USA, Israel and Liberal Education

(...) Liberal education is premised on certain fundamental principles: questioning received truths, valuing critical consciousness and independent thought, and working to overcome the silences and exclusions of ruling interests. So, for example, critiquing oppressive social norms is considered educationally valuable, as is promoting the pursuit of truth, freedom, and democratic participation. At its best, therefore, liberal education has always involved helping students to explain the real world (by determining the roots and causes of phenomena). But doing that for a very specific purpose: and that is in order to empower students to participate in changing the world for the better, i.e. to empower them to become agents of social transformation. A liberal education at its best should be committed to no less. (...) Let me begin with the US: The strategy of "ttacking, expanding, and becoming more powerful in the name of defense"is deeply entrenched in US nationalism. From the wars on Native Americans to the War on Terrorism, the US has always dubbed aggressive expansion as defensive action. (...) This same imperial principle of "expansion-by-defense" also applies to Israel's behavior since inception. (...) Such aggressive nationalism has another casualty, and this will bring me back to my opening remarks about liberal education. To achieve their expansionist objectives Israel and the US require conformity from intellectuals: independent thought and questioning have to be silenced. This has never been made clearer to me than in the encounter between Ben Gurion and the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber in 1949. Confronted with the full force of Jewish territorial nationalism, Buber dissentingly asked: "Jewish soil to what end?...What for?" Impatient and irritated Ben Gurion replied: "What are all these questions for? One can ask, but first of all we must build the state." (...) So, I'd like to conclude with a warning for the future: Beware when the powerful cry tears of victimhood. Beware when those tears seek to curtail legitimate academic discussion and silence the truth about Israel. And Beware when all of this is done in the name of Academic Freedom. Always ask, with Martin Buber: "What for?"

Liberal Education and Aggressive Nationalism
by Bashir Abu-Manneh (*)
April 08, 2005
ZNet
Text of a talk given at a teach-in at Columbia University, April 4, 2005

(*) Bashir Abu-Manneh is a Palestinian from Israel, who teaches at Barnard College.