 | This poster was used to publicize one of the talks held as part of a series of events drawing together members of the campus community and the public for discussions about the war in Iraq. |
The Yale community continued its dialogue about and examination of the war in Iraq as its members turned out in large numbers for a series of "Teach-Ins" on the subject.
At these events, faculty members, students, staff and campus guests offered their own perspectives on the war, raised questions and engaged in discussions about the war and its present and future impact on the United States, the Middle East and the world.
The following are synopses of last week's talks. Coverage of the ongoing discussions (see related story) will appear in future issues of this newspaper.
The debt Western civilization owes to Iraq was revealed in a discussion hosted by the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations on April 1.
The invention of paper, Judaism, the institution of the library, the signs of the Zodiac, the words "check" and "baccalaureate" -- all have their origins in Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, known biblically as "Babylon" and today as Iraq.
In presentations germane to their respective fields of expertise, the panelists each argued that modern Iraq, as the repository of the most precious monuments and artifacts of ancient civilization, must be preserved from the destruction of war.
Eckart Frahm, an assistant professor of Assyriology, listed the invention of writing around 3,300 B.C. and the development of the first cities in the Western world as among the achievements which developed in Mesopotamia during "the first half of history." Frahm spoke of ancient villages, some 5,000 of which have already been excavated, and thousands more still buried, which are endangered by the war and looters.
Siam Bhayro, a lecturer in Northwest Semitic languages in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, noted that Judaism has played an important role in the history of Iraq from the earliest Babylonian times and that the Jewish religion owes its very existence to the Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews. Deprived of their temple, the Hebrews taken to Babylon recreated the lost center of their community with study of the Talmud, Bhayro argued.
Through the centuries of Jewish settlement in Babylon, Bhayro said, the Hebrews adopted Arabic as their language. The world owes its understanding of the Bible, he commented, to the Babylonian Talmud, which was written in Arabic. In the 6th century A.D., according to Bhayro, approximately two million Jews lived in Iraq. Today only 100 remain in the country. This war will bring to an end 27 centuries of continued Jewish settlement in Mesopotamia, he said.
Iraq, where approximately 850,000 Christians live today, was no less important for the development of Christianity, Bhayro contended. The earliest Christian church was based in Baghdad, which was a center of evangelism long before the founding of the Catholic Church in Rome.
Beatrice Gruendler, a professor and director of graduate studies in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, focused attention on the development of paper in Iraq, dating to the 8th century, for the critical role it played in transmitting Western culture and learning. "Anything could be made visual on paper," Gruendler said, noting that the medium accounts for the earliest maps and charts of human anatomy in Western civilization.
The institution of the school, Gruendler suggested, also evolved from the invention of paper. As a medium that could be archived relatively easily, paper became central to the development of the library, from a collection of cuneiform tablets to a meeting place where young scholars could write down notes dictated by "librarians," who were theologians. The precursors of textbooks were guides to using the library's collections, written by librarian/instructors. The library as a teaching institution as well as a repository of books traveled throughout Europe, first to Sicily and later to Spain.
Dimitri Gutas, chair and professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, talked about the importance to the West of Islamic culture, which was centered in Baghdad, from the founding of the city in precisely July 762, and flourished in Spain in the early Middle Ages. The transmission of Greek philosophy to the modern era, as well as many of the basic tenets of Western thought, are owed to Spanish Islamic culture, Gutas told the audience. Without the Arabic translation of the ancient philosophers and thinkers into Latin, Gutas argued, there would have been no Renaissance.
In 1258, the Monguls sacked Baghdad, the world center of culture, and they became a powerful symbol of the destruction of civilized life by barbarians, said Gutas, expressing his hope that Baghad would not be destroyed a second time.
Benjamin Foster, the William M. Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature and curator of Yale's Babylonian Collection, talked about a little-known connection between Yale and Baghdad.
