I would like to thank Mr. Ullman for his contribution to the Tufts Daily last Thursday ("Let them speak, but not on my dime", Sept. 6).
Of course, some people would say that his hate-filled, intolerant piece using all possible clich?©s to bash The Primary Source is of such low intellectual level that the Daily should not have published it, but I would disagree with them. By printing his piece, the Daily has helped us illustrate precisely what we do not want to see at Tufts: demonizing and name-calling instead of intellectual exchange.
People like Mr. Ullman have been criticizing the Source for many months because of two articles they deem controversial, while ignoring the messages our publication wanted to convey. I would like one more time to try to raise the level of the debate.
Some at Tufts think it is unconscionable to criticize affirmative action. Yet, a number of foreign countries with diverse populations completely reject affirmative action as the condescending and divisive practice that it is.
France is a case in point. French law prohibits the government or any employer to make race or religion one of the criteria used to select applicants for a position. Are the French "juvenile" and "hateful" - as university President Lawrence Bacow characterized the Primary Source in his Dec. 15, 2006 e-mail to the Tufts community - because they think there are other ways to deal with social inequalities?
Certain issues in our society have become so taboo that many feel the necessity to shoo them under the rug, no matter how important they may be. For centuries, parody and satire have been used to push people to reflect upon subjects deemed taboo by society. Taking our Christmas carol at face value and concluding that the authors are mean-spirited is akin to saying that Goya and Chagall were mean-spirited because they painted ugly-looking characters.
Regarding our criticism of Islamic fundamentalism, I ask again if the Tufts community is going to ignore the problems affecting Islamic countries.
Aren't we supposed to be here to learn about the world? Reading the rosy version of the state of affairs in Islam by the Muslim Students Association does not exactly enlighten us. It is not harassment or lack of respect for another religion to say there are problems in the way religion is applied to secular matters.
Should we fight for gay rights in this country and ignore the plight of gays in Muslim countries? Do we believe that men and women are inherently equal in terms of rights, or that women should only have the rights that the men of their culture are kind enough to grant them? Should we have fought for civil rights in this country in the '60s and ignored apartheid in South Africa because what happens abroad does not concern us?
These are some of the issues that The Primary Source has wanted the Tufts community to debate. The choice is clear: Either we address and discuss them with civility and intellectual honesty, or we sink into the mud and play the name-calling game that Mr. Ullman seems to enjoy so much.
