We can be sure that others will be watching—very closely.
For that matter: we'll be watching closely, too. Please get your facts straight.
* * *
Update August 2011
Following President Hexter's departure from Hampshire a year ago, his Presidential Blog was taken down from the website and archived. I therefore reproduce the post and commentary here, for ease of access.
The Presidential Blog
Ralph J. Hexter, President of Hampshire College
« Thoughts For a New Year…
A Call for Nonviolence and Interpretive Charity
I remember the first months of my presidency, August-September, 2005. I
was planning a light, “getting-to-know-you’ convocation speech. Then Hurricane
Katrina happened. Adequate government assistance quite spectacularly did not
happen, while many college students, including our own, rushed to help. I could
not not make it the subject of my first official campus address.
So today. Three weeks ago I was planning a post on (still)
president-elect Obama’s plans for education, higher education in particular, to
be released on the eve of his inauguration. But since the last days of December
Israel’s military engagement in Gaza has grown from air strikes to ground
incursion. I cannot not write something. What I write now is not, cannot be an
institutional statement. It is a personal one, but it is also the statement of
a college president. What seems most central to that role at a time like this
is that as a college president I stand in and stand for a tradition that prizes
careful thought and reasoned debate. As president, I also have – as quaint as
it may sound in the twenty-first century – a pastoral function for my college community.
This shepherd does not feel bold or certain today. My own despair and
impotence in the face of the latest chapter in a tragic history over decades
(at least) are reflected back to me in the anguish of friends and colleagues
from all around the world who are sending emails and sharing news stories,
editorials, and letters at the speed of light. Many of these messages voice
comparable despair, some, however, are powered by certainty of one sort or
another so that, in their conflicting multitude, they produce in me only deeper
despair, confusion, and impotence.
But then our students come before me. Not all, of course, and I know
that as among my friends and colleagues, so among our students there are
opinions and convictions of all stripes. I want Hampshire to be a place where
all feel comfortable in feeling and expressing their opinions, their
convictions, their deeply held personal beliefs. All of us should be touched
and concerned about conflict and loss of life anywhere and everywhere, but many
in our community have connections, direct or indirect, to Israel and Palestine.
We have a strong Jewish community, which I reference knowing full well that
within this community, again, just about every imaginable view on past and
current conflicts is held. Our office of spiritual life, especially our campus
rabbi, has been creating opportunities for open discussion and mutual support
and respect.
I hear these students, I see our students. A few are citizens of Israel
studying here. A very few come to us from Palestinian territory. They have
overcome hurdles virtually unimaginable to most of us simply to take physical
possession of their U.S. visa, which requires getting across the border to
reach the U.S. consulate in Israel. Some of the latter have not seen their
family in years. As one of our students explained to me, were he to return home
on vacation, the chance of his being able to enter Israel to catch the flight
back to the U.S. is next to nil.
When I say that I hear and see our students, I do not mean only in my
mind’s eye. Twice since we returned for January term small groups of students
have come to meet with me. Many are students I know well and have worked with
on a variety of issues. I truly love our students, but when these filed into my
office this month – Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, students from yet other
countries – their mood was somber, subdued. All the despair I feel is written
on their faces and inscribed on their bodies. Haggard, their faces grey, traces
of tears long since dried up but not washed away. To say that these images of
grieving are Biblical is an irony too deep to bear.
I hear what they want me to do, and I have also heard from others, some
with very different views, who also look to the president for a statement. Some
statements seem as if they would be very straightforward: condemn violence,
condemn attacks on civilians, condemn terrorism, condemn racism, condemn
attacks on educational facilities. Surely I condemn them all, yet every phrase
said (in the context of those unsaid) can have a nuance, can be read as a code.
Then there are the specific things I should ask for: an immediate
cease-fire, an opening of borders. Don’t, I am told by some, just say you are
“for peace,’ because that is in the eyes of some a code for… To be clear: I do
condemn attacks on civilians, I do condemn terrorism, I do condemn racism, I do
condemn attacks on educational facilities – wherever, however, whenever
perpetrated, and by whomsoever. I also condemn torture, kidnapping, and illegal
imprisonment and rendition.
Getting more deeply into the specifics of the present situation, or
issuing a statement in which I align myself with any one of the many
resolutions to sign on to, whether the resolution of the U.N. Security Council
that the U.S. supported until it – until we, to my personal shame – abstained,
or that the City Council of Cambridge, Massachusetts, passed on January 12,
2009, or one of dozens of others, has its risk. I know I cannot proceed without
risking offending others, but the president’s pastoral role demands that he
balance his own conscience and convictions with the necessity that he be there,
with feeling and support, for all.
Moreover, just about any stand taken will inevitably be partial and
incomplete. Everything must be considered in context, but how broad a context,
and how to weigh the elements. Even focusing on the military campaign in Gaza
alone (here most decidedly not the whole context), as a scholar I would like to
believe that clarity about the facts should enable us to work through to a
coherent position. And yet, precisely here, we face a desperate quagmire of
uncertainty. I for one, and in this I know I am not alone, simply do not know
which account among so many conflicting ones to credit, even as I want to
believe that, at the very least, many accounts are proffered in good faith.
There may be even less certainty (as if that were possible!) in more
“official’ accounts, where tendentiousness in one direction or another is even
more obvious. And while news media may be “independent’ to a certain degree,
they are not utterly so, and are furthermore being blocked from full
reportorial access in some sectors. Though the comparison is by no means exact,
I’m reminded of the parable of the three rings in Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise’
(Nathan der Weise, 1779): one ring is authentic. The problem is, no one can
determine which one.
All this leads me to one definite wish, appropriate I hope (however
frustratingly non-specific) for a college president: access to the truth, both
narrowly – all parties seeking in good faith to tell complete truths and
providing access to one and all to provide verifiability – and broadly – an
honest pursuit for impartiality in even the broadest contextualization of
accounts, large and small.
Though I may be naïve in many ways, I am not so utterly a fool that I
don’t recognize the unlikelihood of this in the sublunary world, and its
virtual impossibility on a battlefield or during a time of war. But I am enough
of a student of history to think of other periods when regions were lined up on
two sides of a dispute divided by a battle line that seemed frozen. I think,
for example, of the sectarian wars that wracked Europe for most of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There were in those times serious thinkers
who pondered how one could break free from impacted positions to some sort of
modus vivendi, with the hope – not wrong – that if one adopted strategies that
would move us even gradually to less impacted states of being, there might be a
way to avoid lethal conflict. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans died on the
battlefield or at the hands of executioners or persecuting mobs during the
struggle between Catholicism and reformed Christian churches. (That figure is
probably woefully low; total loss of life during the Thirty Years War in
Germany alone is estimated at multiple millions.) The recently ended armed
conflict in Northern Ireland was only the latest symptom – an optimist might
say the last – in a long history of sectarian violence.
Out of the deep pain and struggle, and in reaction to widespread death
and destruction, and specifically as a way to mitigate it, came thinking that
led, ultimately, to the enlightenment: principles of rationality, of
disinterest (in its good sense). Strategies to prevent conflict were put in
place in government structures, such as the separation of church and state
written into the American constitution by its framers who had the virulence of
these centuries, as well as Enlightenment ideals, very much on their minds.
As an academic, and as the president of an institution of higher
education, it is really in these terms, and on this scale, that I think in the
face of another, acute form of a desperate struggle. I see how noxious is the
rhetorical grandstanding indulged in by so many. I see how the name-calling and
the evocations of other historical horrors take us all further away from
understanding, further away from any hope of resolution on a human scale.
Comparisons to “genocide’ or “apartheid’ simply raise the rhetorical stakes;
they may help speakers or writers score points (in their own minds and the
minds of the like-minded) but they do nothing to advance shared understanding.
On the contrary.
