One Year Later: Responding to Global Challenges
Continuing the Colorado College Symposium Tradition
By Bill Hochmanprofessor emeritus of history
Controversial symposia are nothing new at Colorado College. Alums will remember past weeklong symposium feasts on a variety of subjects, including the contemporary arts, the Second World War, and violence. The Symposium on Violence in 1969 included talks by arch conservatives and leaders of the "Up-Against-the-Wall Mother F--" faction of Students for a Democratic Society. It concluded with a modern retelling of Euripides' The Bacchae in Armstrong Theater in which the performers sometimes cavorted naked on the stage and among the audience. Unfortunately, student participation declined, and the college cancelled those wonderful, controversial symposium weeks. The recent college symposium, "One Year Later: Responding to Global Challenges," was in that exciting tradition. Actually, the buildup to the symposium was fraught with more controversy than the symposium itself. The college made a misstep at the outset by announcing that Hanan Ashrawi, a moderate Palestinian academic and former spokeswoman for Yasser Arafat, would give the keynote address, before finding a prominent Israeli for the program. That provoked bitter protest in the state; a number of politicians got into the act. President Dick Celeste and Lief Carter, political science professor and the symposium director, moved fast to ease the situation. Gideon Doron, president of the Israeli Association of Political Science, was confirmed as a second keynote speaker, and 150 precious admission tickets to Armstrong Hall were provided to protesting groups. Once the program was adjusted, the issue became academic freedom and freedom of speech, which the college has long championed, going back at least to the 1950s when President William Gill shielded faculty and students from community McCarthyites.
Everyone awaited Hanan Ashrawi's speech with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. On the day the symposium began, the atmosphere was charged. Stewards wearing official badges were everywhere to keep order. A giant TV screen was set up in Shove Chapel for the overflow crowd, and there were loud speakers on the lawn. A huge tent was erected on Armstrong quad for the principal protest groups, made up of Israeli sympathizers and representatives of evangelical Christian churches. A smaller number of Ashrawi supporters from a Palestinian student group in Boulder were also on the lawn. Porta-potties were set up near Palmer Hall -- President Celeste said he remembered the critical importance of such facilities from his days as a youthful demonstrator. Meanwhile, a substantial contingent of city policemen (including a SWAT team) waited in the basement of Armstrong Hall.
The anti-Ashrawi demonstrators congregated behind a rope on the west side of the path from Armstrong to Palmer, and the Palestinian supporters were roped on the east side of the path. At one point, both sides joined in singing "The Star Spangled Banner." Later that morning, when a speaker addressed the anti-Ashrawi gathering in the tent, a protest leader evidently told the police he feared violence. Blue-uniformed police then emerged from the bowels of Armstrong to line the path between the two groups. That was not a pleasing sight. I have been teaching at Colorado College for about 48 years, and have never before seen uniformed and armed police deployed on the campus (aside from the time the senior class arranged for a policeman in full uniform with a warrant to take me from my History of Western Civilization class on Senior Sneak Day, long ago).
Ashrawi's keynote address was somewhat of an anticlimax. She had been criticized for having condemned Arab suicide bombing on pragmatic grounds (the bombing was politically counterproductive), but not on moral grounds. However, from the Armstrong stage, she clearly stated that bombing innocent people was immoral under any circumstance. On the whole, her sometimes-rambling speech was conciliatory in tone. From time to time, protestors in the audience held up red cards saying "I disagree," but the crowd responded enthusiastically to her somewhat prosaic pronouncements of moderation. I suspect the auditors were really applauding free speech and not the Palestinian cause.
The next day, Gideon Doron's keynote was a straightforward defense of Israel, also coupled with calls for moderation and compromise. Some seasoned observers thought neither Ashrawi nor Doron represented the views of hardline Arab and Israeli leaders, locked in tragic, mortal embrace. President Celeste presided imperturbably over both keynotes, sorting a cascade of questions afterwards, and providing stature and dignity to what might otherwise have been raucous sessions.
