Boycotts and Protests To Meet APA Keynote Speaker, Desmond Tutu

Boycotts and Protests To Meet APA Keynote Speaker, Desmond Tutu

www.psychiatrictimes.com

By Arline Kaplan | February 2, 2011

The selection of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, to present the convocation lecture at the American Psychiatric Association’s upcoming annual meeting has so outraged some APA members that they have arranged meeting boycotts and protests. They hope to persuade their organization to disinvite a man they contend has made "strongly anti-Semitic comments," spread falsehoods about Israel, and taken positions in opposition to th

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The protest against having Desmond Tutu speak is led by Jerome "Jerry" Rogoff,MD.

The Action Paper noted that being the main speaker at the Convocation of Fellows "is one of the highest honors APA can bestow," that Tutu "has made several speeches, given interviews and made public pronouncements against the State of Israel that are not just critical, but defamatory, distorted, inaccurate, inflammatory and completely one sided," and that many APA members "perceive some of Mr Tutu’s statements to be anti-Semitic, personally repugnant and unacceptable."

As an example, Rogoff pointed to a 2002 speech by Tutu in which he said that "people are scared in this country [the US] to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful." In that speech, according to Rogoff, Tutu then went on to place American Jews in the company of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic and Idi Amin.2

The 2002 speech in question can be found here: fosna.org...

Ever since Tutu gave that speech Keynote address on April 13, 2002, Old South Church, Boston, MA - USA
Friends of Sabeel North America’s Conference: "Ending the Occupation", he has been on the list of enemies by the pro-Israel/anti Universal Human Rights crowd. What he represents to them is a strong Christian voice giving an alternative to the American Christian Zionist coalition. That is the threat he poses.

Tutu honors Palestinian Christian group Sabeel by lending his name as its international patron
Date: 20 June 2003

Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accepted the role of Patron of Sabeel International to assist the Palestinian Christian organization in its outreach and development work with Christian churches around the world.
Based in Jerusalem, Sabeel is an ecumenical effort of the Palestinian churches of the Holy Land following the precepts of liberation theology, a worldwide grassroots spiritual movement that interprets the Bible and Christianity from the perspective of the poor and oppressed. The organization has support groups in North America, the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Australia.

"I am honoured to have been asked to be patron of Sabeel," Tutu wrote in his acceptance letter. The Nobelist has participated in the work of Sabeel over the years, most recently as keynote at a Sabeel conference in Boston in March 2002 speaking on "Occupation is Oppression." In July he will be keynote for an organizers’ conference of the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation of which Sabeel is a founding member. Tutu has accused the state of Israel of practicing apartheid against the Palestinians and has said that the U.S. should demand Israel withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank.

James Wall, editor of the Christian Century magazine and an advisory board member of Friends of Sabeel-North America said, "Archbishop Tutu’s courageous leadership in confronting the evil of apartheid in South Africa makes it particularly significant that he has now agreed to be our patron, because the occupation of Palestinians has shown itself to be similar and detrimental to both Israelis and Palestinians just as apartheid was to all South Africans."

Is Tutu anti-Semitic?
October 5 2007 at 03:47pm
By Hans Pienaar

Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu has been barred from addressing students at an American university after local Jewish community leaders condemned him as an anti-Semite and anti-Israel.

Tutu was due to speak before a gathering of a peace and justice group at St Thomas University in St Paul, Minnesota. But after campus authorities heard of the coup in getting Nobel Prize winner Tutu, the organisers were told that his visit would be "out of the question".
. . .
The muzzling has enraged peace activists, especially Jewish campaigners against Israeli policies. They believe the action was taken because Tutu was seen as a threat by pro-Israel lobbyists, as being able to turn US Christians against Israel.

www.psychiatrictimes.com
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I wonder if Desmond Tutu is going to make any references to the sanctioning, by the APA, of it's members' participation and support of the 'enhanced' interrogations that we all have heard so very much about... (sort of)?

Granted, it's OT, but the APA is after all another organization that needs to be called to account for it's own set of 'pronouncements.'

Insofar as Tutu's so-called antisemitism, I suspect that the propaganda machinery had responded to his comments in knee-jerk fashion (as usual) and had he made the same comments today, a much different counter-strategy would have to have been employed by those who see international lobbying on behalf of Israel, and the sanitation of news as a 'right.'

His comment seemed judicious to me, in that it is very true many fear to confront those who support the doctrine of 'never speaking a word against anything remotely Israeli.'

I recall our own community is frequently subjected to claims to the same effect.

At any rate, the incongruent disconnect clearly remains, as most know, Israel is not the entire body of the Semite people, and so speaking against them, or their interests, or daring to criticize their policies and practices, does not constitute antisemitism per se.

But people have a right to protest and make their point, and these APA member's are no different. Perhaps they can, using rational discourse, convince me that there is some value to reject Desmond Tutu's words. I intend to listen, and hope they can provide me with new insights and meaningful perspectives, rather than the tired old tirades of the likes of the ADL and other such reactionary public relations groups.

reply to post by Maxmars
Unfortunately, APA can stand for American Psychiatric Association and also American Psychological Association. As far as I know, The Psychiatric Association has always maintained a position against "enhanced interrogation", psychiatrists are MDs expected to uphold the Hippocratic Oath.

