Author Archive
Academic Exile and Freedom to Learn
Professor Norman Finkelstein is an American political scientist, who amidst a public outcry in June 2007 was denied tenure at DePaul University, where he had been an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007. After being placed on administrative leave for the 2007-2008 academic year, on September 5, 2007, professor Finkelstein announced his resignation. In the official DePaul statement he was described “as a prolific scholar and outstanding teacher.”
Professor Finkelstein’s academic research has focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust; his unique insight on these topics is much needed in the current academic debate. With this imposed academic exile, the fundamental freedom to learn of every academic in the democratic world is being denied, and society has yet to notice.
Maybe one day we will come to terms with the importance of the fundamental freedom to learn. Then we will stand together and demand it, because without it a truly free society can never exist. If we realize this, we will bring back outstanding professors like Norman Finkelstein to continue their contribution to the freedom of learning in the universities of our cherished democratic societies.
People paid relative importance to professor Finkelstein’s tenure denial. After a few united outcries of indignation, the collective interest faded and only a few scattered individuals continued their concern for the social implications to our society. Professor Finkelstein gracefully stepped out of his academic career minimizing the conflict with an institution he clearly respected. Although we should all be concerned about his future, our main concern should be with those students and professors, whom will miss out on the knowledge they could have shared with the professor within the academic institution.
Norman Finkelstein will of course keep surprising us with his seminal work in defence of justice and honesty. The relevance of his work is far bigger than the world of academia, and too relevant to be ignored in the times of crisis which humanity is submerged in. Society needs those individuals who are able to think outside of the box and focus on the structural issues, which have eroded our democracy. Sooner or later we are going to have to knock on his door.
On the other hand however, those students and professors who are shaping or will be shaping our societal structures, are being denied their democratic freedom to learn alternative perspectives. Norman Finkelstein’s tenure denial should be taken as a warning of things to come.
Professor Finkelstein did not need to abandon his country. In that sense his exile is not the same as that faced by intellectuals in other countries and other times, but how relevant would that comparison be anyway? What is important is what academic exile means today, in the 21st century in the United States, the country which is on a crusade to liberate the whole of humanity from the barbaric claws of dictators, the spread of terrorism and the alternative perspectives of political dissenters.
Academic exile in this context is a dangerous concept. It carries with it the most serious injustice applied to a population of students and professors — no freedom to learn. The fact that the Dean of DePaul University let professor Finkelstein walk away is a sad reality, which speaks volumes about the kind of education that is sought in that institution. It allows a glimpse into the institution’s non-commitment to freedom of learning. However, what is more disturbing is the fact that work there is continuing as normal both by professors and students. How can one continue carrying out work in an institution after it is clearly denying its population its most fundamental right, the freedom to learn, the one freedom it is meant to excel in. This seems to me outrageous and frankly, I feel sorry for everyone in that institution who is living without that right.
What is also disturbing, is that the academic population of the democratic world seems to be asleep, obviously too indulged in the indoctrination of the propaganda apparatus set up by their country’s elites. Academia has yet to realize that with Finkelstein’s departure, freedom to learn was lost by a whole community of scholars.
Academia in democracy is experiencing a paradigm shift in which freedom to learn is losing relevance, recuperating it will entail a difficult task, since most individuals are unaware of having lost it.
“Lame Duck” citizens and the global economy
In regards to our ‘global economy’, one is better off reading Dostoevsky’s The Gambler and saying to himself, “at the present moment I must repair to the roulette-table,” than listening to George Bush deluding himself about the fact that “while there is some uncertainty, the financial markets are strong and solid.” The truth is, our global markets have become a “lame duck” and all we can do is wait for the next disaster to shake the corrupt foundation on which things have been run.
As Hugues Rialan, managing director in charge of discretionary asset management at Robeco France puts it, “if they [financial institutions] had a much more transparent communication, we would not have all the bombshells, or rumors of bombshells, that we’re having today, with all the negative implications for the market.”
The fact remains that people are reluctant to utter the word depression, and therefore all we are left with are the words of all those experts who created the mess in the first place. Just before ending 2007, York professor Peter Spencer, chief economist for the ITEM Club, warned us; “I don’t think the central banks are going to make a major policy error, but if they do, this could make 1929 look like a walk in the park.” What has unraveled before our eyes since then, is a grim picture which threatens the very way in which we think of our ‘wonderful democratic societies’ and their ‘solid financial structures’.
