Delivered at a forum at Princeton University on 7 February 2006 by
Mark Bruzonsky - Mark@Bruzonsky.com
Forum
Participants:
Anne-Marie Slaughter - Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, Princeton
Professor Cornell West - Professor, Princeton University
Mark Bruzonsky - Journalist, Woodrow Wilson School MPA, NYU Law School JD
For articles and comments about speech
PUStudents
Good Evening E/span>
Nearly all of you will remain here at Princeton in the days to come.
But though I have interesting memories of Princeton I will be here with
you only for a few hours tonight before going back to imperial
Washington tomorrow.
So I ask you in the few moments we have together to please allow me to
give you my perspective in a clear and admittedly pointed way. In a
sense Ill also be summarizing what I have learned in about 200 trips
abroad since my own student days. I realize many of you may not agree
with or even accept what I have concluded. But I thank you in advance
for the opportunity to be here tonight to join these two distinguished
persons who play such important roles at this exceptional university
and in our country.
Though what happened a few years ago on 9/11 was certainly not the
start of the conflict that now dominates our lives, the impact it has
had on our society, including events here at Princeton, is
overreaching.
I say it was not the start because one can trace what happened on 9/11
back to many other critical historical events from which it was
spawned. And since he was the President of this University before he
came to Washington as President of the country Ill start by recalling
the famous Paris Peace ConferenceEof Woodrow Wilsons time.
Though called a Peace ConferenceEthe result was anything but. Back
then the victorious Western powers essentially divided the defeated
Ottoman Empire into many artificial nation-states and sheikdoms that
still remain today. Then the legitimizing theme was
self-determinationEwhich was not really to be of courseEmuch as
today the ad-nauseum but disingenuous themes are democracyEand
freedom.E/span>
Its crucial to remember that at the time the people of what we
Westerners named the Middle East had been promised Independence as an
Arab Nation Eonly to find themselves sold out by the secret
British-French Sykes-Picot Agreement and then confined in
neo-colonialism termed Mandates and legitimized by Wilsons own League
of Nations.
That 1918 Peace ConferenceEturned out to be The Peace To End All
PeaceE the subtitle in fact of Professor David Fromkins remarkable
book about that crucial period which is the precursor to our own.
Or in view of current issues today we could skip forward and start with
the largely democratic and secular attempt to reform Iran in 1953 Eone
which the CIA then undid putting the Shah back on the throne until 25
years later a traumatized country threw him out. We then took him in,
Iranian students then responded by sacking the U.S. Embassy and taking
hostages, and in a sense their revolution then led to our Reagan
RevolutionEnd to todays Iran.
Or we could start with the region-shaking 1967 War, or for that matter
the U.S.-sponsored birth of Israel twenty years earlier, or with Jimmy
Carters Peace Conference of 1978, which then became another Peace to
End All Peace Ethe assassination of Anwar Sadat, the Lebanese Civil
War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Afghanistan war, the invasion/occupation of
Lebanon which midwifed Hezbollah, the anti-occupation Intifada which
midwifed Hamas and the rise of suicide bombersEll precursors to 9/11
and what has followed since.
The crucial point is 9/11 didnt come out of the blue and did have
causes and, for many, reasons and even justifications -- as much as
American politicians and commentators refuse to discuss this backdrop
and how the stage was set. Huge numbers of people, in total millions
of Arabs and Muslims, had already been maimed and killed in this
ongoing convoluted conflict laced with superpower proxie wars, oil and
petrodollars, Zionist and Muslim ideologies, corrupt repressive Arab
client regimesE and the never-ending Israeli/US military occupation
of the Palestinians.
And lets be clear about this -- among the main reasons most American
politicians and commentators dont talk about any of this and dont
connect the vital dots that could lead to both understanding and
conflict resolution is because most of those who are allowed center
stage are either in the pay of special interest groups or have little
experience with the peoples of the region and little serious knowledge
of the culture and history about which they are so incessantly
chattering.
One of your own current History Professors, one whom I just happened to
grow up with in Duluth Minnesota a long time ago, has this to say in
the interview that accompanies his bio information on the Princeton
website:
"There are rules of the game in every society. We have to
get inside a foreign culture and understand internally how it works. In
1940 we were confronting what we thought was fanatical emperor worship
from the Japanese. They seemed to have had no contact with Western
civilization; they were inscrutable, incomprehensible. Today were
describing our current enemy, Islamic fundamentalists, in much the same
way. Whether its good or bad, there are ways that Islamic
fundamentalists see the world. To call them terrorists and fanatics is
simply to say theyre different from us and we dont understand them.
But clearly weve got to delve more deeply.Ebr>
And so in the few remaining moments I have please allow me to try to
delve more deeply with you and to summarize my perspective about what
has happened here at Princeton that has led to this forumEll in the
afterglow of 9/11.
Some may still think of this as just a speakers controversy here at
Princeton, one which the recent 75th Wilson School anniversary
highlighted. But actually it is far more than that.
What has happened here at Princeton I believe is in the end the result
of the serious and growing financial, political and social pressures
educational institutions now face in our country -- pressures which in
turn largely determine what kind of people are put in positions of
authority and what kinds of decisions they are encouraged if not forced
by circumstances to make.
What has happened here at Princeton, all the more so since 9/11 it
seems to me, is not by accident but rather by careful design. Beyond
the general pressures facing all major universities you have today a
Woodrow Wilson School fearful of losing a major part of its endowment
and as a result courting power and money more than ever.