The Psychological Association, on the other hand, did not take a principled stand against its members participating in "questionable" activities. That seems to be changing under pressure lately.

APA campaigns against CIA ‘torture doctor’
Psychologists in the United States have been warned by their professional group not to take part in torturing detainees in U.S. custody.

Now the American Psychological Association has taken the unprecedented step of supporting an attempt to strip the license of a psychologist accused of overseeing the torture of a CIA detainee.

The APA has told a Texas licensing board in a letter mailed July 1 that the allegations against Dr. James Mitchell represent "patently unethical" actions inconsistent with the organization's ethics guidelines

At any rate, the incongruent disconnect clearly remains, as most know, Israel is not the entire body of the Semite people, and so speaking against them, or their interests, or daring to criticize their policies and practices, does not constitute antisemitism per se.

A very good point, since Palestinian Christians whether descended from 1st century Christian Jews or 1st-6th century Arab or Idumean converts are all Semitic people. So also are Samaritans who never did leave the land, not during "Babylonian captivity" or the Roman expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem in 135 CE under Hadrian. They are currently part on Israel part in West Bank.

The current batch of Zionists take anything and everything as pertaining to themselves alone. Semitic is much more than Jews alone. Israel was a nation of 12 tribes. It is not proper to even think of "a Jewish State of Israel". That would be like calling the whole United States the "Cherokee State of America", which would be absurd. The absurdity escapes some people's notice though, it would seem.

reply to post by pthena


Thank you kindly for the correction. I had heard a short piece on NPR about this (last year, I think) and it now occurs to me that I can't really remember to which APA they may have been referring.

Just goes to show you, generalizations can be a very bad thing.

After re-reading the Desmond Tutu's 2002 address I decided to quote the two relevant paragraphs.

Ending the Occupation
Sometimes they ask: “Does this mean you are pro-Palestinian?” And my brother Naim Ateek has said what we, that we used to say too: I am not pro this or that people, I am pro justice. I am pro freedom. I am anti-injustice, anti-oppression any and everywhere that it occurs. But you know, as well as I do that somehow the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal where to criticize them is immediately to be dubbed anti-Semitic. As if the Palestinians were not Semitic. (applause) I, I have not been even anti-white despite all the suffering that that crazy group inflicted on our people. NO! How could I be – if I wasn’t eve anti those who did that to us – be anti-Jew? Because that is actually the term that ought to be used Are you anti-Jewish? Not anti-Semitic. And then, you would have to say the same thing to the biblical prophets – because they were some of the most scathing critics of the Jewish leadership of their day. We don’t criticize Jewish people. We criticize, we will criticize,
when they need to be criticized the government of Israel. They said the same to us, I mean when we said to them: Can you explain to us how it comes about that you can collaborate with the Apartheid government on security matters, how you could prolong our oppression. And they would say you’re being anti-Semitic. I said: “tough luck. Really tough luck.” And when we raise similar questions about the treatment of Palestinians when we were visiting the Holy Land in the time that Cannon Ateek was speaking of, they put up, they painted graffiti just outside St, George Cathedral in Jerusalem: ‘Tutu is a black Nazi Pig.’ We come from there.

People are scared in this country to say wrong is wrong. (applause) Because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful. Ha, Ha, Ha ha! So what? So what! This is God’s world! For goodness sake this is God’s world! The Apartheid government was very powerful, but we said to them: Watch it! If you flout the laws of this universe, you’re going to bite the dust! (applause) Hitler was powerful. Mussolini was powerful. Stalin was powerful. Idi Amin was powerful. Pinochet was powerful. The Apartheid government were powerful. Milosevic was powerful. But, this is God’s world. A lie, injustice, oppression, those will never prevail in the world of this God. That is what we told our people. And we used to say: those ones, they have already lost, they are, they are going to bite the dust one day. We may not be around. An unjust Israeli government, however, powerful will fall in the world of this kind of God. Because we don’t want for that to happen but those who are powerful
have to remember the litmus test that God gives to the powerful – what is your treatment of the poor, the hungry? What is your treatment of the vulnerable, the voiceless? And on the basis of that, God passes God’s judgment.

reply to post by pthena


Antisemitic? Clearly, no.


What more is there to say? I hope someone can explain how that speech is antisemitic, because I fail to see the offense.

Here's a real kicker, I did a search before starting this thread to see if the article was being discussed already, and ran across this thread: Weird sensations/notions (Poss related to Time Slips/Shifts) ? The OP posted this:

For example I am SURE I remember Nelson Mandela being executed not released but part of me convinces myself I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong for he is still with us today... But, I also recall hearing about the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu as my drama teacher (her name was Anna Scher) was actually good friends with him and I swear she was devastated about this...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I also remember the death of Desmond Tutu some years ago. So, his death has been retroactively canceled by some great power so that he can still speak. For those interested in such changes in reality, I would recommend The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin,

George Orr, a draftsman, has long been abusing drugs to prevent himself from having "effective" dreams, which retroactively change reality. After having one of these dreams, the new reality is the only reality for everyone else, but George retains memory of the previous reality.
en.wikipedia.org...