In the Whirl of the Walt & Mearsh Show: Some Dilemmas

Over two weeks have passed since my last post. This just won't do. Not daily, not weekly; nor even bi-weekly! I would have let you know had I known myself - there's no simple explanation.

I've pinned up a big note behind my computer screen, in bold red marker pen, which reads:

Don't blog. Forget the boycott, CiF etc. WORK!!

That's the explanation: I've been desperately trying to mitigate the damage of this summer of boycotting belligerence, scrambling to meet, in the final hour, some pressing publication deadlines which were forced until now to slip behind the boycott in priority. As usual, I imagined I'd meet them more easily and in a shorter time-span than has proven to be the case. I thought it'd be but a brief blogging interlude...

Also, it was obviously an error to think I could have the luxury of being able to ignore all this - the boycott always stood as symbol for something much larger and that something is ever enlarging and the larger it gets, the more distracting it becomes and the more impossible it is to concentrate on my academic writing.

The latest distraction comes by way of the Walt & Mearsheimer show coming to a campus soon near ... ME! (that should be flashing neon, in an academic sense of course!). Coming to my campus, to be precise. The very campus from which I've grown to feel boycotted, the hosting of W&M being just another sign of my hostile & exclusionary working environment.

[apologies for the photo & the scatological expressions which ensue, this is upsetting and the photo cheered me up when I found it, as does the scatology it has inspired. In my defence, please know that you find me a pauper for want of other ways of dealing with this. A feature which makes this whole period we're living through all the more frightening for, at each juncture of speech, my right is withdrawn, whether by way of being branded a lobbyist apologist or dismissed as paranoid or otherwise psychologically-traumatized. And in the end, all I'm left with is sick humour. Muzzlewatch my you know what!]

People, it's really hitting the fan around here, getting flung around far & wide up and down our campuses, and coming no doubt to a campus near you, for these guys are putting themselves about, turning up here & there: two central London campuses, an Oxford college, and on and on. I have too many connections with those I've highlighted than I am comfortable with, both as a staff member & alum. And, to top it all, W&M are even lecturing Whitehall. So much for coursing one's way through the rivulets of power!

The authors have insisted that they stand uncontested on the podium, alone & free to state their incendiary thesis without the possibility of being challenged by an authority able to do so - on a panel with experts in their field, able to demolish their thesis as anyone expert in the field would. Walt justified this condition to the New York Times: "when you’re promoting a book, you want to present your ideas without appearing with someone who is trying to discredit you." Good one!

Here's a little thought-experiment: imagine Dr James Watson** had been accorded freedoms of speech comparable to those granted by all and sundry to W&M, in this case, to promulgate an abhorrent thesis making connections between race, genes & intelligence. In fact, Watson was prevented from speaking because of the outrage his thesis provoked but just imagine, for the sake of this analogy, that the freedom of speech which gets W&M invited to all these supposedly prestigious universities were applied equally to Dr Watson. Do you think for one minute that he'd have been given the right to speak, uncontested, without at least someone of like stature & authority on the podium alongside him, able to contest his obnoxious contentions?

It is obvious what would have happened - this just wouldn't have been allowed. He wouldn't have been afforded the freedom to speak, as we know by how events turned out; and he certainly wouldn't have been invited to speak in such a protected, cosseted setting. But in the comparable case of W&M, it's another matter entirely and the onus & burden of resistance & contestation is placed on those harmed by such speech: those who experience this speech as racist, or worry about its obvious incendiary ramifications for a particular group known to experience racism. It's for the victims to speak out & challenge this speech. I'd like to think there'd be widespread audience revulsion against the W&M thesis, or it would be laughed-out, but I've been following this too long to rely on this being the case - the opposite is, sadly, just as plausible. Probably more so, hence the trepidation to turn up.

And perhaps, were I to muster the courage and will to do so, it might well be only to discover that these 'bold & daring' scholars have insisted on not taking any questions from the floor or on only taking questions which have been vetted in advance to ensure that nothing too tricky comes up, bringing to light the obvious bigotry implicated in their arguments. They've made their debating tactics, evasionary as they are, perfectly plain: they insist on speaking uncontested, so this would come as no surprise.

Readers, what should I do? Should I go and voice my protest, in possibly the most stressful context: my own university, my own campus, surrounded by my peers & students? Should I go and risk seeing my colleagues join the throng of fans adulating these ' brave' theorists, some of whom, frightening as this prospect may be, I might hitherto have respected? Should I stick around to hear the audience applaud their 'courageous' thesis and possibly boo & hiss even louder at those like me who object to this toxic posturing? Should I risk doing this even when I know it'll only exacerbate this already potent boycotting effect? Or should I stay away, just as I stayed away all those years from UCU (and the AUT beforehand)?

As I contemplated all this, getting distracted yet further from those damned deadlines, I've been hunting around for inspiration. Obviously, Engage is always a brilliant source (the link is to a compendium of the critiques W&M's book has attracted - as you will see, there's much to wade through, such are the problems with this familiar and now rejuvenated hate-screed). Then I came upon a rather shocking chart, which says it all with a simple juxtaposition of text extracted, on the one hand, from the W&M book and, on the other, with comparable passages from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford's International Jew (p.4 of the link).

Please help. The decision is imminent...

~~

** I chose the links on the Watson debacle deliberately: they are all pieces criticizing Watson's views on race & intelligence and arguing he shouldn't be offered the freedom to advance such an incendiary thesis since it risks reigniting racist claims we'd hoped were long-buried. The author of these op-eds is significant: he just so happens to be the very same man who, along with his wife, was the original instigator of the wave of UK boycotts against Israel. The Steven Rose who started it all (yes, it was the Roses, and not - as has been widely claimed - the Palestinian unions!). Oh the irony, the travesty... But what do you expect from someone who, although rightfully indignant against certain forms of racism, dismisses one particular form of racism as 'the cheapest rallying cry of Israel's Zionist apologists'?!

Here are some extracts from the linked comment pieces by Rose, with slight modifications, substituting one racist claim for another: replacing the racist claim about race & intelligence with the racist claim about Jewish world domination. Rose, and apparently the academic consensus on these campuses which invited W&M to speak uncontested, see a problem for racism in one case but seemingly not in the other:

New Statesman
Every time we think we have buried...racist claims about Jewish world domination, some attention-seeker attempts to re-ignite them.

But the scholar’s glamour means that his words, which are without scientific merit, will reignite an otherwise long-buried fight over Jews and power, bring cheer to racists and must be firmly rebutted.

CIF Oct 21st
As for freedom of speech, these freedoms are and must be constrained. We don't have the right to casually cry fire in a crowded theatre, or to use hate speech - at least in Europe, as opposed to the US. If even two of the world's most distinguished academics, speaking with the authority of their academic appointments, are not allowed to get away with such racist assertions, maybe this shameful episode will prove to be a final nail in the coffin of the long and inglorious history of such racist claims.

CIF Oct 24th
I think human rights trump free speech rights... freedom of speech should not be used to abuse and encourage prejudice or violence against minorities for this may damage the human rights of these minorities.