In defense of Alan MacDougall

In the past week, there's been a bit of a stir over Liz Monnin losing her Senior Award due to actions during the talk given by G.H.W. Bush. Some letters have cropped up in support of Monnin, and denouncing Alan MacDougall, and claiming that the University, in doing this, is trying to crack down on liberals, or protesters, or whoever else is against the status quo.

I'm not so sure that's the case. I realize that in most of your eyes, I've just put the noose around my own neck, but so be it. But I have a few questions for some of you.

Question number 1: do you think Tufts should be a forum for open discussion?

I ask this in all sincerity. Protesting the talk itself, or the choice of speaker, or whatever, is one thing. It's understandable, defensible, and (as so many have and will point out) a Basic American Right. Free speech, right? But if open discussion is what's desired, you should have let the man speak. Even if you think he's a nitwit, even if you think his son is a diabolical madman, a minion of tyrannical corporate forces, or just a talking monkey. Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, and open discussion is open discussion. If you want to be heard, stop trying to interrupt, silence, or derail others.

I find it ironic that Monnin's response to losing the award was the following: "I'm disappointed in Tufts," she said. "Universities are meant to be places of dialogue; they need to be places that welcome dissent" ("Senior loses award for protest behavior at Bush speech" Mar. 25, 2003). Let's be honest here: would Bush be the majority, or the dissenting opinion on this campus? And considering the, underwhelming turnout by Monnin and other protesters at the open forum held after the talk, I'm not sure dialogue was really a goal.

Question number 2: do you think Tufts should welcome other speakers?

This is an important question, and has a lot to do with the point I tried to make above. If Tufts is to be viewed as an open forum, where people may say as they will without censor or censure, then act like it. The same issue of the Daily that ran the article on Monnin's lost award, also mentioned students' discontent with the commencement speaker. If we want, as a community, to have people come to speak from influential places or otherwise interesting backgrounds, we need to welcome them.

I can't, and won't, fault Monnin's desire or right to peaceful protest.

But I can certainly call her out for mistreating a guest of ours. I say ours deliberately: Hers, mine, yours, if you're reading this... ours. Our Guest. One of the basic principles of a civilized society is that of hospitality. If you welcome a guest into your home, you treat them with respect, and honor due to a guest, regardless of their views of things. If the differences are too great, don't let them overstay their welcome, don't invite them back, but treat them with respect.

If we want interesting speakers to come for Fares, for commencements, for other things, we need to show them our ability to treat a guest with honor and respect. Not MacDougall, not President Bacow. We as students. Fares and commencement speakers don't come here to speak to their contemporaries, they come to speak to up and coming generations. It's all fine and good that President Bacow welcomed Former President Bush. Unfortunately for the rest of us, future Fares speakers now know what they will perceive to be the truth about our campus -- we don't welcome dissidents.

Question number 3: now that I've pissed off most of you, here's my challenge to you -- how much do you think protesting works? Sit-ins, or other ways of forcing change by being a nuisance, sure, they have some level of efficacy at a local level; people will do what they need to do to get things working again. But at that point it ceases to be about dialogue.

A lot of students on our campus will claim to identify with one cause or another, but not to be an activist... because they want to retain their credibility. They want to be heard. Loud shouting, getting in peoples' faces, hollering, screaming, do one thing -- they put people on the defensive. At that point, they stop listening. They turn away. There's an old saying: you catch more bees with honey.

Rally votes. Start up organizations to hit the streets and talk to individual people. Do something to directly influence the votes that will be sent out by a community. Since the 60s, with the advent of TV, elections and politics have more and more become about public relations. About money, for TV ads. Your public image has become one of the inhospitable host, of frenzied activists pushing against SWAT shields and acting generally unreasonable.

Go talk to people. Go stand by the T station and hand out pamphlets, talk to people, try to sway their votes. Votes get political attention. Protests and nuisance antics get media attention that can all to easily be spun against you. Then you lose votes, because the public, over time, will want to be associated with anything other than the obnoxious activist types they see.

Demonstrations are an old tactic, from 40 years ago. Back then, they worked, because so many people were against Vietnam and the politics in general. People were scared of nuclear war. Since then activism has apparently gotten a bad name for itself. Intelligence and ultimate direction has apparently been lost in the desire to get loud for a cause. Now spin doctors are making you look bad. It's funny, actually. You'd think that a public that was so easily swayed as to make Freedom Fries a viable concept could be swayed by notions of peace. So I don't think old tactics are working. Maybe they're fun, it's nice to be out in the open air screaming and shouting... but they're hurting you.

Do I want war? No. I have a friend stationed in Israel, another stationed in Bosnia, and other friends of mine from my army days are doubtless in the Gulf area right now. But at the moment, it would seem that the thing the country needs most is a rational alternative view with a better image, a rational alternative leader. Or just rationality, Start with that. We have less than two years until the next election. What are you doing to find or work for someone who will actually be something resembling a better president?

I commend Monnin for the work she does, even if I don't think her tactics are current or effective on a broader stage. I have to say that protesting during the actual speech was a cheap tactic though. It made us look bad as hosts. It wasn't really about free speech, since not much was really said, except in sign language that I'll even believe she didn't use. It was about getting attention. I can understand needing attention for a cause to work, but it has to be attention of the right kind. People will still remember the Senior Award debacle, so she has been officially recognized for her leadership ability, but like I said... she did make us look bad in front of any speaker who ever thinks about coming here again.

With all respect to what Monnin may have been trying to do, she made us look like bad hosts. They're not pulling her award, I don't think, for being a dissident. They're pulling it for not welcoming one.

James Watriss is a senior majoring in English.