Weblog
About ArmaVirumque ( AHR-mah wih-ROOM-kweh) In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil sang of "arms and a man" (Arma virumque cano). Month in and month out, The New Criterion expounds with great clarity and wit on the art, culture, and political controversies of our times. With postings of reviews, essays, links, recs, and news, Armavirumque seeks to continue this mission in accordance with the timetable of the digital age. Recent posts
Archives more archives Info
Recent contributors
Shortcut
To contact The New Criterion by email, write to: letters@newcriterion.com.To contact The New Criterion by mail, write to: The New Criterion 900 Broadway Suite 602 New York, New York 10003 USA
Blogroll
Feb 19, 2005 08:51 AM Ward Churchill: Six Degrees of Separation
I know, I know: Churchill fatigue is setting in. How much about Ward Churchill can the human frame take? I and my colleagues have already written about the Ward-Churchill-Hamilton-College affair several times (e.g., here, here, and here). If, as everyone keeps saying, the fellow who compared the victims of 9/11 to "little Eichmanns" is beneath contempt, why is he not, after that acknowledgment, also beneath comment? Well, for one thing, as I have noted, Ward Churchill is not the problem. He is merely a symptom of a much deeper disease, interesting and worthy of attention for the light he sheds upon the larger issue, which is the extent to which higher education is captive of the anti-American, politically correct Left. It’s rather a large extent, as it happens, and it is remarkable at how many points Churchill intersects with the Left establishment. For example, in "The Ward Churchill Money Trail," an illuminating article for FrontPageMagazine.com, Joel Mowbray shows the connection between Churchill and The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights, an institution dedicated to "living out diversity equitably." (Gustavus Myers, for whom the center is named, was the author of History of Bigotry in the United States [1943], a bible of the affirmative-action industry.) The Gustavus Center clearly likes Ward Churchill. His book On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality, which contains his now-infamous "little Eichmanns" comment, received "honorable mention" in the Gustavus Myers 2004 book awards. And the center also lists several other titles written or co-written by Churchill in its "database" of "books that deepen our knowledge about dismantling oppression." (Sample title from Churchill: Struggle for the Land: Indigenous Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide, and Expropriation in Contemporary North America.) As Mowbray observes,
At first blush, the Gustavus Myers Center could seem like a wacky, far-left ivory tower creation. Receiving honorable mention for its 2003 award, for example, was a picture book of �classic� gay erotica. Witness the group’s own description of the book: �Pencil, ink and chalk drawings claiming an erotic past as extremely important for notions of identity and community.� To the best of my knowledge, Loretta Williams, the director of the Gustavus Center, has not compared the victims of 9/11 to Nazi bureaucrats. But she honors one who does. And she has, in an article reprinted on the Center’s web site, castigated the "U.S.-proclaimed war on terrorism" (her italics) as an unjustified campaign that, among other evils, leads to "ultrapatriotism," the "retrenchment of civil liberties," and the "scapegoating" and dehumanization of "Muslims, immigrants, those with darker skin." Mowbray notes that "Since news broke that Churchill’s `little Eichmanns’ essay was honored by the Gustavus Myers Center, the group does not appear to have lost any of its sponsors. Still listed are all 12 sponsors listed previously, including, oddly enough, B’Nai Brith International."
Perhaps it is not surprising that the party of moveon.org and Michael Moore does not condemn loudly Prof. Churchill’s equating 9/11 victims to Nazis. But why haven’t the groups that sponsor the center that honored him for making that very comparison? And what about the funders who indirectly helped make such an honor possible? Yes, what about them? Contemplating the Ward Churchill phenomenon, I am reminded of the play Six Degrees of Separation, the premise of which is that everyone on earth is separated from even the most distant person by no more than six friends of friends of friends. Perhaps. It does seem, however, that no one in the American left-wing establishment is far removed from the ravings of Ward Churchill. What does that tell us?
E-mail to friend
|
Subscriber login
 The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices Already a print subscriber? click for online access New from The New Criterion: ‘Free speech in 
Webcasts
The Milt Rosenberg Show: Free Speech in an age of Jihad
Roger Kimball on liberalism's response to Islam
Encounter Books at 10, an interview with Roger Simon |
add a comment
you must be a new criterion subscriber to post a comment. {subscribe now}