We started 2008 with a series of announcements which should have shaken even the most faithful of believers in the goodness of our political and financial institutions. We recovered from our new year celebrations with legendary Wall Street guru and chief investment strategist of Pequot Capital Management, Byron Wien, telling us he expected oil to move between $80 and $115 a barrel, corn to rise to $6 a bushel, and gold to reach $1,000 an ounce. By the 7th of January, David Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch’s chief North American economist, was informing us that “according to our analysis, this [recession] isn’t even a forecast any more but is a present day reality.”
Then the bad news kept rolling in, Goldman Sachs predicted that Japan was in danger of following the US into recession later in 2008, and The Bank of Japan announced that annual growth in bank loans was the slowest in nearly two years. Rolls Royce followed, informing us that 2,300 jobs would be cut as part of a cost reduction program.
By January 14th, recruitment companies Michael Page and Hays, were reporting hiring freezes in the City of London, and John Philpott, economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, was saying; “We expect this year to be the worst for job creation in a decade.” One day later, Goldman Sachs joined Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch in estimating that the US “may already be in a recession,” and Gerard Lyons chief economist for Standard Chartered bank, followed by telling us “the US economy in our view is heading into a recession.”
On January 20th, Merrill Lynch published its worst quarter since its foundation almost 100 years ago, with a loss of $9.8 billion in the last three months of 2007.’ Citigroup followed suit, reporting a 40% cut in its dividend and an $18 billion write-down in its quarterly results.’ EMI (the world’s leading independent music company) used that day to warn it would cut one in three jobs.
By January 21st, Black Monday was upon us, the Spanish stock market registered its worst fall since 1987 with a drop of 7.54 percent, the Bombay stock exchange slid 7.41 percent, as brokers were unable to pay stock exchanges the money which they owed on the shares they had bought. Other stockmarkets were also down, Paris 5.48 percent, Frankfurt 7.16 percent, Milan 5.17 percent, the Swiss bourse 5.26 percent, Toronto 4.75 percent, Sao Paolo 6.6 percent, Buenos Aires 6.27 percent, Mexico 5.35 percent, Santiago 5.03 percent, Lima 8.35 percent, Tokyo 3.86 percent, Shanghai 5.14 percent, Hong Kong 5.49 percent and Seoul 2.95 percent.
Pedro Solbes, Spanish minister of economy and finance told us, “there is no reason to exaggerate,” Europe “is reasonably prepared” for a slowdown. He obviously forgot to acknowledge the fact, that over 40,000 estate agents closed their doors in Spain in 2007.
Euro group president Jean-Claude Juncker commented; “We should not over-react to the events on the stock exchanges today,” although the economic and financial climate is “highly volatile and uncertain.”
That same day, S&P acknowledged that “the US housing market slump may last far longer than previously expected,” and University of Maryland economist, Carmen Reinhart and Harvard University economist, Kenneth Rogoff, informed us that “the current crisis appears on track to be at least as bad as the five most catastrophic financial crises to hit industrialized countries since World War II.” Bank of America added; “The perfect storm took time to brew, but it hit hard and fast – much harder and faster than we expected.”
Discouraging news followed. Rumors came that Societe Generale which had repeatedly stated it didn’t have exposure to the troubled subprime mortgage market, could possibly unveil write-downs. Then Commerzbank’s chief executive, acknowledged further write-downs on the value of its subprime linked investments, and rumors surfaced, that Bank of China may become the latest banking casualty, from the collapse of America’s sub-prime mortgage market. According to the Financial Times, in a Chinese stock market crash “since most publicly listed companies are state-owned… Large-scale public protest is a possibility.”
By January 22nd, billionaire investor George Soros, emphasized that the United States was facing a possible recession and that the world was eying the worst financial crisis since World War II. Then Paul Sheard, global chief economist at Lehman Brothers, warned; “at the moment we are seeing the global imbalances unwind — so far it has been orderly, but there are signs that it could become a little more disorderly.”
