Not so sweet: The limits of decorum

Having lived within ivy-covered walls for almost six years, I possess a strong sense that academic events demand a certain level of decorum — ask questions when called upon, don't raise your voice and address the speaker with respect and appropriate honorifics. Even when I disagree with the speaker, I always listen thoughtfully and, if the content continues to unsettle, I read about and discuss the issues afterwards. My contentedness to do so ended last Friday, when Ambassador Ravan Farhadi, UN representative of the Northern Alliance, said to a packed audience in McCosh 50 and to many others in simulcast, including myself, that he did not remember any human rights abuses committed by the Northern Alliance.

My heart started racing. This obviously intelligent man, who must read the newspapers, is going to deny to a Princeton audience any recollection of Northern Alliance human rights abuses? Northern Alliance abuses had recently made the front pages of USA Today and The New York Times, not to mention flurries of press releases by groups such as Human Rights Watch. Although formerly a professor at the Sorbonne and Berkeley, Farhadi currently holds a political position, where phrases such as "I don't recall" are perhaps a dime a dozen. But is that the way it should be? To what degree can we value deference over the truth, especially at a university that values informed discussion?

A student in the audience responded to Farhadi by reading from a U.S. State Department report citing abuses of the Northern Alliance. Farhadi answered that he did in fact recognize those words but that they were Pakistani propaganda and not from the State Department.

Those faithful to decorum, including members of the Princeton Committee against Terrorism, which co-sponsored the event with the Wilson School, would probably have preferred that the truth remain subordinate. Even people who oppose the war might have thought, "There's no need to interrupt because it will be obvious to everyone that he is lying." That, I realized in short time, is too much to assume. An elderly lady sitting next to me leaned over and asked why someone would accuse the ambassador of lying. I showed her a sheet of quotes prepared by the Princeton Peace Network documenting Northern Alliance human rights abuses. She read the sheet, including the citations, and looked at me astonished, asking, "So that means he was lying?"

Given that the Princeton community looks to the University as a source of informed and balanced debate, I believe it was those disgruntled audience members' responsibility to exercise free speech. In fact, we all held that responsibility, but it is telling that in any large audience, there are only a few willing to risk raised eyebrows to speak out. The moderator first tried to quiet the audience member by telling him it was agreed that all questions were to be collected on cards (note: members of PCAT, not neutral moderators, chose the questions). Then, the moderator continued to interrupt by requesting that the statement be phrased as a question. By all accounts, it was a valiant effort to maintain decorum in a decorous fashion.

There are issues that we let slide for the sake of politeness, justifying ourselves by saying it's not urgent, it happened in the past or we wouldn't change anyone's mind anyway. Today's 'war' is clearly both urgent and present, and I desperately hope minds are still open to questions and information. Regardless of whether or not one, in the final analysis, supports a military alliance with Farhadi's government, to make a judgment without knowing its history or record is foolish. In what has been called "America's New War" and even "World War III," there must be informed discussion where dissenting voices and challenging questions are encouraged, rather than shushed. At times, this requires persistently speaking out, even in the face of those dressed crisply and commandingly in red, white and blue. Cindy Huang is a Wilson School graduate student from Wheaton, IL. She can be reached at cylhuang@princeton.edu.