Freedom of speech protects the offensive, too

In the hit song ‘Another Brick in the Wall,’ Pink Floyd opines, ‘We don’t need no education.’ Apparently high school teachers have relaxed their standards accordingly — and not just in grammar. A recent survey indicates students do not understand their government.

The survey, conducted by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, found that more than one third of U.S. high school students believe the First Amendment goes ‘too far’ in granting basic freedoms. More appallingly, only half agree that newspapers should be allowed to publish without government approval, and nearly one in five think unpopular views should be suppressed.

I suppose these results are not entirely shocking in light of newfound political correctness, but post- Sept. 11, 2001 culture alone hardly warrants neo-fascism. The mainstream press must take responsibility for mischaracterizing unpopular views and John Q. Public must stop passively accepting the media spin.

After 9/11, politically correct nationalism became a powerful trump card, and media outlets from the New York Times to Fox News were not afraid to use it. In an essay outlining his reaction to the 9/11 attacks, University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill compared the victims to ‘little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers.’ I make no excuse for Churchill’s offensive words, but the ensuing media backlash — accusing him of equating 9/11 victims to Nazis — was just as unwarranted.

Right-wing pundits and state governors deemed Churchill a traitor to the country and called on the University of Colorado to fire the tenured professor. Some even labeled him a terrorist.

Sadly, in the land of the free, few dared to investigate the context of Churchill’s words and the purpose of his essay. Churchill was reiterating the implications of decades of U.S. imperial arrogance, such as the deadly invasions of El Salvador, Cambodia and other nations. Attacks on Lebanon in the early ’80s, support for Israel at the cost of Palestinian lives and a military presence in Saudi Arabia directly motivated the 9/11 attacks.

The U.S. military relates the deaths of innocent civilians abroad to ‘collateral damage.’ Churchill sees no distinction between them and the victims of 9/11 who were thought by the terrorists to be partially responsible for feeding global U.S. militarization and the ensuing tragedies pressed on indigenous people around the world.

The Eichmann allusion was extreme, but Churchill had to get people talking. We should pay attention to his message if we truly wish to protect ourselves. As Churchill notes, Israeli security is the most advanced anywhere but is still vulnerable to suicidal 14-year-olds. Even Churchill would agree the solution is not simply to abstain from all military action. Instead, the media and the American people should engage in more objective discourse — without a trump card. This discussion likely would involve unpopular opinions, like Churchill’s, but suppressing free speech is far more dangerous. I would expect such censorship only from the autocratic regimes in the Middle East we are supposedly opposing. More importantly, challenging free speech disempowers a fundamental tenet of the U.S. Constitution. I doubt this would upset Osama Bin Laden.

When we hear controversial rhetoric, we should not immediately oppose it. We cannot expect the TV news media to discuss it impartially; instead we should evaluate it by our own standards. Thankfully, political correctness does not govern what we discuss privately. Hopefully, such notions will die out in the public realm, too.

Love or hate their politics, we must admit that people like Churchill, Michael Moore, Lawrence Summers and Bill O’Reilly at least started a dialogue — which is often their purpose.

If the trend uncovered by the Knight Foundation continues, I fear we will see the dawn of the ‘9/11 children’ — a sycophantic breed of little Eichmanns who are ‘just obeying orders’ and think dissent is un-patriotic. If that’s what they’re taught, then Pink Floyd was right, ‘We don’t need no education.’

Faraz Sultan is a Sid Richardson College junior.

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