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Posted by Joan O'Callaghan on 11:18:19 2004/05/17
In Reply to: Author shut down by Palestinian & Iraqi loudmouths posted by Joan O'Callaghan
From Howard Rotberg:
Yesterday, I was in a state of shock, and re-reading my email correspondence with you, and talking to Professor Dennis Stoutenberg who was in attendance, I now realize that the lecture was not terminated with my consent.
What happened is that after I was stopped by the Palestinian and the Iraqi from continuing with my lecture, I stood up, to indicate that I couldn't continue if I wasn't being allowed to say anything. Then the Iraqi gentleman, in response to someone urging him to be quiet, loudly called me a "fucking Jew". Hearing those words, I became quite agitated and raised my voice at him. Just then the store manager came over, and perceiving some sort of verbal altercation, made the judgment call that I must be equally at fault for what was happening. Evidently I shouted back at the fellow words to the effect that I would not be called a "fucking Jew" during my lecture.
The manager then told me that I must gather my books up and go to the backroom. To me it was all so Orwellian.
There was a young Muslim woman, with head-covering, there as well; she smiled at the protestors, but didn't sit down for the lecture. I later learned that she is a store employee, a Palestinian, who knew the protestors. My friend Professor Stoutenberg told me that she had smiled at theml during the protest.
The two store managers told me it was a family store, and their objection was that we both used a swear word, even though I was just protesting what he called me. I asked if they were equating the actions of a totalitarian stopping a lecture and called me that name with my actions in objecting to his comments. The manager said it didn't matter, and I must go to the backroom. I had to insist that they call the police. One employee said he didn't have the police number; I told him to call 911.
When the police came, they interviewed the protestors, and let them go, before interviewing either myself or Professor Stoutenburg. When I finally met the police officer, he told me he had already concluded that no charges should be laid, as racial slurs happen all the time. I said I thought it was different when it was used as part of a process to shut down a lecture by an author, who had been invited down from Toronto by Chapters.
I will never forget his words. Instead of understanding that goons had caused a disturbance and shut down a lecture and successfully subverted free speech, he said sarcastically: "Just because you are an author doesn't mean I should treat you any differently." I was in shock. I said to him, "don't you understand what it is like for a Jewish author whose grandparents were gassed in Auschwitz to be called a "fucking Jew" at a lecture?" He looked at me blankly. Then I understood. I said, "You don't know what Auschwitz was, right?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
The young Palestinian woman was still smiling.
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