By the turn of the 19th century, British, French and German archaeologists had already excavated many ancient Mesopotamian sites, discovering artifacts that predated Homer by more than 1,000 years, Foster said. Many in Iraq associated the excavation of its treasures with Western imperialism, and as nationalism grew at the beginning of the 20th century and Iraqis became conscious of their own rich heritage, they wanted to hold on to their archaeological treasures. Ironically, a British woman named Gertrude Bell was instrumental in founding the first archaeological museum in Baghdad early in the 20th century, according to Foster.
A leader in late 19th-century excavations in the Middle East, Yale University established a research center in Palestine in 1900, Foster said. Long before World War I, a Yale professor of Mesopotamian studies named Albert T. Clay had the idea to build upon this center by creating another in Baghdad where the languages of antiquity could be taught and scholarly research could flourish. In 1923, he realized this ambition when Yale's center for archaeological research opened in Baghdad. In 1965, the center merged with the museum that houses, as Foster put it, "4,000 years of human endeavor before the Christian era." The institute that Yale founded remains, Foster claims, "the best library of its kind in the Arab world."
Cordial relations among scholars usually survive wars, Foster observed. "Our scholarly connections to Iraq have never broken off completely," he said. In fact, one day after the American invasion, a University of Baghdad student wrote to him that she was planning to come to Yale to do research.
"I hope that she is still alive," Foster said sadly. "I hope that she and her fellow students and teachers will not fall victim to a smart bomb or the dirty tricks of the Iraq regime."
To purchase a videocassette tape of this panel discussion for $8 -- prepaid in cash -- contact Maureen Draicchio in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at (203) 432-2944.
-- By Dorie Baker
The audience riveted its attention on the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan" as journalist and radio show host Larry Bensky '58 spoke on April 3 about "The Media and Iraq: Beyond the Propaganda Frame."
"No one is looking at me," stated Bensky as his audience in William L. Harkness Hall watched the movie images of bloodied American soldiers attempting to reach Omaha Beach in Normandy during World War II.
The audience's singular focus clearly demonstrated the power of images, said Bensky.
"The image dominates the message in electronic media," he commented. "Scripts, no matter how they are written, can't overcome that. ... Television is about pictures."
Bensky called upon audience members to pay attention to how news about the war in Iraq is being presented in both images and words, and charged that most news coverage of the war is biased.
A managing editor of the Yale Daily News as an undergraduate, Bensky is now a national affairs correspondent for the alternative Radio Pacifica, a chain of non-commercial radio stations with 55 affiliates. In recognition of his 40-year career in journalism, he was honored with the Society of American Journalists' Lifetime Achievement Award. His visit to the campus was sponsored by the American Studies Program and the Program of Ethnicity, Race and Migration.
Bensky used videos throughout his lecture to illustrate what he believes is a lack of objectivity in news reporting of the Iraqi conflict. He said most of the coverage is pro-war, and asserted that the media is "framing" public opinion of the conflict.
He showed a segment that aired on MSNBC, in which a newscaster and an analyst for the network stand upon a map of Iraq and neighboring countries. Behind them is a picture of President George W. Bush and a row of small models of American fighter planes. Dan Goure, the MSNBC analyst, remarks that American soldiers "have to go overseas and get them, whether we're talking about Iraq or al-Qaeda."
"Who is he?" Bensky asked about Goure. "What is an MSNBC analyst? They don't tell you." An Internet search, he continued, would reveal that Goure is affiliated with the Lexington Institute, a think-tank that studies military and political issues and advocates a strong military.
"[Goure] is legitimized because he's there; he's legitimized because he's on TV," said Bensky, adding that many people believe what they see on television to be unequivocally true.
Furthermore, he said, the newscasters have already symbolically "gotten Iraq underfoot" -- or trampled it -- by standing upon a map of that country.
Other video images Bensky showed to make his point came from local and other national news outlets, including several clips of American soldiers engaged in firefights with unseen "enemies" and one in which a news reporter is dressed in military gear. The latter clip, shown on CNN, was taken at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Bensky queried his audience about why the reporter was wearing military clothes, then answered, "We're getting something framed for us. This is what propaganda is all about."
Edited images of war at the front lines, Bensky claimed, are also framed to present a one-sided view of the war, rather than a balanced account of it.
