Minneapolis Again: University bars Desmond Tutu
After my recent exposure in Minneapolis to restricting discussion about Israeli policy, it’s not surprising to read in today’s MuzzleWatch that a local university has cancelled a visit by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:
Rumors have been circulating for some time that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was banned by the University of St Thomas in Minnesota because of statements he made that some consider anti-Semitic. Now it’s official: winning the Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t protect you from charges of anti-Semitism if you criticize Israeli human rights practices. Neither, apparently, does being one of the most compelling voices for social justice in the world today, or even getting an honorary degree from and giving the commencement address at Brandeis.
As Cecilie Surasky reports,
Minneapolis/St.Paul’s City Pages just reported that members of the St Thomas Justice and Peace Studies program were thrilled when Bishop Tutu agreed to speak at the University– but administrators did a scientific survey of the Jews of Minneapolis, which included querying exactly one spokesperson for Minnesota’s Jewish Community Relations Council and several rabbis who taught in a University program– and concluded that Tutu is bad for the Jews and should therefore be barred from campus.
The university cancelled the talk after talking “to Julie Swiler, a spokeswoman for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas”:
“I told him that I;d run across some statements that were of concern to me,” says Swiler. “In a 2002 speech in Boston, he made some comments that were especially hurtful. … I think there’s a consensus in the Jewish community that his words [during a 2002 Boston speech] were offensive.”
I briefly met Julie Swiler at the Dialogue on the Wall panel discussion when I was in Minneapolis. The presence on the panel of Swiler’s boss, JCRC director Steve Hunegs, was part of the dynamic that led the moderator to restrict discussion. It doesn’t surprise me that the JCRC would try to keep Tutu from speaking to the public.
Surasky’s MuzzleWatch goes into some detail about Tutu’s 2002’s talk and his work with Sabeel, a Christian liberation theology group based in Jerusalem. She ends with this:
The talk is notable for its philo-Semitism and its equally passionate condemnation of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and people. For anyone who has been to the Occupied Territories, let alone lived through it, his words of condemnation are impossible to argue with. His language is challenging in part because it is imbued with the disappointment of a Christian raised to look up to Jews, and the heartache of an anti-apartheid leader who was once buoyed by passionate Jewish support. He struggles to make sense of the checkpoints, the home demolitions, the land confiscations, done by a state that says it represents the very same people.
What is clear is that he at times uses language loosely without understanding how it might hurt or offend us Jews. Does that make him an anti-Semite? Of course not. Should he be banned for using a term like “Jewish lobby” that makes many of us uncomfortable? Are you kidding?
Tutu never wavers in expressing his love of and hope for peace and security for both peoples. “Peace based on justice,” Tutu says, “is possible. We will do all we can to assist you to achieve this peace, because it is God’s dream, and you will be able to live amicably together as sisters and brothers. “
Tutu will be in Boston again later this month, when he’ll deliver the keynote address for a Sabeel conference on “The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel: Issues of Justice and Equality.” Personally gratifying for me, beyond the event itself, is that the lobby exhibit accompanying the conference will include several of my photos. I’m glad to be of use.
Technorati Tags: Desmond Tutu, Israel, JCRC, Minneapolis, Palestine, Sabeel, Jewish Community Relations Council
October 13th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
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