This is the kind of pronouncement a college president, and not only
college and university presidents, should be making. We should be talking about
ways of guiding debate and advancing discussion so that understanding grows and
is shared ever more widely. For example, the concept of interpretive charity –
an old term from Biblical hermeneutics that might seem quaint but, if you think
about it, has a lot in common with the current concept of “active listening.’
Even if an idea, a position, seems outlandish, indeed, especially if your first
impulse is to lash out and say “that’s wrong,’ you listen. You try to
understand where the text, or the person, is “coming from.’ Only after you
understand how and why that person has the idea, and what it means to him or
her, do you consider a critique. You haven’t abandoned the opportunity to critique,
you’ve just delayed it, and what just might happen is that you can expound your
position in such a way that both of you end up sharing a new understanding.
Sharing understandings might just be the precondition to sharing space,
resources – you know, a land.
Since in my last blog posting (Dec. 29, 2008), which contained my
“update’ of the liberal arts, I wrote of a need for a future orientation and
“sustainability’ not just in the realm of energy and the environment but in
multiple registers, I cannot help but see a potential linkage here. The present
dilemma all too well exemplifies the need for the development of an ethics of
responsible sustainability in the area of international relations. We need –
but this will take a lot of work even at the conceptual level – to move beyond
the point where claims made on the basis of one group’s “rights’ or another
group’s “way of life’ hold us back from seeing what will conduce to positive
futures all around.
The argument, for example, that the population of towns in southern
Israel should be free of the threat of bombardment is, to some voices in this
debate, so obvious that neither the assumptions behind it nor its implications
are ever made explicit. Voices on the other side of the debate, who pointedly
ask whether Israelis have more right to live in anxiety-free possession of
their space than Palestinians do in theirs, never get to the level of
interrogating the assumptions and implications involved in the debate itself.
We remain trapped in an irresoluble and ever sharper point/counter-point.
What if, instead, we worked to elaborate an ethical perspective that
views free enjoyment as legitimate to the extent it doesn’t impinge on others’
free enjoyment. This is not so different from the old saw about free speech
ending at the point of the other’s nose. Just as, according to that oft-cited
doctrine, you can make any argument you want in your interlocutor’s face so
long as it’s verbal and you refrain from punching him/her, so the right of free
enjoyment has some limitations. In some future ethics we would more readily
understand the costs of such “rights,’ and might one day come to believe that
these rights are legitimately limited in cases where others’ rights to equally
legitimate free enjoyment are thereby abridged. Of course, there are limits,
too, to the means anyone can legitimately deploy to bring those who overstep
back in line, and violence should not be among the means we countenance.
And it is violence that confronts us now, violence that simply must stop.
I realize that my words may do little to persuade the perpetrators of violence
to stop themselves. And however much I have tried to look to a possible future
beyond the current phase of death and destruction, I am only too conscious of
the fact that philosophizing in the midst of disaster and human tragedy sets me
up to join that worst of all possible teachers, Dr. Pangloss. Pangloss is
pilloried in Voltaire’s Candide for maintaining in the wake of the Lisbon
earthquake of 1755 that ours is “the best of all possible world.’ I do not wish
to be either Pangloss or Voltaire in this moment. Rather, and upon the advice
of the best of all possible friends, I join hands with all Candides in their
bewilderment, at once both more pessimistic and more optimistic because, while
the earthquake was a “natural’ disaster (like Katrina), the ongoing
confrontation in Israel-Palestine is not.
This
entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.
22 Responses
to “A Call for Nonviolence and Interpretive Charity’
- Sarah
Buttenwieser says:
Thank you for writing this. May level heads catch this wind & prevail–violence
isn’t a natural disaster.
- Ilana
Rossoff says:
January 19, 2009 at 2:14 pm
To whom it may concern, I am a current student and am appalled by the
President Hexter’s incapacity to do as he promised: to condemn the attacks on
Gaza, for which he has previously claimed to have deep sympathy. Below is my
response to his blog post.
In light of what “our president” Ralph Hexter posted as his only
response to the most devastating war on Gaza, I think it’s time we look
critically at how we are perceived by the community because of the people who
are paid to represent us. In responding to a request of students to issue a
statement about the crisis in Gaza, Hexter nuanced political warfare (and in
some ways even tried to justify it) while not once explicitly condemning the
murder of over a thousand human beings, which he had previously claimed to be
devastated by. Because of his attempted neutrality during a time in which
neutrality is a crime in itself, Hexter has formally proven that he does not
represent Hampshire: the student body or faculty, staff, and alumni. What he
said officially places him as an obstacle that must be overcome if anything
significant is to be achieved A part of me does not want to qualify the
specifics of his arguments, but there are certain things that are too
outrageous and contradictory to overlook.
The condescension of Hexter’s language regarding the crisis is just as
appalling as what he said and failed to say. Comparing the current conflict to
European, pre-Enlightenment times, in which people were irrational and did not
know how to handle themselves intellectually and diplomatically, is such an
overt perpetuation of the “Orientalist’ attitude that has dominated Western
discourse concerning all things “East.’ This mentality of seeing the other half
of the world as less advanced, less rational, less independently capable of
working out its own problems is essentially what founded and enabled our
colonial history. (If you’re going to condemn racism, try not to be so overtly
racist.) What Hexter has done is brought the same colonial attitude that has dominated
Western academia and politics to one of the few institutions in which people,
professors and students at least, have been actively working to reject just
that. Maybe I’m giving Hampshire too much credit, but I have some reason to
believe there are individuals who are working to move on from history and
prevent a disastrous future before it is sealed in history books; Hexter’s
statement does them a grave injustice.
I think that Hexter’s idea of “interpretive charity’ is an appropriate one to
apply to this piece of writing, his own argument for neutrality and
complacency. Hexter speaks of the need to be an understanding listener and
debater so as to better appreciate where people com from in producing the
thoughts they do. So, I want to take this opportunity to consider what Hexter’s
motivations were in writing what he did; after all, he functions on his own
perceptions of rationality, however misguided they may be, and therefore must
also be understood in the context of his intentions, not just his actions.
Ralph Hexter is the president of a small, poorly-endowed college in the middle
of western Massachusetts (United States). The student body of this college has
a large proportion of Jewish students, some from progressive backgrounds, some
not, and the college depends on the tuition of every single one of its
students. Should a student, or a few, be alienated by a “controversial’
statement of the president, the entire college’s finances could be at risk. So,
in the name of maintaining the pretense that progressive, private institutions
should tolerate all ideas, be they fascist, racist, sexist, or in perpetuation
of any other form of oppression, President Ralph Hexter opted to be politically
correct: pretending to appease all, but consequently saying nothing and
appeasing no one.
Hexter commented that applying generic historical terms of warfare or human
slaughter only nuance the situation and distract from true discourse, and I
think that is an incredibly dangerous thing to claim. If we don’t see what’s
going on Gaza as an absolute genocide, a holocaust of ethnic cleansing and
indiscriminate deaths, then we have doomed the people of Gaza to the same fate
of those who have perished in disguised genocides. How we have been so
inactive, not only in sitting here twiddling our thumbs as we argue over the
semantics of what led up to this crisis, but even in the ways that we have
decided to organize, speak out against it, and rest at that, is beyond my
comprehension. How many more times will Students for Justice in Palestine have
to say that we are DIRECTLY INVESTED IN THE OCCUPATION before people wake up
and realize that we have a chance to take action DURING a brutal, colonial
military oppression and not wait until it is “over’ to lament not having done
anything?? Sign the statement to divest, removing financial ties and denouncing
the occupation, NOW! There are no excuses, absolutely none. Thank you, Ralph
Hexter, for fulfilling your role as a tool in maintaining the status quo for
those who benefit from it, but for the rest of us, it’s time to rise against.
- Students
for Justice in Palestine says:
January 19, 2009 at 2:30 pm
A response to this blog post by Students for Justice in Palestine:
Ralph Hexter’s response to the Israeli War on Gaza was passive,
centrist, and repulsive. His personal statement, posted on his presidential
blog, failed to condemn the attacks on Gaza and the occupation of Palestine in
general, which demonstrates that Hampshire College administration is complicit
in the occupation. This is just another example of supposedly responsible
leaders perpetuating the apolitical and condescending frame of discourse that
has led to no progress in the struggle for “peace in the Middle East.’