The truth remains that The Federal Home Loan Bank system has injected $750bn into mortgage banks since the beginning of the crunch, $210bn in November alone. In the past 10 days, Citigroup has cut 4200 positions after its biggest quarterly loss. Fourth-quarter earnings of Bank of America Corp. and Wachovia Corp., second and fourth largest U.S. banks, have plummeted after more than $6 billion of combined mortgage related writedowns. Germany’s investor confidence has dropped to its lowest since 1992, and the first signs have emerged that China’s economy may be slowing.
Worse still, this turbulence is far from over. According to former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, “there is the possibility, not yet at all the probability, that a recession could prove long and severe.” From Bernard Connolly’s perspective, global strategist at Banque AIG, “the next really big shock to financial markets is likely to be the risk of collapse in the EMU [European Economic and Monetary Union] credit bubble: the private sector credit consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”
So although Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG says; “I hope that we don’t swing to… an irrational depression,” I am inclined to believe, that rational thought will be the detonator of an acknowledged depression. The sooner the better, the more we hide things under the carpet, the more our global economy will look like a scaled-up version of the Enron scandal. I tend to agree with Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum’s founder and chairman, when he states; “We have to pay for the sins of the past.” The question I ask, is who will end up paying the price? It seems clear to me as this poker game unravels, that the true “lame duck” is going to be the taxpayer.
2007: Annus Mirabilis and the Smiling Garden of Eden
In 1905 Albert Einstein, presented the Annus Mirabilis (“Wonderful Year”) Papers, in which he explained the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc2, which lead to the development of nuclear energy. In 1955, a few days before his death, Einstein together with Bertrand Russell issued the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, highlighting the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, and calling for world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to international conflict. One of the paragraphs in the manifesto read; “We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.”
The year 2007 has been a “Wonderful year” in the quest for nuclear supremacy. While as ‘global citizens’ we have been distracted by the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran, the possible failed state of Pakistan, and the push for disarmament by North Korea, our political and economic leaders have been making aggressive moves towards reinstating the forgotten supremacy of Nuclear Energy.
Following the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl and the end of the nuclear arms race of the Cold War, it looked like the use of nuclear energy would fade away and be replaced with alternative sources of energy, both for military and civilian purposes. However, it seems apparent now, that the opposite is taking place and as wars continue to spread, together with terrorism and failed states, the global race is on for nuclear domination. As President Bush said on the 20th of December; ” [Nuclear plants] are the best solution to making sure we have economic growth and at the same time be good stewards of the environment.”
On December 19th the Washington Post told us; “Nuclear power is on the verge of a renaissance in the United States.” The fact is that there is a global renaissance thirsty for nuclear proliferation, and this time Washington is not its sole promoter. The main problem is that as ‘global citizens’ we don’t understand the true implications of this choice. In 1953 Edward Teller “the father of the hydrogen bomb” and an early member of the Manhattan Project, charged with developing the first atomic bombs, addressed the issue in a letter to Sterling Cole, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Referring to the use of nuclear energy for civilian purposes he said; “it is clear that no legislation will be able to stop future accidents and avoid completely occasional loss of life… Power production can, however, be conducted in such a manner as to produce militarily useful materials.”
Little does this “occasional loss of life” matter at the beginning of the 21st century. We learned a few days ago at the French National Assembly’s economic affairs committee, that Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive of Areva, the world’s largest nuclear power group, is saying that “between now and 2030 we believe there could be 100 to 300 (nuclear reactors built around the world).”
During this aggressive uranium rush, Umberto Quadrino, chief executive of Edison, Italy’s second-largest utility, is calling for a substantial increase in Europe’s nuclear power capacity; “a nuclear programme at a European level has to be taken into consideration.” A move which deems irrelevant the research released on December the 8th by physicians and health researchers from the University of Mainz in Germany, which clearly states ” that the risk for children under five years of contracting leukaemia grows with proximity of their homes to nuclear power plants.”
As all countries seek to invest in nuclear energy, no importance is given to the dangers of promoting investment in nuclear development in such a volatile world; “The open secret of the nuclear age is that the line between civilian and military programs is extraordinarily thin… Indeed, the most difficult part of building a bomb is… the process that is also crucial to civilian nuclear power — producing the fuel.” New York Times December 5th.
So as civilians allow this path to be pursued and all governments want to be active participants of this dangerous club, a new United States legislation was agreed last week which directs the Secretary of Energy to provide $20.5 billion for nuclear energy, $18.5 billion for nuclear reactors and $2 billion for uranium enrichment. Coincidently, there is also a plan backed by the UK government’s chief scientist to build a £1bn fuel processing plant at Sellafield capable of turning the UK’s 60,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste into reactor fuel.
