fired and his boss, the President of Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva where he teaches is not supporting his right for academic freedom. Instead, she is following onto the bandwagon saying

“We are shocked and outraged by [Gordon's] remarks, which are irresponsible and morally reprehensible,” she said, adding, “Academics who entertain such resentment toward their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home.”

(source).

I do not have respect for any University President or administrator that feels it is wrong for the faculty of their university to openly question their government, their community, a religion, a culture – anything. The purpose of the University and by extension, the professors, is to challenge the minds of their students to question the world in which they live in. This is the whole point of academic freedom within academia. Without academic freedom, the University would be a bedrock for brainwashing our youth to believe only what the government wants us to believe. It would put a stop to discoveries related to health & science. It would result in oppressive forces taking root & cracking down on free societies. Academic Freedom is crucial to the success of our university systems and to the success of our cultural advancements. It is important that the faculty feel they have the support of their administrators to challenge the minds of the uneducated as they educate themselves so we can create a society that fosters thought rather than oppresses it.

I urge everyone that desires to keep the world of academia alive as it should be to write to the President of this university to explain why it is important that, whether she agrees with Gorden or not, it is her duty to support the faculty as they engage in academic freedoms. She is free to express her disagreement, but it is wrong of her to throw him under a bus without her support.

Only people who want to oppress will oppress the minds of those who teach. I have a right to criticize my government as a citizen & I have an obligation to do so as a member of the academic world to challenge those who seek to oppress.

Please take a moment to construct a nicely, but strongly worded email and send it to:

Prof. Rivka Carmi, President of Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva
Tel:972-8-6461211/9
Fax:972-8-6472991
Email: president@bgu.ac.il
Her Bio can be found here: http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Units/management/President.htm

Neve Gordon’s Op-Ed can be found here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gordon20-2009aug20,0,1126906.story

I support the freedom of dissent, the freedom to be critical, the freedom to question. I support the freedom of academia and the freedom to think for ourselves. I oppose oppressive ideals, people who support racism, discrimination and apartheid. I am a dissenter and I will not allow my voice not to be heard.

I Resist: Like Never Before

A campaign aimed at bringing awareness as well as building up a global resistance towards Israel due to the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people as been posting videos online over the past few months. This group of individuals from various backgrounds working within Lebanon started their discussions prior to the Israel invasion of Gaza earlier this year. While they were trying to come up with a name for their campaign, they struggled with the idea of whether to draw parallels to other oppressive situations (such as South Africa) in our history. They decided that it was more important to recognize the power that resistance has and so they decided that this resistence was something we have not had before. “Never Before” as they coined it because they urge people to recognize our historical resistances but this time, “Resist, like Never Before.”

Their videos are strong, powerful and full of truth. I ask all of you to watch them all. Go to their youtube page and subscribe to their channel. The first one appears above, two more appear below and more appear on their channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/neverbeforecampaign

But most of all, after viewing these videos, write about your own feelings, your own resistance. How are you going to bring attention to the Palestinian cause? Are you going to sit and be silent? Or are you going to stand up and let your voice be heard? Blog about it, pass along these videos to your family and friends. Write letters to your congressmen, leaders & media outlets. Do not let your voice go unheard, do not stop resisting against the oppressive force of Israel.

This must end, this must end now. I Resist, Like Never Before. Sending love & prayers to my Palestinians friends. Stay Strong, stay firm & fight.

Some of the information in this blog is paraphrased from an interview conducted by Global Voices Online, a great website, check them out at http://globalvoicesonline.org/ & the interview at here.

Hampshire College – Students for Justice in Palestine

The following appeared in The Nation (thenation.com) in “Noted” on March 9th, 2009, written by Richard Kim

On February 7 the trustees of Hampshire College voted to divest from more than 200 companies that violate its social investment policies, including six–Motorola, Caterpillar, United Technologies, GE, ITT and Terex–that profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The college’s official statement couches the decision in the language of social responsibility, citing “unfair labor practices” and “environmental abuse.” But the action is an undeniable victory for Students for Justice in Palestine, which waged a two-year divestment campaign. It was SJP members who organized screenings and talks and staged mock checkpoints, collecting more than 800 signatures from students and faculty in the process. SJP members elected to the board of trustees researched the school’s investment portfolio and made the case for divestment to the investment committee. It is precisely this activism that Alan Dershowitz is targeting with his retaliatory Hampshire-divestment scheme. “What they [Hampshire administrators] have to do is make it impossible for the students to plausibly be able to declare victory,” Dershowitz said. But SJP has already received kudos from around the world, including from Desmond Tutu. And Matan Cohen, an Israeli, Hampshire sophomore and SJP leader, has received inquiries from students at Oberlin, Harvard, Columbia and the universities of Texas, California, Wisconsin and Michigan about SJP’s winning ways.

To find more information about this, check out http://hsjp.org/ – Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine website.

Below is a clip from one of their students to the GRITtv – http://grittv.org
Within this clip, the student brings to light the fact that Hampshire College were the first in the US to protest the apartheid with South Africa.

I urge anyone who is a student on college campus to contact this group and find out what they did that worked, ask them questions and gather support on your own campus to shine a light on this. Often, the voice of reason and the movement of change within the population start with students within the University system.