While claiming to be making a “personal statement,’ he nonetheless acknowledged
that, as president of the college, he is our “shepherd’’’somehow making us his
sheep’’and therefore claims institutional representation. Hexter made the
statement about himself and his career and refused to acknowledge Hampshire’s
direct investment in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Hexter insists that
he understands the problems with “philosophizing in the midst of disaster.’
Indeed, he has done just that by opting for his own political safety rather than
by joining the global movement against Israeli violence. Consequently, he side
stepped the obligation of all institutions of higher education to resist
genocide’’an imperative more urgent than personal musings. It took 2,370 words
for Hexter to condemn “violence, terrorism, and racism,” and yet he still will
not decide which side to take on the occupation, which is violent, terroristic,
and racist. Hexter is complacent along with other shameful leaders who fail to
take concrete action against genocide. He does not represent Hampshire College
and cannot be taken seriously.
Over 800 students, staff, faculty, and alumni endorsed Students for Justice in
Palestine’s institutional statement, which calls on Hampshire to divest from
corporations that enable and profit from Israel’s military actions in Palestine
and to denounce the occupation explicitly in a formal statement. When Hexter
remains neutral on the massacres in Palestine, the entire Hampshire community
takes a stand for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. How many
white phosphorous bombs have to be dropped on universities, hospitals, or UN
schools before we express our outrage as a community? The time has passed to
remain silent.
- Brian says:
January 19, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, so I cannot go too
in depth into Ralph Hexter’s flawed response to the situation in Gaza and
Hampshire College’s responsibility in answering this crisis. Thus, I will just
engage a couple of the President’s points that are particularly problematic.
First, Hexter’s statement on the current events in Gaza “and its larger
context“ paints the situation simply as a religious conflict. This is
inaccurate and misinformed. The current crisis in Gaza is much more a conflict
of colonialism, with one government colonizing and another people resisting
colonization. It is regrettable that President Hexter has missed this fact. In
light of this, it is not hard to see why over 800 members of the Hampshire
College community have signed Students for Justice in Palestine’s call for
divestment. In our academic realm, Hampshire’s classes stand largely against
colonialism and the history of colonization. Unfortunately, as an institution
as a whole, we still fund and see returns from modern-day colonization efforts
by our investments in companies that directly profit from the illegal
occupation of Palestinian territories.
Second, the President affirms that he cannot make an institutional
statement on the conflict because he must be everybody’s president. By doing
this, he separates himself from the hundreds of community members who have
called for Hampshire College to take a stand on this issue. Presidents must be
willing to take risks, to take stances, and to take actions. However, in this
statement, Ralph Hexter has made it clear that he is willing to do none of
these. Instead, he promotes an environment of debate at the college. What
Hexter fails to see, however, is that for years there has been an environment
of debate at this college on the issue of Israel and Palestine, and vast
numbers of the community have decided to oppose modern colonialism. It is
unfortunate that the President has largely been absent from these debates, but
most of the community is now demanding action after our discussions. The
president is not our shepherd and we are not his sheep. Over 800 members of the
community have come to a conclusion, and that conclusion is action against
colonization.
Again, unfortunately, that is all I have time to respond to. I suspect
most of my peers will pick up on the points that I have missed here.
Brian Van Slyke
Student Trustee
- Quincy
Saul says:
January 20, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Dear Ralph,
I am writing to you as a fellow human, not as the member of any organization.
I have just finished reading your latest blog entry. I apologize if my tone is
disagreeable, but you have seriously offended me and the part of the Hampshire
community that keeps me here paying full tuition.
With all due respect, I would like to alert you to the fact that in your
attempt
to be ‘everybody’s president’, you have only reinforced the convictions of the
most active students on campus that you are not at all their president, much
less their pastor. I assume that you must have foreseen this, but you proceeded
to philosophize vaguely anyway — why, I’m really not sure.
You seem think that students and faculty are sheep to be shepherded, but they
are largely offended and ashamed of your self-centered proselytizing, and will
not stand for it. I hope you can take this to heart. Speaking not as any kind
of participant but only as an observer, I can assure you that your presence at
this college is at best tolerated.
In any case, while you are citing quaint theological concepts and comparing
yourself to Candide, others in the academy all over the world are taking real
stands, and not just talking about themselves.
Perhaps you’ve already seen this latest petition in the Guardian (pasted
below).
I wish that you would gather the courage to join this movement.
I would appreciate a response.
Sincerely,
Quincy Saul
- Jay
cassano says:
January 20, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Hexter Deconstructed
In his most recent post to his Presidential Blog, Ralph Hexter states
that he wishes to be the “pastor’ for all of the Hampshire College community.
Because of his need to be a shepherd for everyone in the Hampshire community,
this makes him unable to make a declarative statement condemning Israel’s war
crimes in Gaza and the continuing unjust occupation of Palestinian land.
Ultimately, President Hexter has alienated a group of thoughtful, intelligent,
and passionate Hampshire community members who have worked tirelessly with the
college’s administration and trustees for two years to urge the College to
publicly divest its endowment of corporations that profit from the Israeli
occupation of Palestine. In being pastor for all, President Hexter has made
himself pastor for none. His statement literally said nothing. It was a
statement ostensibly about Gaza and Palestine, and yet absolutely no specifics
of the conflict were mentioned. President Hexter’s statement itself amounts to
nothing. Nevertheless, there is still a logic to President Hexter’s statement.
The logic of his statement is naturally couched in academic language, but it is
nonetheless oppressive at its core.
First, the implicit analogy of the conflict in Israel-Palestine to North
Ireland and Reformation Era sectarian violence is disingenuous. It portrays the
conflict in Israel-Palestine as a religious conflict between Jews and Muslims
(lest we forget Palestinian Christians). In so doing it plays into the rhetoric
of identifying Palestinians as religious fanatics and terrorists waging an
Islamist holy war against the Jewish people. Nothing could be further from the
truth. The Palestinian people, ironically enough, are some of the most secular
in the Arab world. The conflict does not have its roots in religious violence.
Its roots are in colonialism and racism.
But President Hexter goes further in his attempt to describe the
conflict in religious terms. Why else would he allude to the separation of
church and state as an exemplary virtue of the Enlightenment in a statement
about Israel-Palestine? But beyond this dishonest portrayal of the conflict as
a religious clash, President Hexter’s statement is also disturbingly
Eurocentric. If President Hexter wishes to extol the virtues of the
Enlightenment, why not, for instance, acknowledge European science’s extreme
debt to Arab science? Furthermore, why is President Hexter tangentially
discussing Reformation Era violence when the statement is supposed to be about
Palestine? I appreciate history, but there is a way history can be employed to
shed light on the present and a way it can conceal the present. President
Hexter chose the latter and his statement’s obsession with the Reformation
exposes the Eurocentrism of his interests.
But that is not the end of it. President Hexter’s cursory history lesson
attempts to demonstrate that the worst periods of violence in Europe came
immediately prior to the most significant gains of the Enlightenment. If we are
to adapt the continuing violence in the Middle East to President Hexter’s
framework, we are left with a disgusting conclusion that repeats one of the
most oppressive Hegelian motifs that is directly responsible for justifying
colonialism. President Hexter would have us believe that because the
Palestinians are still waging religious sectarian violence, they are a people
who have not yet been Enlightened. He would have us believe that the
Palestinians still have not received the salvation of Europe and that they need
European intervention in order to be saved from themselves.
