David Seddon's latest post raises issues that extend well
beyond the stance-taking over academic boycotts.
I don't know about any organisation of protest among
Israeli academics, so I will not reply to David Seddon's
post on that point (though it would be useful to have more
information than the personal impression on which David
bases his argument).
However, his other points consitute a distortion of
military and political realities in service of an academic
dispute. The Anglo-American occupation of Iraq is turning
out to be a protracted affair, with daily routine acts of
violence against the Iraqi people, operations very probably
informed by the regular military exchanges between the
Israeli and the US armies (the British army has its own,
local tradition of urban low-intensity warfare to draw
on).
In drawing a distinction between the occupation of Iraq and
that of the Palestinian territories in terms of the former
being 'relatively short-lived', David Seddon
inadvertently accepts the legitimation of violence in terms
of 'surgical' strikes, a highly delimited and specific
definition of ('just' or 'legitimate') war which discounts
precisely the kind of protracted violence that
characterises Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza and
Anglo-American operations in Iraq. Both occupations are
spuriously defined by their perpetrators as
'anti-terrorist' operations, in contrast to 'war', which is
today legitimised as the 'relatively short-lived',
spectacular, calculated delivery of overwhelming
violence by professional forces. Since forces of resistance
do not (cannot) deploy such forms of force, they are deemed
de facto illegitimate and thus terrorist, thereby
legitimating the protracted violence of low-intensity
operations.
As sociologists, we need not only to define our stance
toward the new forms of violence; we need also to use our
expertise to analyse it critically. Ethical
posturing alone, however clearly defined, will make little
difference in the real world unless we can also show the
futility of the violence against which we polemicise.
Mick Drake
---------------------------------------
Dr Michael S. Drake,
Tutor in Sociology,
School of Economic and Social Studies,
UEA,
Norwich.
NR4 7TJ
UK
Tel.: 01603 593415
---------------------------------------
On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 09:29:13 +0100 David Seddon
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> That is a question that Bartram and others need to answer. I personally do
> not feel that an institutional boycott of the British universities would be
> an appropriate response to the war in iraq - although there may have been
> other appropriate response - largely because it was a relatively short-lived
> afair. Some of us have been actively opposed not only to this recent
> intervention, but were opposed to the first intervention in 1990-1 and to
> aspects of the sanctions regime throughout the last ten years. For general
> lack of response to that decade-long situation, I would not have been
> suprised at external criticism of the supine attitude of British academia. I
> have myself often been publicly critical of the willingness of my colleagues
> to go along with British policy in this regard - although there have been
> those who have been stalwartly opposed.
>
> Interestingly, I have seen no signs of any attempt by Israeli academics to
> organise a critical response themselves to the war in Iraq - rather my
> impression is that, if anything, they have supported it. Presumably they
> were pleased to see their government's patrons and allies intervene to
> effect 'regime change' in Iraq and are now encouraged by the significant
> Israeli presence in the proposals for the so-called 'reconstruction
> efforts' - which should prove lucrative and ensure a useful presence in a
> neighbouring Arab country.
>
> But this attempt to compare the intervention in iraq with Israeli occupation
> of the West Bank and Gaza, and the appalling destruction that has been
> caused there, over a period of a generation, is of course a masterful 'red
> herring'. First cast out the beam in thine own eye.
>
> david seddon
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Newsletter of the European Sociological Association (ESA)
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of David Bartram
> > Sent: 23 October 2003 18:44
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [alef] Re: Another assult against the Israeli Academic
> > Freedom
> >
> >
> > Paul Reynolds and David Seddon did not respond to an element of a previous
> > letter from Baruch Kimmerling - regarding whether we should
> > boycott British
> > and American universities because of the UK/USA invasion of Iraq. Baruch
> > has presented another version of this question in his most recent message,
> > and I would like to express my own interest in their answer to this
> > question. Gentlemen: is there a reason you did not address that
> > issue? Do
> > you find yourselves able to do so now?
> >
> > David Bartram
> >
> > At 18:48 23/10/2003 +0200, you wrote:
> > >d. Finally - no parody: I'll be very glad to hear what individual and
> > >groups of British and American faculties are doing to express their views
> > >against (or for?) the invasion of Iraq. Any of your publshed recentely a
> > >whole polemnic book about Tony Blair as I did about Ariel Sharon?
> > >Best, BK.
> > >
> > >
> >
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