Shame, Shame: My Field’s Failure to Act on Palestine

 Shame, Shame: My Field’s Failure to Act on Palestine

by Aneil Rallin /Dissident Voice

As the leaders of this country, this settler-colonial imperialist United States of America, persist in dismissing international calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, I’ve been trying not to fall into utter despair, reminding myself daily despair isn’t an option. But it is[efn_note]Footnote content. difficult not to despair when during a televised genocide of Palestinians currently underway the morally repugnant US Congress puts on the spectacle of a congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses in these United States of America, inviting the heads of three elite private universities in these United States of America to testify, interrogating and castigating the heads of these elite private universities for their failures to denounce the students protesting on their university campuses what we are all watching unfold before our eyes, the genocide in Gaza, blaming the heads of these elite private universities for not doing enough for Jewish students on their college campuses, for creating unsafe conditions for Jewish students on their college campuses in these United States of America, rather than holding congressional hearings on the truly unsafe conditions, the unlivable conditions in Gaza, the annihilation of life and the living in Gaza by the genocidal apartheid settler-colonial state of Israel, fueled by my government, the government of these United States of America. As corporate media falls over itself to cover this spectacle faithfully, dutifully, social media images emerge of Israeli soldiers parading stripped, kidnapped Palestinian men, and news arrives that the state of Israel has killed, in a targeted assassination, the much loved Gaza activist professor and writer Refaat Alareer, who taught literature and writing at the Islamic University of Gaza and cofounded the organization We Are Not Numbers.

I did not know him, but I knew Refaat Alareer’s work. I knew Refaat Alareer was a potent activist teacher and writer, a motivating influence for countless students, a galvanizing force who inspired innumerable students to write, to write as witness to the horrific conditions they have been pressed into and forced to endure. As a fellow academic who taught rhetoric, writing, and literature, I also encouraged my students to write as vigilant observers of the landscapes we find ourselves in, to write as witness to the times we live in now. We know, my students would say, a smokescreen when we see it. We understand these congressional hearings, this summoning of these heads of three elite private universities in these United States of America, this invitation to testify before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce is smokescreen to detract from the real horrors taking place in Gaza, in occupied Palestine, as it becomes abundantly evident when the president of Harvard University later expresses remorse—remorse not for underscoring the horrors of the genocide Israel is currently carrying out in Gaza but remorse for not being clear during the congressional hearings that “calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”

We do not buy it. The perilous conditions are not at these elite private universities in these United States of America where students may be crying “intifada, intifada” and calling for a liberated Palestine “from the river to the sea” in which all inhabitants will be free but in Gaza, where Palestinians are being humiliated, starved, tortured, maimed, and killed by the Israeli state. Cornel West sees it for what it is and tweets: “in the midst of actual genocidal attacks against Palestinians by Israeli forces enabled by the US government, Congress focuses on possible genocidal speech acts of students against Jews. This flagrant silence and indifference against Palestinian suffering speaks volumes on the hypocrisy and double standards in American society.” Ajamu Baraka sees it for what it is and tweets: “There are Jewish students across the country participating & sometimes in the leadership of protests against this moral outrage in Gaza. But the Israeli fascists are spinning the narrative of Jewish students being intimidated.” Rania Khalek sees it for what it is and tweets: “People always wonder how the Holocaust happened. Why did people look away? How could they let that sort of industrialized genocidal slaughter take place? How could so many remain silent, even supportive? Now we know how it happened. Gaza is showing us the answer to all of those questions.”

Gaza is showing up professional academic organizations in my own field of rhetoric, composition, and language studies in these United States of America for what they really are and what they really stand for. Committed only in theory to discourses of social justice, these professional academic organizations that represent a field attentive to the workings of language and power have in fact enduring histories of disappearing, of looking away, of remaining silent, of failing to rise up and stand on the right side of history when the times demand it. I was present at the keynote address at the biennial Rhetoric Society of America convention in 2018. Invited to reflect back on the founding of the organization fifty years ago as well as to look ahead, keynote speaker Andrea A. Lunsford noted, what stood out looking back from the vantage point of now was how nothing in the founding documents or the founding mission of Rhetoric Society of America pays any attention to what was going on during that year and around that time, a monumental period by any reckoning. 1968, the year in which the Rhetoric Society of America was founded, was the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy, civil unrest here and elsewhere, the East Los Angeles student walkouts, student demonstrations in France, in Mexico, the Prague Spring, mass starvation in Biafra, the My Lai massacre, anti-Vietnam war protests, the fallout out from the black power salute at the Olympic games, the rise of queer activisms ignited by the Black Cat protests in Los Angeles a year before in 1967, the Stonewall Uprising in New York a year later in 1969. Evidently, Rhetoric Society of America founders (mostly white men) were not paying attention to what was right in front of them, or if they were, they didn’t, shockingly, think any of it was or should be of concern to rhetoric and to rhetoricians. These absences/silences are illustrative of the customary indisposition to contend with the detritus in the wake of heteropatriarchal, colonialist, imperialist, capitalist systems, and the war machineries of these United States of America. To its disgrace and to our shame, Rhetoric Society of America did not take a stand on the many monumental happenings unfolding before them.

