Dear Friends,
I've been wanting to extend my thanks to everyone for supporting me before and after Berkeley's convocation last Wednesday (May 10, 2000) "featuring" the so-called "Keynote Speaker of the Millennium, Madeleine Albright." Things have been so crazy, though! I've been on a mission to respond to every single email that pops into my inbox about what happened, but the task is so exciting and overwhelming at once, that I decided to leave it alone for a while so that I could submit a more impersonal but comprehensive 'report.'
Below I've included my meandering address, which, when transcribed, sounds superficial and poorly organized. (It was.) I'll narrate the succession of events, which I think reads like a drama, and within it I outline some of the reasons why I think that Wednesday was a collective victory for the forces of opposition against the Iraqi sanctions in particular, and the Arab community - in solidarity with the Left in this country - more generally.
First, even for the people who were at the Greek Theatre that afternoon in the blinding sun, you cannot *imagine* what the audience looked like from our vantage point on stage. It was like fireworks! The images are imprinted in my head forever.
At the moment when the administrators announced, after we were all sitting on stage, that they'd change the schedule around so that Albright spoke first and not last, I knew that the "powers that be" were frightened of what was to come - embarrassment and exposure to a woman whose administration and policies deserve it.
As soon as she stood up on the thick block at the foot of the podium to reach the microphone, a 15-foot bright red and black banner - signature of the International Socialist Organization -- unfurled itself in the distance, directly across from her in the center of the theatre, with the clearly written slogan, "Madeleine Albright is a War Criminal."
Then, in unison, hundreds of voices (or at least they sounded like it), interrupted her before she could begin, with chants of "end the sanctions now! end the sanctions now!" The 'security' forces, dressed in loud yellow jackets, were quick to rip down every poster that surfaced in the crowd and escort the protesters outside of the theatre, but there was NO WAY to get at all of them. As I said, it was like fireworks!
When the red banner went down, another one to the left of the crowd flew up about the situation in Columbia. Then the officers tore that one down, dragged out the audience, and scanned the crowd for the sources of the consistent cries of protest.
Albright was stumbling and bumbling through her speech... there was no way that anyone was listening to her babble about stopping war criminals in Kosovo, preventing the "buying and selling of human beings" in Latin America, achieving so much as a Secretary of State wearing a skirt, etc. etc. etc. There were just too many people screaming out that she was a war criminal, that she was occluding any mention of Iraq, and that she was a liar. The hypocrisy laden in every sentence she uttered was truly unbearable to have to endure, especially since I was caught off guard about having to speak after and not before her, as is tradition at Berkeley.
She tried - successfully, unfortunately - to win the audience to her side, but I'm convinced that they supported her more out of nationalistic fervor in response to a group of what they perceived as disruptive and 'foreign' objectors than because she was actually convincing or inspiring. Anyone, even a Nazi, I would argue, would have garnered support from the audience, because it was incredible how successful the protesters were in silencing her! So after the Columbia banner went down, another one spread itself out in a different part of the theatre about how she's supporting imperialism. There was still more chanting, heckling, and booing.
From the distance, one protester wearing a conspicuous red shirt completely shut off all movement in his body, forcing the officers to drag him - slowly, awkwardly, and painfully - down a long, long isle of stairs to the left of the theatre. No one at that point was even looking at Albright. They were watching this poor guy's body slouch in the distance, his head buried in his chest and his shoulders extending over his ears as his arms were flailing.
Right from the start, two of my friends from ADC-SF, Eyad and Senan, were 'escorted' out. They both looked at me from the distance as they left, and I was fuming. Part of me wanted to just get up and leave with them so as not to dignify what this woman was saying while I was sharing the stage with her. But I knew that a spoken statement would have more effect. I decided then that the best thing to do, despite the fact that she was going to flee on her broomstick before she had a chance to hear me speak, was to deliver an impromptu address since my original speech was now obsolete. In any case, after seeing all that, there was no way I was going to rattle off about how much I loved my brother Ramiz, how grateful I was to my parents, how I wished my grandmothers a happy mother's day, how we were leaders of the future, etc. etc... even though all of that would have been, and was intended to be, appropriately delivered under the expected circumstances.
It was a true pleasure to hear (or actually, not) the rest of Albright's speech, because just when I thought all the protesters were ejected, another group would whip out their own banner, unfurl it, and start chanting. Their resources seemed inexhaustible. By no means was her address uninterrupted at any stage of the game.
I know that Berkeley had a Madeleine Albright Unwelcoming Committee website and meeting the week before the event, but my understanding was that it was disorganized and a bit splintered. The activists there decided to just work independently of each other, and I think that was - in some ways - their strength. The message of opposition was the same, but the faces, slogans, posters, and styles were all different. It worked out to be a symphony of voices of dissent, and in some ways, I was happy to see the disgruntled audience members exasperated at what they saw as another "Berkeley spectacle." As I said before, the support they gave to Albright came more out of sympathy for her and respect for a national symbol than out of any true understanding of what she stood for.
The loud condemnation continued to the very end of her hackneyed speech, but she received a standing ovation nonetheless. Happy with her victory (which was in some ways a great PR stunt for her), she descended from the block at the foot of the podium, turned to the students and faculty sitting (actually, now standing) most near her, and smiled as she shook each of their hands in self-congratulation. She was going in a row until she got to me. I stayed sitting, my hands clasped in my lap, and gave her a serious, angry look. Her smile turned into the frown of scorn which she wears more naturally, then she withdrew her hand, and turned around to walk away. "Insirfi," I thought to myself.
[I had been asked by university administrators a day earlier to meet with her for a half hour before the ceremony. I told them that I'd prefer not to, and I told them that if I was in any photo opportunity with her, it would be a result of the fact that we were merely sharing a stage together as mutual honorees. I was not intending on shaking her hand, only to be captured and co-opted by a photographer. They didn't press me to comply either way.]
Okay, then she left abruptly, briskly, and riding a wave of glee from INSIDE the theatre. Outside, with the well-mobilized protesters who'd been there for hours before her clandestine arrival - and here's the greatest victory of all - she had to leave sprawled across the back seat of her car like the criminal that she is, ducking for her life, and dashing off into the distance.