Later in his statement, President Hexter attacks Students for Justice in
Palestine’s supposed “rhetorical grandstanding.’ I would like to clarify that
SJP has never used the words genocide or Holocaust in any of its publicity or
materials. While I do not speak for the group, I believe we have never used
those terms because we think that to do so would conceal the particular
suffering of many peoples throughout the world and the Jewish people in
particular. Ultimately, President Hexter locates himself in a blandly liberal
camp that is only concerned with supposed humanitarian intervention in the case
of genocide. I would contend that an injustice does not need to be a genocide
in order to be worth struggling against; sixty years of military occupation and
oppression will suffice.
However, I stand by our use of the term apartheid, which is backed not
only by former President Jimmy Carter, but also by Nelson Mandela, Desmond
Tutu, and a host of other black South African leaders who lived through
apartheid there. If President Hexter wishes to place himself in opposition to
Nobel Peace Laureate Mandela and Archbishop Tutu as the arbiter of when the
term “apartheid’ can be employed, then he should be prepared to appear
ridiculous. Furthermore, President Hexter’s attempt to appeal to our rhetoric
as a means to discredit our work is a tactic that itself amounts to nothing
more than rhetorical posturing on his part. I, personally, would expect more of
an academic once linked with Berkeley’s prestigious Rhetoric department.
I do not disagree with President Hexter that many times debate on this
issue can get locked into a pointless point/counter-point. However, President
Hexter should be blaming our corporate oligopoly media for this lack of true discourse
rather than trying to conflate the position of SJP with the “Hardball’-style
soundbytes we get on the news from people with opposing viewpoints. Perhaps if
he took us more seriously, he would appreciate the sophistication and nuance of
our positions. (I say “positions’ in the plural because President Hexter, so
fond of differences of opinion, ought to acknowledge that even within SJP there
is debate and disagreement.)
Interestingly enough, there is an implicit concession in President
Hexter’s statement. He uses the example of those sympathetic to Israel’s
actions who condemn rockets fired at Southern Israel. He then goes on to state
that those same people never make clear the assumptions that go into this
position and likewise that the people who support the Palestinian cause never
deconstruct the argument to unearth those assumptions. I believe it is
instructive that president Hexter uses the condemnation of rockets being fired
at Southern Israel as his example. He uses this as an example of a debate that
is never deconstructed to reach the underlying assumptions for a specific
reason. Why does President Hexter not use the example of Palestinian resistance
to Israeli occupation and the need to “unearth’ the assumptions of that go into
making that argument? The answer is because there is nothing to deconstruct.
The argument for Palestinian resistance is an argument for Justice, whereas the
argument supporting the Israeli government is one for colonialism and racism.
President Hexter, as a student of Derrida’s work, ought to know better than all
of us that the only concept that cannot be deconstructed is Justice. Thus, in
President Hexter’s own statement there is an implicit, perhaps even
subconscious, admittance that the Palestinian cause is just. I hope he will
recognize this fact.
Lastly, I would like to address President Hexter’s call for
“interpretive charity,’ as he terms it. He says that this concept essentially
amounts to nothing more than “active listening.’ Here again, President Hexter
is propounding a very passive, liberal, centrist position along the lines of:
If we could only all just listen to each other, the world would live in peace.
I would like to address a matter of history, since President Hexter claims
himself to be a student of history. The point I would like to make is very
simple. No one listens to the Palestinians. The Palestinians tried to be heard
in the largely peaceful first Intifada. They tried to rely on International Law
and the United Nations. This failed them. No one listened. We hear the position
of Israeli government every day in our media and our legislative bodies. There
is a reason that no one listens to the Palestinians. It is because the
Palestinians cannot speak. President Hexter should understand this very well.
His graduate work was supervised by Paul de Man, who also supervised Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak’s work. The Palestinians have tried over and over again to
speak, but no one listens. This, Spivak would tell us, is not due to a lack of
trying on the part of the Palestinians. It is not that the subaltern, the
Palestinians, cannot speak. It is that we are incapable of listening.
Jay Cassano
- Kay
Johnson says:
January 20, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I am proud to teach at a college that has students who, having worked
hard to learn about the complex issues involved, are thoughtful and brave
enough to stand up as they have. I understand why they are dismayed at the
implied intellectual and moral even-handedness that seems to be expressed in
the president’s blog calling for “non-violence,’ the implication of equivalence
between “two warring sides,’ the seeming unwillingness to condemn without
qualification the Israeli attack on Gaza when one can easily count and see the
hideous disproportion of the Israeli response in the lost lives and limbs of Palestinian
civilians. Many of us at the college condemn, unambiguously and with full
throat, launching a heavy military attack on a densely populated strip of land
where the people literally have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from the brutal
onslaught. While the long-term political issues are of course more complicated
and may give rise to confusion and qualification, the issue before us today
seems to me, as to many SJP students, simple, warranting first and foremost a
condemnation of the Israeli attack, coming in the last weeks of the Bush
presidency when the Israeli military knew they would receive full support from
Washington. As Americans I think we bear a special responsibility to condemn
this, without equivocation. We too have blood on our hands.
I would like to call attention to the fact that the Hampshire College
Vice President and Dean of Faculty, Aaron Berman, wrote a public letter
condemning the Israeli attack that was signed by sixty-four faculty members.
The letter was simple and straightforward and represented the opinion of most
of us who teach at the college. I am taking the liberty to post the letter
below.
Kay Johnson
Professor of Politics and Asian Studies
Social Science
January 13, 2009
Over the last few weeks we have watched with horror the Israeli military attack
on the Gaza Strip. The loss of life on both sides is tragic, but we must
acknowledge the large number of innocent Palestinian civilians, including
children, who have been killed by Israeli fire. We have been impressed by the response
of many of our students who have organized vigils and demonstrations to protest
the military action and call for an end to the carnage. In a recent statement,
Rabbi Danny Rich, a leader of Liberal Judaism in Great Britain, explained why
he would not participate in Israeli solidarity rallies. Citing Jewish teaching
and humanitarian instinct, Rabbi Rich called, “for an immediate ceasefire which
may prevent further tragedy engulfing the Palestinian civilian population and
save injury and worse to both Israelis in uniform and their fellow citizens in
their homes.’
As concerned individual members of the Hampshire College faculty and
instructional staff, we express our support for our students’ and Rabbi Rich’s
call for an end to the violence, access for journalists, an end to the economic
blockade, and the immediate opening of Gaza to a free flow of human, medical
and material resources.
Aaron Berman, Professor of History
Nathalie Arnold
Polina Barskova
Carollee Bengelsdorf
Michelle Bigenho
Djola Branner
Myrna Breitbart
L. Brown Kennedy
Margaret Cerullo
Elizabeth Conlisk
Rachel Conrad
Jane W. Couperus
Christoph Cox
Sue Darlington
Jaime Davila
Ellen Donkin
John Drabinski
Simin Farkhondeh
Marlene G. Fried
Fatemeh Giahi
Peter Gilford
Alan Goodman
Deb Gorlin
Lynne Hanley
Michele Hardesty
Elizabeth Hartmann
Thomas Haxo
Baba Hillman
Norman Holland
Paul Jenkins
Kay Johnson
Amy Jordan
Peter Kallok
Daniel Kojo Schrade
Jeannette Lee
Jill Lewis
Jerome Liebling
Daphne Lowell
Susana Loza
Kristen Luschen
Marian MacCurdy
Lourdes Mattei
Robert Emmet Meagher
Lynn Miller
Rebecca Miller
James Miller
Rayane Moreira
Rebecca Nordstrom
Junko Oba
Sarah Partan
Fritha Pengelly
Robert M. Rakoff
Flavio Risech
Monique Roelofs
Mary Russo
Robert Seydel
Falguni A. Sheth
Kane Stewart
Jason M. Tor
Susan Tracy
Berna Turam
Stanley Warner
Daniel Warner
Barbara Yngvesson
Vishnupad
- Andrew
Stachiw says:
January 20, 2009 at 9:40 pm
The Blood is on My Hands, and Yours.