To their disgrace and to our shame, leaders in our professional academic organizations in the field of rhetoric, composition, and language studies today (now no longer mostly white men) failed, shockingly, to take a stand swiftly on the monumental happening unfolding before us at this moment, even in light of the fact that this horrific situation, the current genocide underway in Gaza at the hands of the government of Israel abetted by the government of these United States of America, is televised. As university leaders in these United States of America rushed post 7 October 2023 to outdo each other in support of the colonial genocidal apartheid project destroying life and the living in Gaza without so much as acknowledging Palestinian lives and Palestinians’ suffering and the long ongoing brutal occupation, colleagues and I waited for our professional academic organizations in these United States of America to rise up, to speak up, to take action as these times demand it—to no avail.

We quickly came together to organize the open statement Rhetoric and Composition Scholars/Teachers/Administrators/Students for Palestine, issued on 13 November 2023, inviting colleagues to add their names. (Although issued a day later, Rhetoricians of Critical Conscience had by then already written a solidarity statement). I took it on myself to email on 27 November 2023 the Rhetoric and Composition Scholars/Teachers/Administrators/Students for Palestine statement, with the note below, to the 2023 Conference on College Composition and Communication Officers, Rhetoric Society of America Leadership and Board of Directors, Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition Executive Board Officers, Council of Writing Program Administrators Executive Board Members, and Modern Language Association Officers and Members of the Executive Council, calling on these professional academic organizations to stand in solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians under occupation, speak up, take action.

We’ve been witnessing with horror the violence unleashed on the people in Palestine and watching national professional organizations in rhetoric and composition keep silent yet again on the violence and the question of Palestine, even as a number of other national professional organizations such as the American Studies Association, American Anthropological Association, Association of Asian American Studies, Caribbean Studies Association, Latinx Studies Association, Middle East Studies Association, and The National Women’s Studies Association have issued statements condemning the violence, joining the chorus for an immediate ceasefire and end to Israel’s war on Gaza and the people of Palestine, and calling for the liberation of Palestine from a long-standing occupation. Silence is complicity.

I write to share with you this open statement from Rhetoric and Composition Scholars/Teachers/Administrators/Students for Palestine and urge [name of professional organization] to stand on the right side of history. I call on you to issue a [name of professional organization] statement in solidarity with the struggles of Palestinians. On behalf of the signatories, I call on [name of professional organization] to stand in solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians under occupation, speak up, take action.

We are still waiting, over two months into this televised genocide, for our professional academic organizations to stand incontrovertibly in solidarity with the struggles of Palestinians under siege. Even as Palestinian lives continue to be wrecked by the genocidal apartheid state of Israel, our professional academic organizations in these United States of America dedicated to writing and language studies research, theory, and teaching worldwide have not spoken up for Palestine, have neither named nor called out nor condemned the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli state nourished by the government of these United States of America. Modern Language Association responded to our call and declared in an email that “as a policy, the MLA’s Executive Council does not make statements about international political conflicts.” Rhetoric Society of America responded with an email to affirm that “RSA acknowledges receipt and the board will discuss” and followed up with another email to confirm that “the RSA Executive Committee conferred, and consulted with the full board. RSA will not be producing a statement at this time.” CFSHRC’s email response stated, “the Executive Board has drafted an email that we’ve sent to the Advisory Board for their consideration and then will be shared as/if appropriate.” It took until 19 December 2023 for CFSHRC president to share on behalf of The Coalition Advisory Board the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition Statement about Gaza and Israel that “urge[s] elected officials to use their authority as US politicians to call for a permanent ceasefire…encourage[s] feminist rhetoricians to do the same” and “reaffirms our commitment to rhetorical listening across differences and to ongoing dialogue unmarred by violence.” CCCC and CWPA so far have not bothered to respond. After the National Council of Teachers of English’s Committee on Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English released a Statement on Palestinian Genocide, leaders of NCTE (the larger organization that CCCC is part of) immediately sent an email to NCTE members (A Statement from NCTE Leadership, November 16, 2023), distancing NCTE from the Statement on Palestinian Genocide because it “openly supports one side of the conflict” (who knew there are two sides to support in a genocide and the subjects of genocidal assault must be held accountable for their own genocide) and clarifying that it “was not authorized by NCTE leadership” and “not published by NCTE or its leadership team.”

The reluctance of our professional academic organizations to stand unequivocally in solidarity with Palestinians long under occupation at this grave moment is a shameful failure. If these professional organizations in rhetoric, composition, and language studies in these United States of America cannot, even now, name, call out, and condemn the genocide against the Palestinian people that the state of Israel is presently carrying out, then we must insist on new principled professional academic organizations that will rush to stand with us and stand up for what is just and right, as and when the times mandate, that will be willing and unafraid to name, call out, and condemn genocide, as, when, and where it unfolds, at the same time as we demand an immediate permanent ceasefire and end to the genocide in Gaza, call for the prosecution of government officials in the state of Israel and in these United States of America, and push for a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea.

Aneil Rallin (they/them) is a Los Angeles scholar/writer who has taught rhetoric and composition for thirty-three years at nine universities in the US and Canada and is the author of Dreads and Open Mouths: Living/Teaching/Writing Queerly (Litwin Books). Read other articles by Aneil.