Voltaire quotes and the right to protest.
It’s Wednesday, and I am still recovering from last week. I am one day out from finally completing a project, and tonight I crashed almost immediately after 4:30. It’s that kind of day.
I remember variations of the phrase “I disagree with what you say but I’ll defend your right to say it.” People used to make a point of sharing that when I was growing up. Voltaire, right? Maybe George Carlin. I definitely thought it was Carlin. We didn’t have the modern internet in high school I recall a card catalog, and a beleaguered high school librarian.
It’s a good phrase and one we, as a country, have officially made clear to the world we don’t believe. Mahmoud Khalil is a protester at Columbia was has been arrested and deported. He’s Pro-Palestine and that doesn’t matter for the purposes of what I’m writing here. What does matter is what’s out there in plain sight, being made clear. Per Reuters:
While Trump has alleged on social media that Khalil supported Hamas, his administration has not charged Khalil with a crime and not provided any evidence to show the Palestinian's alleged support for the militant group.
Khalil was a prominent activist at Columbia, which experienced some of the biggest protests against Israel's military assault on Gaza that followed Hamas' October 2023 attack. Washington has designated Hamas a foreign terrorist organization.
The thread that the U.S. Government is pulling here is that Khalil is a green card holder and studying here, and is a supporter of Hamas (to whatever extent that means) and therefore subject to deportation.
I could sift the details further, but this should be beyond concerning enough for anyone. The full-scale attack on protests has been an ongoing project since 2020. I’m not particularly moved by the arguments being made here. Not when:
Free speech is hardly a priority for this administration. We live in a country where several columns of words are being removed from documentation and likely prohibited from use. It’s a depressing and important list to monitor.
Khalil’s arrest is part of a wider immigration crackdown push.
I have been sensitive to just reposting bad news here, but I think it’s really worth keeping up on what is going on. Higher education is one of the three things I am focusing on consistently every day so that I am as informed as possible. And, whether or not you support Khalil’s stance, his arrest and deportation is shameful, yet consistent with what we’ve been witnessing since the beginning of this administration, and let’s face it, long before it.
So, yeah, don’t look away, etc. At least, keep up with this stuff.