Andrew Stachiw, January 18, 2009, in response to President Hexter’s, “A Call
for Nonviolence and Interpretive Charity’
Dear President Hexter, the Trustees, and for the Hampshire Community,
You are not my shepherd, and I am certainly not a sheep. Furthermore, I
would never want to be a part of a flock that attempts to assuage its sins with
words that blind, not illuminate.
Howard Zinn, the famous historian, writer, activist, and professor
wrote, in reference to statements like President Hexter’s of so called “balance’
and “support for all,’ “you can’t be neutral on a moving train.’ I repeat,
President Hexter, the blood is already on our hands, and without taking a
stand, making a real statement, and at the very least, divesting immediately,
your statements of neutrality are tantamount to support for slaughter. Let
there be no mistake – Hampshire College has already made its stance clear:
profit and the support of a minority group of wealthy trustees and donors is
more important than stopping our funding of war machines. When President Hexter
cites e-mail of “comparable despair,’ I ask him, can you quantify the “comparable
despair’ of a mother watching her son’s skin melt off from the explosion of a
missile delivered by an F-16 fighter jet ““ a jet built by companies in which
the school has invested and from which it is gaining profit? Sadly, the answer
is yes, he has quantified this “comparable despair,’ and the net result is $$$;
Hampshire College profiting from these disgusting and atrocious investments has
been deemed more important than the life of this and many other children. And
NO, I say, there is no “nuance’ to this as President Hexter tells us’’when one
follows the dollars, President Hexter’s and the trustees’ stance is quite
clear.
For over a year and a half, SJP has tried to overcome this horrific
alliance for profit; we have been calling for divestment from the companies
that Hampshire is invested in that:
1. Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance of the
Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem;
2. Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance and expansion
of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories;
3. Establish facilities or operations in Israeli settlements in the occupied
Palestinian territories;
4. Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance and
construction of the Separation Wall;
5. Provide products or services that contribute to violent acts that target
either Israeli or Palestinian civilians
In reality, this is one of the most conservative requests possible; we are not
asking for a blanket Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Israel, and in fact
most of the companies that we are calling for divestment from are in fact US
companies. Furthermore, our divestment calls are more than just about
Palestine; they would stop the College’s profiting from companies that provide
military technology and equipment for conflicts across the world. Sure, members
of Hampshire College made a statement condemning the War in Afghanistan, the
first of its kind, but it certainly didn’t stop the college from profiting from
its expansion and continuation.
We have had enough. We have tried every route, we have filled every
possible administrative position to facilitate our goals, and we have talked
and talked, waited and waited; we have had enough.
I could list a multitude of facts and statistics that would untangle us
from what President Hexter describes as a factual “desperate quagmire of
uncertainty.’ But, the truth is, we have already done that. We have shown the
trustees, the president, the faculty, and the student body. And yes, President
Hexter, the majority of your “sheep’ clearly don’t need your direction, as well
over half of the student body has supported and signed our statement’’it was
even good enough for many parents, faculty, and even one of the former presidents
of the college.
I know that I for one can’t stand and wait for my hands to be any more
bloodied by the school’s murderous investments. And even more importantly, we
aren’t just fighting for our own dignity, but the dignity of a people and a
land’’Palestinians and Palestine’’that you have deemed worthy of profiting
from.
Remember, President Hexter, trustees, et al., your so-called neutrality
is just a word, for the actions that your “neutrality’ allows are more bloody
and horrific than you could ever imagine.
Andrew Stachiw
- Steve Goldberg says:
January 22, 2009 at 4:48 pm
President Hexter pretends to take an even-handed position for the
purpose of representing the entire Hampshire community, but he takes great
pains to signal to the anti-Israel bashers that he sympathizes with their
condemnations of the Jewish State. That the students and faculty who posted
comments are too unhinged to recognize that speaks volumes about their
consuming hatred of Israel.
The vast majority of American citizens and political leaders, Democrats and
Republicans, strongly supported israel’s actions in defense of its citizens,
who for more than seven years had been victimized by more than 7000 rockets
launched from Gaza. Anyone who possesses moral clarity recognizes that Israel’s
actions were justified, required and even long overdue.
Why then is the Hampshire community so out of touch with reality, so much on
the fringe? The answer to that question is painfully clear: a substantial
portion of the community is anti-Semitic, filled with rage that the Jewish
State has the audacity to defend itself.
Of course, criticism of Israeli policy is not, in and of itself, evidence of
anti-Semitism. Nevetheless, when the Jewish State is held to a standard not
applied to other nations, and when the vitriol reaches the level displayed in
the comments on these pages, no other conclusion is possible.
The Hampshire community was conspicuously silent about Russia’s attack on
Georgia last year, which was not remotely defensive, and which caused the death
of over 10,000 civilians. Where was the outrage? Where were the protests
condemning the slaughters in Rwanda and Darfur? The Palestinian Authority is
reporting that Hamas is arresting Fatah members in Gaza and subjecting them to
torture, including the gouging out of the Fatah member’s eyes. Why are there no
comments about that?
Hamas is guilty of two war crimes. First, they deliberately launched thousands
of rockets into civilian neighborhoods in Israel. Second, they used Palestinian
children, mosques, schools and hospitals as shields from which they could
attack Israeli soldiers. Why no comment from President Hexter or the students
or faculty?
Simply put, Israel, the Jew among nations, is singled out for imaginary crimes
when the very real crimes of other nations are overlooked.
The mask of tolerance and liberalism has been ripped off, and the disfigured
face of anti-Semitism has been exposed. Fortunately, the Israel bashers
represent only a tiny sliver of American opinion, representative only of
neo-Nazis, Islamic fascists and other racist crackpots, and not the
overwhelming majority of the people of the United States.
If only the administration had the courage to speak out against the bigotry
that infects the Hampshire campus. It’s not likely. It won’t even invite
pro-Zionist advocates to speak or debate on campus
- Steve Goldberg says:
January 22, 2009 at 8:37 pm
To supplement my most recent post, I am Vice-Chairman of the Zionist
Organization of America, the oldest pro-Israel organization in the U.S. I
challenge Hampshire to invite someone from the ZOA to debate the issue publicly
on campus. That will happen if, and only if, Hampshire really believes in free
speech. If the administration, faculty or any student group is willing to host
such a debate, please leave me your contact information in a response to this
blog, and I will reach out to you.
- Noam
Bahat Says says:
January 23, 2009 at 9:24 am
(originally posted in wrong place)
January 20th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
In response to a president’s war effort
On January 16, his highness Ralph J. Hexter has decided to extend his
concern for the violence in the Middle East. This call was not initiated by
him, but was a response to a call by concerned members of the Hampshire
community, members of SJP and myself included. Here, we thought for ourselves,
is a clear cut situation, where the state of Israel brutalizes the poor people
of Gaza, Rafah, Han-Yunes and even in the West Bank. Surely Ralph will
understand the importance of him taking a stand. Let me begin my response to
this statement by expressing my deep feeling of repulsion, revolt, rage, and
disgust from Ralph’s cowardly statement. It is with the highest level of
patronizing possible that he writes his confusing, yet “academic’, essay. A
confusing piece of writing in the skin of academic language is the weapon of
the opportunist and the indifferent. Ralph is both.
The War on Gaza waged by Israel, the country and the people I was born
of, is the continuation of the long lasting racist siege waged on Gaza for the
past few years, the 41 year old occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, and 60
years of negation and denial of the atrocities of 1948, the Palestinian right
of return, and the oppression of the Palestinian people, inside and outside of
Israel. Ralph in his rhetoric joins this denial and embraces it. Even in his
reference to Hampshire’s only Palestinian student, my dear friend Anas, he
tries to create a mist around his existence referring to him in plural and with
the ambiguous language “come to us from Palestinian territory’. This is not
only a denial of Anas as a person, but of his identity and the existence of the
land which he calls home. The pluralizing of Anas is an attempt to conceal part
of the problem, which is reflected at Hampshire in the unequal access that
Israelis and Palestinians have to higher education, and their right to leave
their home to another country altogether. It is an attempt to create a façade
of equality between the two peoples even here.
