The Bill of Rights gives us one of the most precious privileges we have -- the right to free speech. Elections, primaries, ad campaigns and politicians come and go, but these rights are indelible and form the identity of the United States.
But the danger of enjoying a right without respecting the concomitant responsibilities has reappeared in the form of Ward Churchill. Churchill is a professor at the University of Colorado, and until recently was the chair of the university's Department of Ethnic Studies.
Over the last four weeks, sections of the media and academia have been full of stories about an essay Churchill wrote after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, entitled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens." In the essay, Churchill attempts to dissect and understand why American foreign policy invites contempt from some quarters in the world. He uses the attacks as a backdrop to explain his points.
Churchill writes: "If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the Twin Towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."
Simply put, the word "Eichmann" is a direct reference to the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. In the aforementioned line, Churchill seems to compare the 3,000 people who died in the attacks to Nazis. According to the most prevailing interpretation of his essay, Churchill has basically justified the attacks and said the 3,000 people deserved to die.
Churchill continues to draw parallels to the Holocaust: "It was pious Americans who led the way in assigning the onus of collective guilt to the German people as a whole, not for things they as individuals had done, but for what they had allowed -- nay, empowered -- their leaders and their soldiers to do in their name." Saying so, he implies American citizens are responsible for their leaders' foreign policy decisions.
Dr. Churchill, can we stop evoking the Nazis whenever we disagree with someone? Please?
At the very outset, there is no feasible argument against free speech. Moreover, a college campus is the ideal place to foster the kind of debate unimaginable at President Bush's rigged town-hall meetings.
The time students spend stoking the fire of idealism balances the rest of their lives that are encumbered by pragmatism. That said, academia has a certain responsibility at the human and moral level while exercising free speech.
Churchill has followers who claim he is the victim of a right-wing lynch mob. Yet some of the misery he is getting is well-deserved. In expressing his feelings the way he did, Churchill makes two major mistakes.
First, Churchill commits the cardinal mistake of mocking the dead and their families. The families of those killed in the attacks have had it hard enough. The continuing political debate regarding the Bush doctrine has kept their wounds from healing completely.
To some, it is ironic that the country that supplied 15 of the 19 hijackers is not a part of the Axis of Evil. Others dislike the president's persistent references to Sept. 11, 2001, each time he is in political trouble.
Churchill is analyzing the event as if it's another scholarly thesis and is completely disconnected from the fact that so many lives were irrevocably changed that day.
Second, Churchill plays into the hands of the conservatives when he blames Americans in general and the troops in particular for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. As Sen. John Kerry said in the first presidential debate last year, you have to distinguish between the war and the warrior.
By attacking the troops, Churchill allows the right-wing attack machine to paint all liberals as weak on defense and hostile to the military.
What we really need is an intelligent and persuasive critique of U.S. foreign policy in general. Iraq is not Vietnam, and we will certainly win this if we learn Vietnam's lessons.
The way you can really help your country is by wanting it to succeed and contributing constructively to political discourse. Every country has its foibles, but no one can ever deny America is a force for good -- be it America under Clinton or Bush. History is testimony to that.
People like Churchill are much better off using their intellect to raise the really serious questions. It is more than worthwhile to debate whether intended sanctions affect the poor more than the dictators who impoverish. No one can argue otherwise that people need to step out of their stereotypes and understand each other better. Churchill lost that opportunity and instead reduced the debate to a simplistic ad hominem argument.
Such behavior is better left to talk radio hosts.
Dissent has brought about some of the most revolutionary changes in our world. Dissent needs to be backed by good intentions and a genuine desire to change things for the better. People like Churchill are so removed from the real world that they have no idea how much their words affect real people.
Nishant Bhajaria is a computer science graduate student. Reach him at nishant.bhajaria@asu.edu.
