Eyes wide open

Muna Khan 

Published October 22, 2023

WHILE at college in the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of attending a guest lecture by Edward Said. As a teenager whose schooling was through a Western lens with little exposure to scholars from the Global South, I was thrilled to hear him. He spoke about how he wrote Orientalism because he didn’t find realistic representations of the East in the media. He said he wrote Covering Islam in response to how Palestine was seen in the media as terrorists wanting to kill Jews and how little is done to a) counter that or b) report on what Israel’s role is in the displacement of millions of Palestinians. The media’s focus is just on violence and terrorism in that region and if that is all the audience sees, it equates people from there as extremist, threatening, etc.

I wonder how Mr Said would have reacted to the news last week of the backlash to a letter written by 34 student organisations at Harvard, holding Israel “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” in Gaza. The reaction to the letter has been furious — from alums to former US officials condemning the statement. CEOs have reportedly asked for the signatories to be identified so they can be ‘blacklisted’ for jobs. On Wednesday, NBC reported the law firm Davis Polk has rescinded job offers for three law students at Harvard and Columbia “who signed on to organisational statements about Israel”.

It doesn’t end there.

The British perfumer Jo Malone’s son, Josh Wilcox, has been reported as being an organiser of the letter, a claim he denied, saying he hasn’t even been on campus this semester. But because Wilcox has written strong editorials in the school paper about “the brutal oppression of Palestinians” by “an apartheid regime” and criticised Harvard for giving a fellowship to an ex-Israeli army officer Amos Yadlin, his role remains unclear, says the media. I chose to write about a white, rich man to illustrate how the silencing, doxxing, attacks spare no one.

Students hold the power to drive change.

The conservative non-profit, Accuracy in Media, organised a van to drive through Harvard featuring the names and faces of some of the signatories and labelled them as anti-Semites. “No one who supports terrorist groups like Hamas should be able to hide in the shadows,” AIM said. Some students have withdrawn their names from the letter following the backlash while others have expressed fear for their safety and insist none of them are siding with terrorists by signing that letter.

Harvard isn’t the only university in the US feeling the heat for not “condemning anti-Semitism” on their campuses, a reference ostensibly to students’ protests denouncing Israel’s attack on Gaza. Columbia University — where Mr Said taught from 1963 to 2003 — shut its doors to the public on Oct 12 as pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian student groups clashed. Students of colour said they were spat on by classmates.

My own alma mater, SOAS, where I learned what solidarity for Palestine should look like, temporarily suspended some students on Oct 9 “for their conduct at a pro-Gaza rally”. It appears videos of students chanting “resistance is justified when people are colonised” and “there is only one solution, Intifada revolution” goes against “venue protocols”.

These are just a few examples of the silencing taking place on campuses in the West which is supposedly a bastion of freedom of speech. My disappointment remains in the media coverage of these as ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘pro-Hamas’ rallies.

Student demonstrations have led to larger civil rights movements like the demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in the US in the 1960s. Benazir Bhutto wrote about attending anti-Vietnam war protests when she was at Harvard. Students in South Africa organised anti-apartheid protests and were joined by students around the world. Students in China led protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Students in Thailand led protests demanding reforms in the monarchy in 2020. Our students also protest across campuses but their issues do not interest the media.

Students have proven they hold the power to drive change. Pro-Palestine demonstrators are showing up on campuses across the world, despite the consequences. Any media that participates in silencing their voices to make space for the oppressors’ will soon have no audience left. People recognise who gets killed and who is reported dead in headlines. They’re trying to outwit shadowbanning attempts, too.

People will look back at this moment and ask who stood by the side of the oppressed and who shilled for their employers’ corporate or military interests. Profit-driven media are failing the public’s right to know. We need public media to tell stories fairly and accurately if we want journalism to stay relevant. Al Jazeera may provide many answers to how it can be done right.

The writer is an instructor in journalism.
X (formerly Twitter): @LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, October 22th, 2023