And yes, in my view, with all respect to Dean Slaughter for the
positive things she may have done here of which I may not be aware,
WoodyWilson and Princeton are now playing big time the big money and
big power game Eand it all comes at the expense of the rigorously
independent intellectual and educational pursuits that should be
foremost in mind but are not.
Furthermore the person most responsible for choosing speakers, handing
out awards, and selecting faculty in the past few years here appears to
me to be using the University as a stepping stone to future personal
and political power in Washington should that opportunity strike.
Others have done this in recent years from academic dean positions --
Paul Wolfowitz from SAIS and of course Condi Rice from Stanford come
first to mind.
The major problem though is that when universities Ethe very places
that are supposed to reflect independence of thought and analysis and
true expertise -- become so dependent on corporate, government, and
lobby-connected largess then one of the major centers of honest
education and knowledge in our society becomes severely compromised.
That, in short, is what I think has happened here at Princeton and most
of all at the Woodrow Wilson School.
This situation cannot be remedied by a single forum or by inviting an
occasional dissidentEintellectual like Noam Chomsky to give a talk.
If you really want to remedy this situation there are ways you can E
but very frankly I am sure the powers that be will not let this really
come about.
You could for instance establish, and separately fund, a special maybe
student-run program specifically designed to bring the very best
independent academics, social critics, and expert journalists to
Princeton from around the world. And you could and should make a
point of bringing such people together at the same time as those who
hold power. Doing so would make good use of the unique university
environment to bring about provocative and insightful debate and
challenge about the crucial issues of our time among those most
knowledgeable and most informed. That would be truly educational.
I stress the word independentEfor the notion that the span of major
guests should range from senior government officials to top
personalities in the other mirror party competing for senior government
positions is really quite ludicrous.
Such a notion plays well in corrupted and lobby-infested Washington;
but it shouldnt be allowed at a world-class university especially with
regard to major international issues. Because when it is allowed not
only are all of you short-changed as students at a very special and
formative time in your lives, but all of us as a society are
dangerously short-changed for our collective future.
For we dont need world-class universities to invite the very same
power and money speakers and faculty that the government-and-lobby
think-tanks and departments invite. Theres already far too much of
that.
We do need universities to invite speakers and to engage faculty based
on their demonstrated serious knowledge, expertise, independence, and
critical thinking. It use to be much more that way. It doesnt seem
it is that way any longer, certainly not here at Princeton.
I also stress from around the worldEErather than nearly always
turning to those sponsored by or acceptable to the powers that be.
For to really understand what is happening in our world you have to
both hear from and engage others who see things very differently and
who are outside your own blinders and restraintsEpeople who are not
subjected to or controlled by the pressures for political correctness
and advancement that now so dominate our own society.
Just from my own contacts I can quickly think of people who could have
brilliantly engaged and educated all in attendance at the 75th
celebration. You may not know some of these personalities but I assure
you they are all very much valued, respected and in great demand
throughout the world, though not here at Princeton:
Robert Fisk
Harold Pinter Erecent winner of the Nobel Prize
Mohammed Heikal
Arundhati Roy
Mohammed Mahathir
Amira Hass
Dan Almagor
Haider Abdul Shafi
John Pilger
Boutros Ghali
Indeed, for the 75th anniversary where everyone was force-fed a nonstop
diet of self-serving top government officials without even one single
major independent academic or journalist or political analysis, any of
these persons would have made an immensely needed contribution and in
fact changed the proceedings.
For there is a reason our current Secretary of State even now says she
was so surprised by the Hamas electoral victory a few days ago Enot to
mention her insistence before Congress that no one had imagined that
anyone would use airplanes as they did on 9/11.
The reality is quite otherwise in fact. Many independent experts knew,
predicted, and explained what has now come to pass. And when it comes
to 9/11 no less a flag-waver than Tom Clancy had written a novel that
opens with an airplane diving into the Capitol during a State of the
Union address. So just what kind of a self-isolating, apologist, and
unaware world is Ms. Rice, even now, living in?
And there is a reason why Rices predecessor Ealso recently honored
here at Princeton even after he perpetrated such a great historic hoax
on us allEthe third anniversary of which was just two days ago.
And by the way this term hoax is not mine
"I participated in a hoax on the American people,
the international community and the
United Nations Security Council."
Thats what Colin Powells own Chief of Staff at the State Department
finally confessed in public just last Friday in fact.
The result of this and many other cruel hoaxes coming from our
government is the dangerous polarization, dumbing down, militarization,
and in some very troubling ways the neo-fascist developments in our own
society. This on top of the disastrous Iraq invasion/occupation which
has caused so much death and suffering, now cost nearly a half-trillion
dollars, squandered so much American credibility, created so much more
hatred around the world, and badly weakened and tarnished our military
forces as well once again.
All of these issues should be seriously, vigorously and continually
discussed, debated, dissected and analyzed at this world-class center
of higher education. But instead there has been a parade of Cabinet
Secretaries, Ambassadors and Generals, one after the other Eall part
of the same team, and all offered nearly a free ride.
This is not in my view in the nations serviceEit is in the
governments service.
This is surely not in the service of all nationsE-- it is a very
limiting and nationalistic approach which just further cuts off
Princetonians from our world as it really is.
And this parade of the powerful, financed by the special interests,
simply does not reflect the real world we all must live in and in which
our country must now desperately find its way anew before it is too
late.