It was too bad the deadly Israeli-Palestinian conflict came to dominate the initial image of the symposium. The topic was really much broader, the outlook for the world after the mighty twin towers were brought down on September 11th. There was a galaxy of informed and learned visitors supplemented by members of our own faculty, mostly from the political science department. Among the impressive visitors was Robert Kaplan, the prolific, hardline analyst who seemingly has visited every tormented spot on the globe. Kaplan was on a panel about poverty and the causes of war. To him, the cause of unrest and violence was modernization and development that broke the crust of tradition and custom in stagnant countries. Urbanization, a large number of rootless young men, and a scarcity of resources (particularly potable water) make a lethal mix. Democracy, Kaplan argued, does not necessarily lead to a civil, peaceful society. David Laitin, professor of political science from the University of California at Berkeley, disagreed. His careful statistical analysis suggested that violent rebellion was likely in places where it seemed to have a chance of success, in mountainous areas with weak governments, for example. The key to peace was to make insurgency harder, not in making insurgents happier.
In addition to Ashrawi, there were two women on the program, Riffat Hassan and Maysam al-Faruqi, both Islamic professors at American universities. They spoke somewhat hopefully about the future for women in the Islamic world. Both thought a clear-headed reading of the Koran does not lead either to holy wars or the subjugation of women. Speakers in the panel on liberal democracy and religious fundamentalism were not so sure about Islam and peace. They were pessimistic about the prospects of rapprochement with Islamic fundamentalists, or with any religious fundamentalists. Milner Ball, professor of constitutional law at the University of Georgia School of Law, argued it was critically important to separate religious fundamentalists from state power. David Weddle, of our own religion department, spoke of the way fundamentalists wish to realize religious texts in worldly life, yet he still thought the unity of religion and politics in Islam does not necessarily preclude constructive relations with the West.
On the whole, the learned array of speakers tended to be critical of American policy in the aftermath of September 11th, particularly what they regarded as the reckless unilateralism of the administration's posture. Ron Suny, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said that war was an inappropriate way to deal with terrorism; fighting terrorism was more like police work, requiring intelligence in both meanings of the word. Gideon Rose, managing editor of the preeminent journal Foreign Affairs, criticized the tactlessness, hubris and insensitivity of American policy in the new dangerous world. Michael McCann, professor of political science at the University of Washington, spoke of the way the Second World War and the Cold War had been associated with an expansion of social justice at home; for example, the burgeoning of civil rights. He thought the overriding emphasis on law enforcement and security in the present crisis was leading to a diminution of justice and rights.
The most optimistic outlook was provided by Thom Shanker '78, who is Pentagon correspondent for the New York Times. Shanker said he would give a guided tour of the fascinating, dark, complicated world of the Pentagon. Alas, he did not have time for such a foray. September 11th, he said, represented a major shift that provided a new opportunity for conceiving the U.S. role in history. The goal, said Shanker, was to bring "a little piece of justice back in the world."
And so it was, day after day, disturbing thought and grim and daunting prospects. It was certainly a challenge to students. Glenn Gray, professor of philosophy, who was my teacher as well as my colleague when I first arrived here, used to say there are no grounds for optimism, but there are grounds for hope, hope based on the creative power of human minds and imagination. It is still my privilege to be in contact with Colorado College students in a few blocks of teaching. The world picture is grim, but when I look at their faces and hear their voices, my spirits are buoyed, and I think there are grounds for hope, even in the present world.
On the whole it was a memorable time. Large numbers of students and townspeople attended the sessions. The symposium began in dismaying controversy that attracted national attention (in the New York Times, no less). It ended, in my view, with a general feeling that the college had made an enlightening contribution to understanding the fearful, dangerous world in which we are fated to live. And we had demonstrated again that this place is open to every kind of view. It seems particularly important for educational institutions to reaffirm the precious tradition of robust debate when rights and freedoms are under pressure. It was, in short, another event in the fructifying symposium tradition that contributes to the luster of this great college.
Back to News and Events