We had a rollicking time in class today. Heather, on of our TA’s, gave a great follow-up presentation on argumentation. But the “star” of the day was “himself”! That one: Mr. Thoreau. I admit I got a tad bit carried away. But it was for a good cause: just to make Thoreau “come alive”. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the things that inspires me about Socrates, Thoreau, Gandhi, and King is that they were able to speak truth to power. There had to have been times when it was difficult; we know there were times when it was dangerous. What we’ll be able to learn from them this semester is yet to be revealed. I have every expectation that it will produce fruit. I, for one, made a promise to be more engaged this year in my local community, at school, in the country, in the world.
What quickened this commitment has been the protests in Iran. The photos that have found their way past the censors have been both dispiriting and heartening.
I came across this article tonight that brought home again the cost of protest. The article is by Haideh Daragahi. It was the first line that reminded me of what the danger of not speaking up when one still has the opportunity as well as the danger of speaking up when it is illegal to do so.
The current turmoil in Iran is not a result of the alleged election fraud last June, but of thirty years of brutality, humiliation, and frustration.
Sigh. When introducing myself to the class this semester, I remarked that although I’m the first tenured philosopher at SF State who is an African American, I’m not only African American philosopher who has taught here. I pointed to my very closely shorn hair (Spring shearing!) and gave the hint that this very, very radical person had hair that was the extreme opposite of mine.
Silence! A few wrong answers! I had to tell them her name.
We only briefly discussed the general issue of how LGBTQ discrimination does or does not fall under the umbrella of the kind of discrimination King addressed. Given the court cases in the California on Prop. 8, and the legislative processes going on across the country, it is topic that deserves more discussion next time around. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve read the US Constitution, but must admit I haven’t read the California constitution. A quick Google search yielded the following. I excerpted some of the Articles that deal with “equal rights”.
This from CNN about the protests in Iran:
“I’m afraid but … it’s not a good way just to sit at home and do nothing,” the protester, who asked to be identified only as “Hesam” for safety reasons, told CNN. “If I want to change the condition, if I want to have a better life, I have to do that. Yes, maybe it’s a death wish.”
His wish is simple — a democratic Iran.
Having been immersed this semester in discussions of civil disobedience, it’s impossible for me, at least, to not keep Socrates and King in mind when I learn of social unrest and injustice in the world.
Would an Iranian Socrates willingly allow himself to be taken to Evin prison? I admit this hypothetical is a difficult one to take on. Socrates, I’m sure, had great confidence in the laws of Athens. I’m not so sure he would undertake the same action in Tehran.
I’ve often wondered where the Muslim “Martin Luther King” is in the Islamic world. Where’s the Gandhi? This direction of thought has been made all the more a matter of concern since I finished reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel
The middle class Bonhoeffer moved from a concerned bystander, to passive resistor, to active resistor, even to the degree of sanctioning violence. Bonhoeffer was in contact with Gandhi and had hoped to visit Gandhi in India. Would Gandhi have tried to convince Bonhoeffer to avoid the violent resistance to Hitler?
Many “go along to get along” Blacks in the South became active participants in the nonviolent resistance movement. Thousands of people eventually followed Gandhi’s lead in India. His methods worked against the British and King’s methods worked against the American segregationists. Would it have worked against Hitler or Stalin?
Most people think not.
But what about Iran? We witnessed some nonviolent action last summer immediately following the elections in Iran. We saw Neda’s lifeless body. Today there are reports of more deaths. The demands are known, the body count is rising. What’s next?
From the NY Times:
In a statement posted on his Web site, the Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who took part in the revolt against the Shah in the 1970s and is now a supporter of the opposition, denounced Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, for today’s violence. Mr. Makhmalbaf’s statement sarcastically praises Ayatollah Khamenei for outdoing the caliph Yazid, whose forces killed the Shiite martyr Imam Hossein on Ashura, the holiday being celebrated today in Iran:
Khamenei! You are more scrupulous than Yazdi. You won! Yazid is no longer the top winner of killing people on Ashura. You beat him.
I am so sorry that I fought against the Shah when I was 17. He left the country when he realized that people no longer wanted him. but you are resisting until everyone else leaves the country.
As most of your know there was a student protest on campus. Students occupied the Business Building and some blocked traffic on 19th Avenue. I felt a twinge of (Gator) pride coupled with concern.
I often give an example of blocking traffic on 19th as an example of civil disobedience. I wondered whether any of my Gators were responsible for doing it for real. When we were reading the Crito, I “promised” that I’d bail Gators out of jail, just as Crito had promised the court to post bond for Socrates. The convergence of class discussion and actual events was, well, creepy.
I didn’t know all the demands of the occupiers until I received a letter from President Corrigan. I followed the link he provided to their Wordpress blog. I’m in favor of a lot of their demands. Two things in particular struck me about Corrigan’s letter. He mentioned that he had participated in the “real” (my words, not his) civil rights campaigns of the past, the very ones we studied this semester.
The other thing that most grabbed my attention was that Corrigan highlighted the same question we pondered in class: does it really count as an act of civil disobedience if you’re not willing to take the punishment that comes with it?
It’s always heartening to have events connect with classroom discussion.
It’s for a worthy cause. Otherwise, I simply can’t fathom doing it myself. I’m glad to see that the topic is democracy.
It’s evidently taken Mr. Muzawazi two-and-a-half years to face the prospect of yet another marathon speech. But starting on Wednesday, December 9, at noon local time, the 25-year-old law student commenced what is being billed as “The Longest Lecture,” a planned 130-hour talk on, you guessed it, democracy.
The lecture, which Mr. Muzawazi is giving at Jagiellonian University, in Krakow, Poland, is being presented in English—except for the introduction, which he read in six languages. Throughout his lecture, he sits and stands, talks and rambles, and often reads text verbatim. When we were watching, Mr. Muzawazi, who was recognized as this year’s “best foreign student in Poland,” read passages on fascism and monarchies from the Web-based “Science Encyclopedia”…
I hope we’ll have an opportunity to listen to (and perhaps read) some of Dr. West’s discussions on Socrates, King, and the practice of philosophy.
Here’s a short profile on Cornel West from a recent issue of The New Yorker.