Should safety and security ever overrule basic democratic freedoms? Ever since 9/11 this question has held centre stage, until the tension between these concerns has become thick enough to choke on. Members of the Concordia University community have recently seen first-hand just what interesting times we live in.
On September 18, Concordia’s board of governors placed a moratorium on any further discussions or activities on campus relating to the Israel-Palestine conflict, in response to the near-riotous protests that prevented Benjamin Netanyahu from delivering a speech.
Last weekend, the Concordia Students’ Union (CSU) attempted to countermand the ban by hosting a lecture on campus entitled “Peace and Justice in the Middle East.” They found themselves fighting a losing battle with the university administration in the Quebec Superior Court. Justice Jean Guibault, who passed the ruling, agreed with the ban in light of the violence at the Netanyahu speech protest.
In reaction, members of the CSU and the “Peace and Justice in the Middle East” debate panel denounced the ban, arguing it was an undemocratic attack on freedom of speech.
Now, The Varsity’s editorial staff may be nuts (we’ve been described as everything from “no-talent hacks” to “hate-mongering fascists” in recent months), but we have a little trouble swallowing the idea this ban is an attack on democratic freedoms of speech. The ban was initiated only after a speaker was denied his right to free speech by raucous protestors. If this ban is an attack on free speech, then what was the riot that sparked the moratorium in the first place?
Of course, an argument to overturn the ban might hold a little water if the issue at hand was something like academic freedom, a harsh action by some level of the Canadian government, or the latest local obscenities of big business. Then some kind of protest or critical attack on the undemocratic powers that be would make some sense.
Except this isn’t the case. The issue behind the Concordia ban is the Israel-Palestine conflict—a complicated and sordid chapter in the annals of human history that has been raging for years, that very few people are actually qualified to say anything meaningful about, and that has been debated for years to no avail.
It doesn’t matter whose side of the conflict you’re on; debates on university campuses about foreign political matters are completely ineffectual. All they do is give people them an excuse to stage riots and write angry letters to the editor about the injustice of it all. None of this does anything to create a peaceful and mutually acceptable solution. Concordia was right to impose the ban. Debates and protests of the Israel-Palestine kind are better aimed at the governments involved, or organizations like the UN. They really have no place on a university campus. This is not an issue of security versus freedom of speech, it is one of campus safety versus armchair politics and the ridiculous potential for local violence over foreign strife. There are more constructive ways to help bring peace than to toss rhetoric around. Let’s leave the war where it is, shall we?
