“Et tu, Tutu?”
Here’s a wacky one–at least to me. Perhaps you Minnesota readers are up on this story, but thanks to the Dallas Morning News blog I just read the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages story about the University of St. Thomas rescinding an invitation to Nobel laureate and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu because of remarks he has made criticizing Israel policies on the Palestinians.
Desmond Tutu as Anne Lamott? Hmmm…This does not sound like a reaction to some groundswell movement by the Jewish community.
From what I have read, my thoughts would coincide with those of Marv Davidov, an adjunct professor within the Justice and Peace Studies program at St. Thomas, who told the paper:
“This is pure bullshit,” says Davidov. “As far as fighting for civil rights, I consider Tutu to be my brother. And I consider Cris Toffolo to be my sister. They’re messing with my family here. If Columbia permits a Holocaust denier [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] to speak at their university, why are St. Thomas officials refusing to let Tutu, an apostle of nonviolence, speak at ours?”
Only alt-weeklies can get away with such descriptive language, alas.
The university’s position is hard to fathom. Perhaps there is more to the story.
If Cris Toffolo had immediately resigned, that would have seemed fitting …
Btw, the story mentions that Rigoberta Menchu has spoken there previously. I’ve heard nothing about her for a number of years, but … after she first burst onto the scene, wasn’t she subsequently discredited for having invented or altered portions of her allegedly true accounts?
I suppose it is inevitable that in a “club” of over one billion members (Catholic Church) there would be a number of folks who are invincibly ignorant…but who knew we would find them in the leadership of the University of St. Thomas? Do they read newspapers up north? More to the point, have they ever read the Gospels?
As I understand it, the remarks–which AB Tutu was careful to level at the Israeli government, not Jews in general–were made in 2002, when Ariel Sharon was PM.
If memory serves this was around the time that he visited the Dome of the Rock and made some inflammatory statements, and the barriers between Palestinian territory and Israel were either going up or in the works.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know Catholics who think Tutu is a Catholic?
Our diocesan paper ran a front page story about AB Tutu when he visited Flint a few years ago. The news story did note he was an Anglican, but because of the big play it got, I heard a lot of Catholics talking about “that African Catholic bishop.”
Though it strikes me that a saint is a saint is a saint, and if Desmond Tutu isn’t one, then there’s certainly no hope for the rest of us.
OK, Jean, to cooperate with your survey, I am one R.C. who does not think that AB Tutu is one of ours.
Generally there is no accounting for the behavior of University/College Administrators. Don’t expect much. You won’t be disappointed.
(a bit off-topic)
David, it’s hard to know what to say about most everything you say, but one thing’s for sure, ya gotta love those headlines. Nice work.
Ah, Kathy, you made my night! I believe in the utter seriousness of most everything. But if you can’t have fun with heds, like the tabloids do, then what’s the point?
I should have been more careful about my pronouns–it was Sharon who made inflammatory statements at the Dome of the Rock, and was planning to put up the wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories at the time Tutu made the speech. This had the effect of wrecking homes and properties along the line.
Lest anybody think that it was Tutu who had done/said that.
While whatever Tutu said in his speech was not cited by the Minnesotans who nixed his appearance–they just said their feelings were hurt–my guess is that, coming from a partitioned country as South Africa was, Tutu felt sympathy for displacement and isolation of Palestinians, many of whom had to cross barriers to their jobs in Israel.
Re: Kathy’s comment–I usually know what David is talking about, but I didn’t get the reference to Tutu and Anne Lamott. Maybe because people keep giving me Anne Lamott books and telling me how much I’ll love her, but I just can’t get through the first 50 pages without wanting to barf.
This latest assault on free speech has more in common, not with Ahmadinejad’s appearnace at Columbia, but with the Norman Finkelstein episode at De Paul. Unlike the president of Iran, Finkelstein was not a Holocaust denier, but a fierce critic of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. De Paul’s denial of tenure was clearly influenced by a small but very vocal pro-Israeli Jewish community in Chicago, aided and abetted by Alan Dershowitz. (I’m surprised that Dershowitz isn’t savaging Tutu.)
Can you say, “Israel lobby”?
The Tutu-Thomas story has now been published in The Chronicle of Education and been posted The Mirror of Justice http://www.mirrorofjustice.com/
Perhaps this will help ferret out more details. Possible: 1. the administrator-decider didn’t know who Tutu was; 2. the Catholic-Jewish dialogue “community” weighed in on the negative without much information; 3. the Israel Lobby, Gene? Minn-St. Paul seems a bit north for its reach.
Although I genuinely admire Archbishop Tutu for his authentic virtue and the valient witness to the dignity of the human person that he offered in the face of apartheid, I’m not ready join in an acclamation of sainthood.
Indeed, his support for abortion rights is well known. Thus, despite Cris Toffolo’s description of Tutu as an “apostle of nonviolence” he has not championed a nonviolent solution to every problem. Apparently, violence in the womb is still permitted.
Gee, Margaret, I don’t know. De Paul is in Chicago — ask Finkelstein if that’s too far north.
Geography, geography, geography, Gene! Minn-St. Paul is hundreds of miles north of my native city and hours away.
I’d just note that Bishop Tutut is in Sudan with Jimmy Carter and other “elders” trying to help with Sudan. On the whole, he makes major contributions to the African scene.