Meantime in China, there are plans to increase the country’s nuclear power capacity to 40,000 MW by 2020 and an agreement has already been reached for the construction of six third-generation reactors. Russia, on the other hand has announced that in 2008 a nuclear-energy university will be established in Moscow, based at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, and coordinated in unison with the Russian Education Ministry.
As the year comes to a close, while observing these rapid moves towards a more nuclear world, I am drawn to the prediction made in 1909 by the British chemist Frederick Soddy, who believed atomic power would “make the entire world one smiling Garden of Eden”. Sadly, I am confident that honest analysis will reveal that 2007 was the “Wonderful Year” in which doctrines of arbitrary authority, with their innate contempt for freedom, and belief in the necessity of violence and the morality of war were promoted side by side with a thriving nuclear complex. In this real life scenario, it seems to me that collective common sense holds the key to a non-terrorized society, which today stands far away from this mythological “Smiling Garden of Eden”.
2008: Safari Tourism in Iraq
Shortly after the occupation of Iraq in 2003, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremer issued an edict granting immunity to U.S. military and civilian personnel including employees of Blackwater USA, from criminal prosecution in Iraqi courts.
On October 7th 2007, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the investigation set up by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had found Blackwater “deliberately killed” the 17 people in the September 16th shooting in western Baghdad. For this incident according to senior government sources, the Iraqi government wants U.S. security firm Blackwater to pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of the 17 people killed.
US Defence Department figures reveal that Blackwater is just one of more than 100 private security companies operating in Iraq with more than 160,000 personnel.
To be honest in these times of wildly justified actions and complete western indifference, nothing shocks me anymore, so now that the puppet government of Iraq has put a price on the head of civilian Iraqis, I would not be surprised to hear that Blackwater USA employees and other security personnel are going to be re-deployed, to give way for a new style of Safari tourism in Iraq to begin – that of man-hunting.
After observing closely how things are done in this flourishing ‘free world’ of ours, I am confident about the fact that more than one venture capital company, would be willing to invest in a well-thought out business plan for a company offering this kind of service as a form of adventure tourism for westerners, starting in 2008. With a bit of lobbying in Washington, a few speeches in the UN General Assembly, and a few commissions for Iraqi officials paid in full in a foreign tax haven, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get the operation started.
The way things are moving, the way we as westerners have shown a complete lack of respect for Iraqi people, we should not be surprised if come 2008 we are able to go to our local travel operators to make reservations for these Safari expeditions. Instead of having our governments do the killing for us, since most of the western population seems so acceptant of such actions, we could go and do the job ourselves. Let us finish the job, what our military and private contractors have not achieved, we could do as part of our relaxation.
The slogan for an ad promoting this holiday could read; “Relax away from the buzz, take a break, unwind and shoot some Iraqis. Contribute to your national pride.” A little footnote at the bottom of the ad could read; “Your government endorses this effort and encourages you to stabilize the Middle East. All killings are subsidised.”
The Iraqi people live far away from our western reality, they follow different traditions, they speak a different language we can’t understand, and more importantly they don’t have the wealth we westerners have been able to amass after centuries of imperialistic theft. Let us westerners be honest to ourselves for a minute, would this kind of business venture really shock us? Would we really worry about the Iraqi people? Or would many westerners run to their travel agents with the hope of being the first in line?
Although a few days ago in a keynote speech at the ‘Expose War Crimes: Criminalize War Exhibition’, Malaysian ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad said that war is in fact legitimized terror orchestrated by the powerful states against the weak, and emphasized the fact that “history should remember Blair and Bush as the killers of children or as the lying prime minister and president,” I am not sure western society has understood that we will be remembered as the people that allowed them free reign.
So as the words of President Bush speaking to an audience assembled by the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce and Industry, still resonate in my ears; “If we left (Iraq) before the job was done, there would be chaos.” I am more inclined to believe the comments made by Paul Rogers of The Oxford Research Group, who in a new report emphasized that “every aspect of the war on terror has been counterproductive in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the loss of civilian life through (to) mass detentions without trial. In short, it has been a disaster.”
