Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘rachel corrie’

Why does this somehow not surprise me?

This year, The Link would like to dedicate the International Women’s Day Issue to the memory of Zahra Kazemi and Rachel Corrie. While various Link members and staff may or may not have disagreed with the politics these two women held dear, we all agree the violent deaths they suffered in their non-violent opposition to human rights abuses was tragic, and a travesty of justice.

This as part of the Concordia paper’s special Women’s issue, which was, as they put it, produced by throwing “all those who identify as men out of the office and allows the women a Women Only Space to complete production of the paper”.

Here’s a real shocker (insert sarcasm): The International Solidary Movement is harbouring terrorists:

Israeli troops raided the West Bank offices of the International Solidarity Movement on Thursday and seized a wanted member of the militant Islamic Jihad group, the army said.

The army said the man was being sheltered in the Jenin offices of the Palestinian-backed peace group whose members often act as human shields, placing themselves between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.

Apart from Rachel Corrie, who the ISM calls its “first official martyr” (I wonder what she would do with 72 virgins?), other members of the ISM include some familiar names from Concordia, including many past and present members of the CSU.

This evening, something strange happened in my French class at Université de Montréal. It’s something that didn’t happen at all in three years at Concordia – Concordia, the school known more for its riots and anti-American, anti-Zionist politics than for its academics. And despite that, never once did I have this problem. But this evening, in the middle of verb conjugations and vocabulary lessons, my teacher decided to vent her political views. And the classroom rapidly turned into a bastion of America-bashing, right before my very eyes.

It’s not so much that she chose to express her opinion (which pretty much consists of the standard leftist line on how the US was going to war for “no reason” and how it’s such a tragedy because innocent people are going to die so Bush can get oil, etc.). It was the fact that she allowed the rest of the class to use her opening as an opportunity to bash the United States. And of course, the inevitable non-sequiteur tie-in to Israel, as Rachel Corrie’s name was bandied about within seconds.

And I just sat there, fuming.

Of course, I could have said something. I could have said a lot of things. I’ve never had a particular problem of being in the minority — as I clearly was in this case. In fact, I think I was the only one who doesn’t consider it a badge of honour to have been out at the anti-Bush (er, anti-war) protest on Saturday. But I’ve never been one to shy away from debate before.

The point is, I felt it was inappropriate. It wasn’t the time or the place to get into a political debate. We were all there to learn about possessive pronouns, not possession of weapons of mass destruction. I thought it was horribly inappropriate for the teacher to start the conversation, and I didn’t want to compound it by turning the anti-American free-for-all into a full-fledged debate. In French, no less — and I must admit that being somewhat inarticulate in French was a factor that motivated me to keep my mouth shut. So I just sat with my arms folded and did my best to give the teacher a dirty look.

In the second half of the class, however, I decided I needed to say something — quietly. I told the teacher I felt uncomfortable with what had happened, and while I didn’t think it was appropriate to say anything at the time, I don’t share her political views and I’d appreciate if she kept differing opinions in mind. I talked about how I could have explained my position but I didn’t want to turn French class into world politics class.

Her reaction was interesting. She was very polite, and said it was never her intention to be insulting — and indeed, she never was. But she continued to hold that “it’s an issue that touches all of us” and claimed that she was very upset and needed to share her thoughts. She also seemed unable to comprehend that there were people out there who weren’t opposed to war in Iraq on principle. She took it as a given, and seemed genuinely surprised to hear that other viewpoints exist.

Still hoping to avoid a political debate, I ended the conversation right then and there. But I learned a few valuable lessons.

First and foremost, it’s all too easy to understand why an overwhelming majority of university students hold the same antiwar views. Quite simply, they want to fit in. They want to feel like they belong. And everyone else thinks it, and most of them don’t have enough background information to form a strong counter-position. So they just get swept along with the tide.

I also learned why even innocent offhand comments by a professor in a classroom are so dangerous. Freedom of expression, yes. Freedom of speech. But with the role of teacher comes the responsibility not to abuse that position. My French teacher is a very nice person, and she had absolutely no malicious intent. The problem is that not all professors are so innocent. Just check out Campus Watch for a few examples.

Certainly I don’t expect everyone to conform to my views. But there’s a time and place for debate, and that wasn’t it.