Surely Ralph condemns violence and terrorism, but he fails to put names
and uses these words out of context. To put it in the words of Aaron Berman: “The
loss of life on both sides is tragic, but we must acknowledge the large number
of innocent Palestinian civilians, including children, who have been killed by
Israeli fire.’ Ralph in his “impotence’(to use his own words) could not even
say that.
In an indirect allegation against the intellectual capacity and
integrity of the many people who dedicate their lives to the struggle against
this ongoing atrocity Ralph says:
Comparisons to “genocide’ or “apartheid’ simply raise the rhetorical stakes;
they may help speakers or writers score points (in their own minds and the
minds of the like-minded) but they do nothing to advance shared understanding.
But these comparisons are in fact the result of a thoughtful choice of words.
The word Apartheid which might be understood by Ralph to refer to the specific
regime in South Africa, is a word with a Germanic root which every English
speaker should recognize: Apart. It originates from South Africa’s white
supremacist regime but refers to any regime which is predicated on racial
separation, segregation and state led violence against these racially oppressed
groups. As such, this term is applicable to the Israeli regime and Israeli
society, in their treatment of the Palestinian population inside Israel and in
the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank. Genocide is an act of annihilation of a
group of people, which may be cultural, geographical, or murderous in its
nature. People might argue that this is not what Israel has been doing in the
past 60 years, but as we can see in the current war this is the direction where
Israel and the Israeli society are going. If in the past Israel maintained its
pretentious stand of “we avoid killing innocents’, this war has changed it all.
To put it in the words of Yossi Sarid formerly Israel’s minister of education:
The Gaza War is different from its predecessors. It is a war for recovery from
complexes and mental blocks. After it, we will feel ever so much better, no
matter what its results. It wasn’t the fighters who failed in the past, nor was
it the weaponry. Jewish morality was to our detriment, and weakened us. No
more. In this tblogpeutic war of eye-rolling, when the neo-Palmachniks want to
shoot, they shoot.
And this is not to say that the roots were not there beforehand. Go train the
dogs to kill and fill them with rage and hate, while the leash is still on, and
then see what happens when the leash is lost. Now the state has unleashed its
troops, and the media has unleashed the public. And the blood of a Palestinian
child is worth not one hundredth that of an Israeli troop and the blood of a
Palestinian man is worth more when it’s spilled. And success is now measured
with the number of funerals. So we, the Israeli public on the far side of the
ocean, should be happy at the news that the sign at the cemetery in Gaza says: “no
more space to burry’. But here in the US, those who speak the truth of a
genocide, or apartheid, or at the very least a brutal massacre should be
considered to be extremist.
Ralph knows all of that. He also knows that Israel has once more banned
the Palestinian parties from running for next month’s elections to the Israeli
parliament. He also knows that hundreds have already been arrested in Israel
for demonstrating against this war. But all that he has to say to us is that he
doesn’t know which report to believe in. I almost forgot, let’s have access to
the truth he wishes for us. But he forgot, as he often forgets important
elements of irritating equations, that access to truth requires freedom of
press, and this let us not forget is prevented by Israel. And Israel prevents
not only reporters from doing their work in Gaza but also doctors, truck drivers
with supplies, UN relief workers, and those who work to provide electricity to
a population of 1.5 million people. My mom tried calling a friend from Gaza
yesterday, a friend she has met in a workshop to help educators assist
traumatized children in conflict zones. The friend ,by now surely traumatized
herself, was impossible to reach, because Israel, so hard working a country
that it is, has made it impossible to connect to Gaza; God-forbid us from phone
calls to friends who refuse to be enemies, and inquire about the health of one
another.
Referring to himself as the pastor of the Hampshire community, Ralph
says: “the president’s pastoral role demands that he balance his own conscience
and convictions with the necessity that he be there, with feeling and support,
for all.’ By thus saying, Ralph intentionally confuses the role of the pastor
(which he does not and never did possess) with the role of marriage counselor.
The pastor as the shepherd is supposed to lead, based on the best of his conscious
and in clear direction which others might not yet see. Ralph not only does not
have the courage to do this, but he also lacks the morals and the ideology to
do something. Because Ralph, selfish as he is, seeks not to lead a brave move
in any direction but to maintain his salary, and that requires appealing not to
the majority of Hampshire students, faculty, and staff who oppose the war on
Gaza, but to the minority concerned with money and a few trustees. This is the
same line which he led in response to the struggle against racism at Hampshire,
and to the struggle for workers rights at Hampshire. From any moral point of
view, this is not the time to practice marriage counseling of the sort Ralph
limitedly provides us with, but to sharpen the distinctions between those who
hang their nooses, confederate flags and the Israeli flag, telling us very
straightforwardly who they align themselves with, and those who put their
solidarity banners and their bodies on the line in the struggle against racism
and oppression in Gaza, Palestine- Israel, the Bronx, along the US-Mexico
boarder, and elsewhere in US and the world.
Personally I’ve known where Ralph stands almost from the first day I met
him. I read a few of the things he wrote, and I heard enough to know. But
ambiguous as he was, I repeated to myself and others that we should give him
another chance, give him a helping hand to become an ally in the struggles
which he so proudly mentions in his ridiculous speeches. But, I say no more. To
be fair to Ralph, in his ambiguity he always gave hints of his intention to
stab one in the back. In our last meeting with him, he had told us after giving
his “sincere’ concern for our sadness, that his writing will not be exactly
what we want him to write, because he has to be everyone’s president. To repeat
what I said to him then, being everyone’s president is impossible; but Ralph
has again chosen, like another president just now stepping down, to be the
president of the oppressors. If only he were to read this let him know that he
is surely not my president, nor the president of anyone I know.
In a bad choice of words Ralph writes “I am only too conscious of the
fact that philosophizing in the midst of disaster and human tragedy sets me up
to join that worst of all possible teachers, Dr. Pangloss.’ This is too strong
a compliment which Ralph gives himself, since being a teacher is not just about
knowing and showing your knowledge but the ability to communicate this
knowledge and I dare say in an inviting and challenging manner. But Ralph, who
likes showing his superiority in summoning forgotten Latin words and
characters, has already managed to antagonize an entire school. And if I ever
have to step in his office again, to summon another mythological allegory, I
will bring a shiny mirror, so when looking at him, I won’t end up turning to a
stone.
Today, I am ashamed that a school like Hampshire has Ralph J. Hexter for
a president. Many people, honest students, professors, workers, have done
nothing to deserve him.
Noam Bahat
- Margaret
Cerullo says:
January 23, 2009 at 5:23 pm
At a moment that calls for moral courage and leadership, not
equivocating, I share Kay Johnson’s pride in the students who have taken a
stand and called upon the college and its president to do the same. For many of
us who grew up immediately after World War II, in the shadow of the Holocaust,
our entire ethical formation was shaped around the effort to understand how a
society so rich in intellectual culture had produced “good Germans’ who stood
silent while a population was targeted for annihilation. “Never again’ meant
never again allow specious complexity to mask recognition of the mobilization
of the full force of a state against an entire population, considered its
enemy. I had hoped, and still do, that our president would uphold Hampshire’s
tradition of critical thought, especially when that thought is unpopular, and
take a stand against the Israeli effort to destroy the people of Gaza, and
against the Occupation that has enabled it. Supporting the SJP’s thoughtful two
year campaign to divest from companies that profit from the Occupation is ever
more urgent today.
- Tracy
Devenyi says:
January 23, 2009 at 11:17 pm
As a parent relatively new to the Hampshire community, I feel I must
respond to Ralph Hexter’s comments. The question is, where to begin? My
daughter recently transferred to Hampshire seeking an educational community
where an open exchange of ideas was encouraged and where students would acquire
the skills necessary to foster positive change in this world. In reading the
student’s comments, I could believe this to be true of Hampshire. However, had
I only read President Hexter’s remarks I’m afraid my impressions would have
been quite to the contrary.
