Editorial, Jan. 25.
It was good to see your report on the controversy surrounding Daniel Pipes’ proposed visit to York University. However, I was appalled by your editorial in support of Pipes’ talk. Your editorial has essentialized the notion of “free speech,” ignoring the issues of power, privilege and ideology. Can you imagine defending Mullah Omar’s invitation, if such a circumstance ever came to pass, to York University on grounds of “free speech”? For that matter, what about an invitation to a white supremacist? Surely you would go to great lengths to denounce such invitations — and justifiably so. Therefore, what changes when it comes to people like Pipes? Isn’t Pipes carrying on witch-hunts against respected academics because they defend Palestinian refugees or speak out against Israel’s horror of demolitions and occupation? For the record, let me say that, in as much as suicide bombings are acts of a devastated and desperate people, I acknowledge that there also is horror in these acts. Coming back to Pipes, isn’t he mounting racist attacks against Muslims — painting whole communities with demonizing labels like “extremist” and “militant Islamist”? There are laws against the form of hate and intimidation that is perpetuated by Daniel Pipes, but why are they not being enforced either in the U.S. or in Canada? Your editors don’t seem to ask this question. On the contrary, the Star, to which I subscribe, because it has at least a semblance of coverage of the non-Euro-American world and the non-white diaspora, has chosen to defend the likes of Pipes. You seem to disregard the power in the form of institutional support that Pipes has, whether it is from the American state, which condones his activities, the Israeli state, which supports it, or the administration of York University, which promotes him in the name of “free speech.”