"The television media's way of framing stories is just to give the bang bang," he said. "Sometimes, the broadcasts don't even bother with a script ... [they] let the viewer draw his own conclusions."
Some journalists, Bensky added, make no apologies for their evident pro-war stance.
"You can't root for one side and still say you are presenting a factual picture," Bensky told his audience.
Journalism, asserted Bensky, should be about "the freedom to cover stories and expose illegitimate uses of power." He urged his audience to be skeptical about any news they are presented, and to always ask two important questions: "Who speaks?" and "Who pays?" (who funds the news programs).
"A lot of people around the world are seeing images different from what we're seeing," Bensky said, concluding that journalists' framing of news in some respects resembles what was done in Fascist countries.
-- By Susan Gonzalez
Davies Auditorium of Becton Center was filled to capacity for the April 4 Open Forum on the war that was offered as part of the series of "Teach-Ins" launched by President Richard C. Levin and organized by historian John Gaddis and political science professor Cynthia Farrar.
The event featured five faculty members who presented their perspectives on the Iraqi conflict in a panel discussion moderated by Seyla Benhabib, the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and professor of philosophy.
The panelists were Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science; Arjun Appadurai, the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of International Studies and Anthropology; Paul Gilroy, professor and chair of African-American studies and professor of sociology; Ben Kiernan, the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History; and Gaspar Tamás, a visiting professor of ethics, politics and economics.
All five of the panelists expressed their opposition to the war and their concern about its long-term impact.
Calling the U.S.-led war a "tragedy from the standpoint of law," Ackerman contended that it is being waged in violation of the United Nations charter and of the U.S. Constitution, which makes clear the nation's obligation to adhere to its own treaties. These treaties, said Ackerman, are part of "the supreme law of the land."
Ackerman noted that the U.N. Security Council's last resolution gave Iraq the opportunity to "rectify" its breach of previous U.N. resolutions by submitting documentation that it had no weapons of mass destruction. The United States' decision to intervene unilaterally raised the question of whether the current administration is attempting to "revise" international law, he said.
Ackerman also criticized President Bush's decision to get Congressional authorization of the war six months before the U.N. could debate the issue, calling the president's action a "premature declaration of war" which sets a "disastrous precedent."
"If [the president] had waited," Ackerman asserted, "Congress could have been an intermediary between people in the streets [war protesters] and our iron-willed president."
Appadurai charged that the war raised serious ethical questions and has "led to a new order of abuse in the media discourse and of this government in language."
A "profound blurring of lines" has resulted between humanitarian action and military action, he said, and between good and evil and freedom and liberation.
He said the war also sets a precedent in being a "diagnostic" war waged "to find out who your enemies are," which, he suggested, is in reaction to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"We used to have friends and enemies and have wars," he said. "Now we have wars to find out who the coalition is. ... When very high-technology warfare is actually about finding something out ... we are entering a very deeply troubling time" from a political and ethical standpoint, he commented.
Appadurai was also critical of Bush, who, he said, shows little interest in public reaction to the war and is, instead, only tuned in to the sentiments of military families.
Commenting that he was speaking not as a scholar, Paul Gilroy harshly criticized the war as "a brutal racist adventure to exact revenge" for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and said that since its launch, he has become "acutely aware of how restricted speech has become in the new public sphere."
He questioned the morality of cluster bombs and other weapons of war, and claimed that war technologies are "shaped by imperial double standards" in which the value placed on life depends on who you are.
Gilroy noted that the United States once was a "sponsor" of Saddam Hussein, and questioned whether the nation's interest in Iraqi oil was a more significant factor in the war. This, he said, combined with recent discussion by some of a pre-emptive strike against Iran, raises the question of "how some people are profiting from this war." The question of profit, as well as the consequences for the people of the Iraqi region, "demands analysis," Gilroy concluded.
Kiernan noted parallels between this war and Nixon's bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s, which he contended, provided the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime with its "windfall." He pointed out that the number of Khmer Rouge soldiers grew from about 1,500 to 200,000 after the American bombings and said that the Iraqi war may result in a similar dramatic surge in Islamic radicals. He noted that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarek also predicted such an outcome by saying, "If there was one bin Laden before, there will be hundreds in the future."