Would you define your so called “pastoral’ role, Mr. Hexter, as one in
which you might lead by example? Being that this is a rhetorical question, I will
assume the obvious answer to be “yes.’ In giving the students of SJP the
impression that you personally shared their positions on Gaza while meeting
with them in your office and then proceeding to write a blog entry which is a
cowardly load of pretentious rhetoric, empty of any actual conviction
demonstrates that your self described metaphorical role of “shepherd’ is
flawed. How could you possibly expect these students to respect your role as
their leader and/or representative in any sense? These students deserve a
president who has the courage to stand for something, anything, as long as he
has the convictions and factual arguments to back up his views in a clear and
concise manner. Having convictions and the courage to fight for them is the
very foundation of humanity. Without that, one can acquire all the knowledge in
the world, but to what purpose?
- Dina
Jacir says:
January 25, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Ralph,
Most of what I want to say has already been articulated by friends much
more eloquent than I, but I feel that it is necessary to reiterate along with
the others my extreme disappointment in your blog statement. I was under the
impression that you were going to write a condemnation of war crimes as the
president of a progressive academic community. Instead, you wrote a long, confusing
essay in which you seemed to say absolutely nothing. I almost wonder if the
length of the letter and all the literary references in it were intentional y
included to make readers simply get bored and wander off before reading the
whole thing.
Over 1,000 people, mostly civilians (what does that mean anyway? They
are all civilians, as they have the right under international law to resist a
brutal and illegal occupation) were slaughtered in less than a month. Thousands
more have their lives permanently ruined. Israel used abhorrent chemical
weapons: white phosphorous that burns skin and muscle off the bones. Israel has
gone crazy. Whatever has been used in the past to defend Israel’s seizure of
native land, expulsion of the Palestinian people, and negation of their
existence and rights for the past 60+ years, it must stop now. The façade of
Israel as a victim is over. Our financial support of it must cease to exist. We
thought that this war, as Noam wrote, was a clear-cut situation in which you’d
have no question about condemning. I am disgusted that you would try to
maintain some sort of a neutral stance in the face of a genocidal act when our
tax dollars and tuition dollars make the slaughter possible.
Other universities and nations have taken a stand. I am disgusted at the
pretentiousness of Hampshire’s constant boasting and bragging about being the
first U.S. institution to divest from apartheid South Africa, while we remain
quiet about the same situation happening in the Middle East. And yes, prominent
anti-apartheid activists like Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Ronnie Kasrils
call Israel an apartheid state. I think the blog post you wrote was cowardly
and condescending. To be “neutral’ is to stand on the side of the oppressor.
You are standing with the oppressor: a racist, genocidal state.
There is much, much more to say, but you get the point.
Sincerely,
Dina Jacir
- Alex
Torpey says:
January 25, 2009 at 6:08 pm
On SJP, Discourse & Hampshire
Alex Torpey, Fourth Year Social Science Div 3 Student
Being passionate is the root of what makes Hampshire students so great.
We are all so engaged and so passionate ““ and that passion drives us to
incredible heights. However, somewhere along the way some of our community
members forgot what it means to be positive, respectful and constructive.
Because there are so many passionate people on this campus, there are
frequently issues that take up the entire sphere of dialog and discourse as
students get concerned and vocal about them. The Israel/Palestine conflict is
the best example of people vocalizing their opinions currently, but doing so in
a way that leaves no room for argument, much less even for open discussion.
Many of the students in SJP, though clearly passionate about this issue, use
phrases and words that seem to be aimed much less at encouraging discussion and
unity than they are as personal attacks, rhetoric and forwarding their own
personal interests. Using phrases or words like “‘‘racist’, “repulsive’ and “disgusts’
are not particularly great ways of disagreeing with someone, yet all of these
words, in addition to being heard over the past year directed at anyone who has
questioned SJP, all appeared in SJP student responses to President Ralph Hexter’s
blog entry about the Israel/Palestine conflict. Although people should
obviously feel free to disagree to what he said, Hexter’s letter was certainly
not “racist’, nor are the people whom members of SJP have in the past described
as “racist’. These are words that are framed from an extremely negative
perspective; they serve no constructive purpose except for alienating both the
person they were directed towards and anyone who might disagree in the future.
Doing that as a way of forwarding one’s own cause is not what this college or
progressive politics are about.
SJP is far from the only group of students I’ve heard speak or write
like that towards other people, but rather the most recent, and one of the most
extreme examples of how we have let discourse on this campus be derailed into
petty personal attacks.
No less frequent to our discourse are issues of race, gender and class
that so many of us care so much about. The passion involved in the vocalization
of these ideas is palpable. As incredible as that passion is, these discussions
on our campus end up becoming weighted down with negative emotions and
rhetoric, and rarely get the full attention they deserve.
You do not help move an issue forward by calling people “˜racist’ or
even “repulsive’ for simply not completely agreeing with you. That
authoritarian attitude, where disagreement is not allowed and your way of
looking at things must be accepted as the ultimate, un-questionable truth is
what has been oppressive in this world for centuries, if not millennia. That is
the attitude that has led to so much violent oppression throughout our history
– when you have a group of people who demand that everyone else blindly accepts
their way of thinking purely on faith and leaves no room for argument.
I would like to issue a challenge to all the members of SJP and other student
groups and community members that frame their public statements and activities
in the extreme negative. Disagree without being negative towards individual
people. Describe the issues at hand instead of making personal attacks. Respond
to disagreement instead of reacting. Suggest constructive ways of moving forward
instead of destructive statements that move us all backwards.
The Israel/Palestine conflict needs to be discussed yet ideological
extremism is stopping a real discussion from happening. The violence in that
area is tragic but compounding that tragedy is letting personal interests get
in the way of moving towards a discussion, and ideally a solution, to the
problem. You are all so critical of national and global politics yet do the
same oppressive things on this campus? Please, enough negativity. That is not
the Hampshire I go to.
Let me tell you about the Hampshire I go to. I go to a school that
values respect between one another. I go to a school that welcomes discourse,
debate and disagreement. I go to a school that sees the benefit in these
debates as a way to listen and learn from eachother and progress our entire
body of knowledge forward. I go to a school that cares about the opinions of
every single person and the perspective that can be gained by listening. I go
to a school that is focused and motivated to progress positive goals.
The Israel/Palestine conflict is one of example an issue that is of
incredible importance to our generation. But right now this campus is divided.
Instead of letting our passion divide us, we should be using our passion to
unite us towards making this world that we live in a better place.
That is what Hampshire is to me, and those are the values that I see so
many students here upholding. Those are the values that both this country and
this school stand for, and those are the values that I stand for. I know there
are many other students on this campus that agree ““ let us make the atmosphere
here what it was intended to be: Positive. Respectful. Constructive. That is
the Hampshire I go to, and that is the Hampshire that I will soon be a proud
alumnus of.
- Taliesin
Nyala says:
January 27, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Alex, I appreciated your response to the responses to Ralph’s blog. I am
disgusted with a lot of the hypocrisy I read (people accusing others of doing
the same things that they then turn around and do), and wish that everyone
involved in the discussion would be more critical of themselves first before
critiquing others. I am also deeply concerned at the level of discourse at
Hampshire, and that many people dis-empower themselves (and their arguments) by
making personal attacks, instead of focusing on the issue at hand. However, it
is easier to get carried away and respond emotionally, rather than rationally.
I disagree with Israel’s actions in Gaza, as I don’t believe that killing
people is ever an appropriate response to a situation. That said, I do not feel
that my personally attacking someone who disagrees with me on this does
anything to bolster my argument or to empower my point. I wish people recognized
that it takes more strength to listen than to react emotionally; the notion
that one needs to stranglehold a stance in order to not be a “coward’ is
disturbing.
- Sonny Saul says:
February 9, 2009 at 10:58 pm
hello, Perhaps this letter which I forwarded to SJP at Hampshire has
already reached you. I am not sure if it has,,, so I am sending it
directly… just adding my voice… the weeks that have passed since the
invasion seem to have highlighed its ghastliness.
