This skipped past my radar screen.
A UC San Diego student admitted Friday to hanging a rope noose from a campus library bookcase in an act that triggered more protests at a school already roiled by other recent racially charged incidents.
Across California there will be a protest against the budget cuts in education. SF State’s faculty union, the California Faculty Association has made this resolution in support of non-violent protests.
Here’s an excerpt:
The executive board of the SF State chapter of CFA adopted the following statement on February 25th:
California Faculty Association (CFA), San Francisco State University Chapter shares in the anger and frustration of students, faculty and staff regarding budget cuts that are destroying public education. We believe that peaceful protest and civil disobedience are powerful forces for change in a democratic society, and we defend the rights of individuals and organizations to practice them. However, CFA does not support or condone violence in any form. We oppose any vandalism or destruction of property. We also oppose the excessive use of force by law enforcement. This is our university – students, faculty, staff, and the community – and such acts undermine efforts to protect San Francisco State from those who would dismantle it. We seek a university founded upon mutual respect, social justice and accountability.
The governor’s chief of staff acknowledged that last fall’s campus demonstrations pushed him to raise the amount of money he proposed for next year’s CSU budget. That pretty well tells us one of the things CSU needs: more large peaceful demonstrations for public education and services. Ultimately, it is the integrity of our position and actions rather than violence that promotes the establishment of a community which supports a long-term commitment to education and social justice.
That’s a rather startling title to a post. But I have to ponder the weird connection between today’s class and the deliberate plane crash this morning in Austin, TX.
The pilot of the plane was angry at the government and its historic inability or reluctance to treat its citizens fairly. You may read his letter, apparently meant to be his suicide note, here. It’s six pages but is not rambling. Don’t get me wrong: Mr. Stack rants. I’m sure those in the class will have the same experience that I have had: I could not help but think of Thoreau again when I was reading Stack’s letter. This morning I had just led the class through a careful consideration of the last few paragraphs of Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience.
Paragraph 52
No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak, who i capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the sasonable experience and the effectual complains of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.
Paragraph 53
…There will never be a really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived…
No, I don’t think Thoreau would be a suicide bomber, which is what I’m calling Joe Stack. But I can imagine Thoreau listening to Mr. Stack. I can imagine him as an FBI negotiator talking to Joe Stack. Thoreau doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy who would resort to endangering other individual’s lives to make his moral and political point. But it’s pretty hard not to imagine vast areas of agreement between these two men.
Maybe that’s what’s creeping me out.
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.