Kiernan also decried the lack of attention paid to civilian casualties of the war, which, he asserted, are generally being ignored by the media. Like Gilroy, he lamented a lack of freedom of expression, saying that the Bush administration had launched "a McCarthyist campaign to vilify anyone who raises questions" about the legitimacy of the war.
The Hungarian-born Tamás, who had been a dissident under his country's former totalitarian regime, opened his talk by saying that he has a great fondness for the United States, which welcomed him to teach here after he had been "blacklisted" in his native country. Like Kiernan, however, he predicted that the war would result in an overturning of the balance of power in the Middle East that could increase tensions in the region and inspire "new fundamentalists that are more dangerous to Israel."
Tamás also spoke about the difficulties imposed on nations as they make a transition to democracy. In Eastern Europe, he noted, this transition has not always had the desired outcome. In Hungary, Tamás said, half of the active population is unemployed, and public approval of the new democratic regime has "never been in excess of 20%." He said that some of the individuals in leadership roles in the totalitarian regimes continue to wield power; Leszek Miller, the current prime minister of Poland, for example, was one of the main enemies of the Solidarity movement, he said.
"If this is the new Europe, well, I know it of old," Tamás commented.
Tamás told the audience that the Eastern European nations that do support the Iraqi war do so because of their "ancestral fear of being left alone on the continent with Germany and Russia."
Benhabib concluded the discussion by saying that "you can be anti-war and pro-democracy."
"There is nobody in this room who would hesitate to condemn a system like Saddam's," said Benhabib. Nevertheless, she said, the war raises serious questions. Among these, she said, is the future of Israel and of the peace movement in that country. "I have a sister in Israel who goes along wearing a gas mask," Benhabib remarked.
She criticized the argument made by some that to oppose the war against Iraq is to "oppose the existence of Israel or peace in the Middle East."
She expressed similar sentiments as the other panelists by calling for an international U.N.-led effort to rebuild Iraq following the war.
After members of the audience posed some questions and discussed their own thoughts about the war, Benhabib concluded the forum by saying that the nation should "move beyond the political language of 'friend' and 'foe'" and continue an open discussion of the war.
"This forum enabled a good conversation," she remarked.
-- By Susan Gonzalez
T H I S
Dialogue about war in Iraq
continues in campus events
Panelists discuss ways Iraq has influenced Western civilization
Journalist advises news audiences to be skeptical of media coverage
Faculty share their perspectives on war in open forum
W E E K ' SS T O R I E S
Review committee suggests changes to enhance education in Yale College
'Feral' robot dogs trace pedigree to Yale engineer
Yale tutors show students how 'America Counts'
University holding more 'teach-ins' on war with Iraq
University issues health crisis alert for Yale travelers
Daily News alumni discuss how journalism has changed
Actor Christopher Reeve advocates for stem cell research
Dialogue about war in Iraq continues in campus events
Exhibit traces career of experimental British photographer
Yale to train future medical leaders in re-focused program
Study finds new drug holds promise in ovarian cancer treatment
Three students are awarded Goldwater Scholarships
Truman Scholarships given to two potential leaders
Adviser to Peru's former president to present Downey Lecture
OBITUARIESRenowned historian and national parks enthusiast Robin Winks
Frederic Holmes, a noted historian of science and medicine
Psychiatrist Dr. Ira Levine, former deputy director at YPI
Edward Hoffman, had served as director of operations at Yale
Yale Entrepreneurial Society will co-host 'Innovation Summit'
Book club event will feature a talk by Dr. Ben Carson
Yale hosts fifth Powwow
Discussion by scholars will examine the current state of affairs in China
Conference highlights graduate students' work . . .
Brudner Prize winner explores the history of sexuality in talk
Campus Notes
Bulletin Home|Visiting on Campus|Calendar of Events|In the News
Bulletin Board|Yale Scoreboard|Classified Ads|Search Archives|Deadlines
Bulletin Staff|Public Affairs Home|News Releases|
E-Mail Us|Yale Home Page