Mr. Hexler, I write as a parent of a Hampshire student. He alerted me
to your blog and your essay relating to the situation in Gaza.
Perhaps we are about the same age and have both grown up in the United
States. Do you notice that, among even educated people, there is
general recognition of the fact that the modern state of Israel was
founded as a symbol of the suffering of humanity… but almost no
awareness that this was at the expense of another people who were
innocent of guilt? Also little awareness that the weapons; helicopters,
tanks, assault rifles, the bulldozers, (and the nuclear missiles which
we hope will be held in reserve) being used to inflict suffering, to
slaughter and traumatize, are made by American companies and largely
paid for by people living in the United States, courtesy of the Pentagon
system, voted for by our representatives, and that this makes it really
“OUR BUSINESS’. There is also not much understanding of the conditions
of the occupation or that there even IS an occupation. Probably, through
your discussions and readings, you have become aware that many believe
that the roots of the conflict are religious and that US has been trying
to arbitrate even handedly. I think that this perception is beginning
to change, but the change is slow in coming.
One of my first reactions to your essay was to recall the title of Howard
Zinn’s book, “you can’t be neutral on a moving train’… and the next thing I
thought of was the book of Revelation… I looked it up and found the quote that
came to me in chapter three, what “the Spirit saith unto the Churches’.
Do you recall? Its verses 15 and 16 “I know thy works, that thou art
neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because
thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my
mouth.’
We all can do more. The above quote reminds and challenges me to do more, say
more.Even your rather neutral response is more than many have ventured. I hope
you will continue to become informed. Read the essays of the famous Hampshire
professor Eqbal Ahmad, if you haven’t already – a great place to begin. They
have greatly broadened my understanding.
I heard a talk by Noam Chomsky given at MIT on Jan 13. The way he
began and ended the talk were was especially powerful. Can you take one
more moment to read the quotes below? I hope you will stay engaged with these
kids. They want you to be your best self. thanks. Harry Saul
(Woodstock Vermont)
Chomsky began, “As you know, on Saturday, December 27th, the latest
U.S./Israeli attack on hopeless Palestinians was launched. It had been
meticulously prepared. We know from the Israeli press that both aspects
of the campaign had long been carefully prepared, both the military
aspect and the propaganda aspect, learning from the lessons of the 2006
invasion of Lebanon, which it was argued that it was not planned well to
a military point of view and was not advertised properly. So this time,
both of those aspects were under control with extensive programs. That
means we can be reasonably confident that anything that is happening or
that is said, is purposeful, it’s planned that way, maybe not
everything, but most of it. One thing that was planned carefully was
the time of the launching of the war, carefully chosen. It was shortly
before noon on Saturday, when children are returning from school and
crowds are milling around in the streets of densely populated Gaza
City. And it took only a few minutes to kill well over 200 people and
to wound around 700, which is an auspicious opening to the mass
slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere
to flee.’
Chomsky ended his talk “If I may quote myself again, several decades
ago, 30 years ago, I wrote that those who call themselves supporters of
Israel are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and its
probable ultimate destruction, and regrettably that judgement looks more
and more plausible. Meanwhile, we’re observing a very rare moment in
history, that’s what the late Israeli sociologist, Baruch Kimmerling,
called ‘Politicide’ that’s the murder of a nation at our hands.’
- Steve Goldberg says:
February 11, 2009 at 10:47 pm
The comment immediately above includes the critically important
statement that there is no understanding in the U.S. of “the conditions of the
occupation or that there even IS an occupation.’ Precisely. The reason,
however, is that the entire notion of an occupation by Israel is a lie. The
entirety of Israel, including the area inside the Green Line, the Golan
Heights, Judea, Samaria, Gaza and all of Jersualem, belongs to the Jewish State
under any rational interpretation of history and international law. Israel
cannot be considered an occupier of its own land. To the extent there is an
occupation, it is by the Arabs living in Israel.
The second big lie is that there is a nation called “Palestine’ and a people
called “Palestinians.’ There has never been a nation of Palestine. There has
never been a Palestinian king or queen, or Palestinian currency, or any other
evidence of such a state. Until the 1960s, any reference to a Palestinian
generally meant a Jew living in the geographical area included in the Palestinian
Mandate administered by England. The so-called Palestinians are simply Arabs
who live in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, all of which are part of the Jewish State.
The vast majority of Americans, including Democrats, Republicans, Independents,
liberals, moderates and conservatives, support Israel in its struggle to
survive against the reactionary forces of Islamic fascism. The only opposition
comes from rabid anti-Semites and crackpots like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and
Norman Finkelstein, who collectively have the credibility of the Flat Earth
Society.
Ralph Hexter deserves to be criticized, but not for the reasons listed in the
rants included in the comments on his blog. President Hexter should be
embarrassed that he has allowed Hampshire to tolerate ignorant and
reprehensible anti-Semitism in the form of Israel bashing. It is ironic that
this college, that prides itself on tolerance, diversity and free-thinking,
will not invite a Zionist to the campus to speak on campus. Unless and until
there is some effort to expose the students to the truth, Hampshire is
condemning its students to being intellectual outcasts and freaks who will
receive nothing but scorn when they enter the adult world.
The Zionist Organization of America, which is the oldest pro-Israel
organization in the U.S., remains willing to send a representative on campus to
speak to the students, either alone or in a debate. If anyone in the Hampshire
community has any interest in presenting a point of view to the students other
than that of the SJP, please let me know how to reach you.
- nlkPR says:
February 12, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Statement of Clarification from Sigmund Roos (73F), chair of the board
of trustees, Ralph Hexter, president, and Aaron Berman, vice president and dean
of faculty, regarding trustees’ actions on college investments
We write to correct numerous reports circulating about actions taken by
the Hampshire College board of trustees on February 7, 2009. The facts are as
follows:
“On February 7, 2009, the Hampshire College board of trustees accepted
the report of its investment committee, which earlier had voted, without
reference to any country or political movement, to transfer assets held in a
State Street fund to another fund.
“Based on a comprehensive review of the fund by the trustee investment
committee, administrators and an outside consultant, the college found that
this fund held stocks in well over 200 companies engaged in business practices
that violate the college’s policy on socially responsible investments. These
violations include: unfair labor practices, environmental abuse, military
weapons manufacturing, and unsafe workplace settings.
“The review also led the board of trustees to vote to revise its 1994 socially
responsible investment policy to bring it up-to-date with current standards and
practices, and, pending revision, to suspend that policy.
“The review of the State Street fund was undertaken at the request of a
sub-committee of the investment committee, to address a petition from a student
group, Students for Justice in Palestine. The investment committee’s decision,
however, was based on the consultant’s finding that the State Street fund
included 200-plus companies engaged in multiple violations of the college’s
investment policy; the decision expressly did not pertain to a political
movement or single out businesses active in a specific region or country.
“No other report or interpretation of the actions of February 7, 2009 by the Hampshire
College board of trustees is accurate.
- Rachel
Becker says:
February 13, 2009 at 11:04 am
Thank you for this eloquent letter and the ability to see more than one
perspective. furthermore, thank you for being a president that, no matter what
your personal opinion is, I feel comfortable with.
Directed to other students who commented: I’m not sure why you don’t seem to
understand Ralph’s role as president. Even more importantly, despite what you
may think, there are students who don’t agree with you in this situation.
SJP is not the voice of the campus.
- Noah
Feldman says:
March 11, 2009 at 6:11 pm
I wrote something offensive, arrogant, unprofessional and stupid. I
didn’t mean to. It was untrue, unfair and false. I respect Alex Torpey. I would
like this comment posted, but more than anything I would like what I posted to
also be taken down.
Noah Feldman
- Zac says:
October 11, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I read your comment and then your apology post, good for you for
formally apologizing 
The Presidential Blog is proudly powered by WordPress
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).