I wonder if the publicised incident of Blackwater USA will serve as the wakeup call for western nations to realise what we have become, or it will pave the way towards an eventual Iraqi Safari Park for those westerners who flourish in capitalism to indulge themselves in the ‘pleasure’ of shooting Iraqi civilians. Whatever the answer to this troubling dilemma, what is certain as Edward Said rightly said, is “that even the person doing the kicking has to ask himself how long he can go on kicking. At some point your leg is going to get tiered. One day you’ll wake up and ask; what the fuck am I doing?”
America needs a Guarantor
In an interview with The Washington Post on November 11, 2003, George Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the “central focus of my life” and “a matter of life and death.” He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush, “if someone guaranteed it”.
Again in 2006, during an interview with Charlie Rose, when Charlie asked him about that particular statement, with the following question; “You would have gladly given away ninety percent of your fortune in a minute?” Soros replied; “One hundred percent, because I think it would have made a tremendous contribution to mankind.”
According to Forbes Magazine in March 2007, George Soros´s net worth stood at 8.5 billion U.S dollars and placed him as the 80th richest man in the world, surely this sum should be enough to creatively remove President Bush from office. I am surprised that in a country which prides itself on its entrepreneurship, intellect and creativity, where garage start-ups with tiny financial sums are part of the corporate culture and many have gone on to become world leading multinationals, there are no entrepreneurs available to draft a concise and effective strategy to guarantee George Bush’s removal from office, supported by Soros’s 8.5 billion dollar fund.
Great institutions and organizations have been born and bred as part of the American dream, a dream which George Bush is rapidly replacing with a vision of war, destruction, carelessness, genocide, poverty, and the much dreaded police state more commonly attributed to dictatorial states but definitely gaining ground in America’s formal democracy.
Of course on Bush’s obtuse vision of the world hinges America’s credibility, world leadership, free thought and the ability for future creative entrepreneurship, all necessary attributes to sustain Americas real influence in world affairs.
Soros brilliantly emphasized this reality during his time with Charlie Rose with the following words; ” People I think don’t really realize how much power and influence we have lost, in how short a time, and how really dismal the direction in Iraq is, that everyday you see the situation deteriorating, so this could have been avoided with a different leadership.”
Perhaps those entrepreneurs whose quest of building powerful corporations have been realized, people like Gates, Jobs and Schultz can remain in their high horses enjoying their success and expanding their know-how to other markets, but maybe those younger ones out there working on their start-up plans for the corporations and organizations of the future, should look at the world for what it is, and expand their minds to place Bush in our historical time period.
Maybe with this analysis in motion, the ‘stream of consciousness’ will flow in America’s future leaders and their five-year plans asking for venture capital or grants, will become visionary strategies to guarantee the ousting of Bush and the continuation of the great American dream.
If Americans wants to continue being a source of inspiration to the world, a rapid change of mood is required. Granted all evils will not be removed by ousting this president, much work needs to be done within America’s reality in order for it to become what it has so eloquently preached. But there can be no doubt in my mind after studying the recent history of America since 2001, that Americans are being short-changed by their political and financial leaders and that the rest of the world is suffering from Americans’ lack of ‘political will’.
Just like a good plan to raise venture capital or secure a grant would require good leadership and strategy, together with solid advise from seasoned professionals, ousting Bush and defending the American dream, will require committed activists with a solid strategy and the guiding hand of lucid intellectuals.
People like Noam Chomsky, Norman G. Finkelstein, Howard Zinn, Tim Wise, Jeffrey Sachs, James Petras, Ramzy Baroud and Edward S. Herman could be amongst the list of advisory board member for such a quest. After all, looking at the current state of the world, this seems like the time for coming together. Edward Said in 1993 expressed in a very clear way that this day could maybe arise; “I feel we all have different audiences in different constituencies. Just performing acts of routine solidarity, or mindless loyalty, strikes me as not interesting, not important. Although there may be a time for it.”
If I was an American entrepreneur or an American activist I would jump at the chance which Soros has put on the table and would work on the plan to guarantee the ousting of Bush. After all, how many times in your life do you get the chance to spend 8,5 billion dollars to put a derailed society back on track, and all of this without having to focus on financial profitability. However, since I am Spanish and the Spanish empire has long vanished, all I can do is point out the facts, hoping American colleagues will decide it is time to act.