After the Abu Ghraib prison photographs surfaced from Iraq in early May, Italian Prof. Tom Simpson started thinking that Northwestern’s faculty should work to engage people on campus in discussing the issue.
To Simpson the photographs depicted an image of America that “is so contrary to what I think America is about,” he said.
He decided to organize a teach-in to respond to the incidents.
“If we tolerate this without doing anything about it, what won’t we tolerate?” Simpson asked.
The event is scheduled for June 1 from 3:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the McCormick Tribune Center Forum. Seven experts are scheduled to speak for half-hour intervals throughout the afternoon. During the last hour-and-a-half, adjunct history Prof. Garry Wills will lead a discussion with five-minute speeches by professors and members of NOWAR, an anti-war student group.
Wills said he plans to speak about “the culture of secrecy in the government” and how this trend has evolved throughout history.
“The revelations of the (Abu Ghraib) torture are a manifestation of what the culture of secrecy has brought us to,” he said.
The teach-in will be cross-disciplinary, containing not only different opinions but also different vantage points, said Prof. Jack Doppelt, director of the Medill School of Journalism’s Global Journalism Program and another of the three event organizers.
“The violence in Iraq, particularly with the detainees, is bothering many people, and many don’t know what to do about it,” Doppelt said. “It will cover everything from issues of morality to poetry, history and political science, and a lot of communication and media.”
There also will be quiz questions throughout the afternoon, with small prizes for the winners, including playing cards displaying President Bush and his advisers, Simpson said.
On plasma TV screens in the McCormick Tribune Center lobby, organizers plan to play videos throughout the day. Prof. Janice Castro, another organizer of the event, said the group collected many clips and images from the war in Iraq, including media coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison incidents and the segment on ABC’s Nightline in which anchorman Ted Koppel read the names of American casualties in Iraq.
Castro, a journalism and new media professor, said the afternoon will be interactive rather than lecture-based.
“We didn’t want it to be a series of speeches, but rather a two-way conversation,” Castro said, adding that any attendees who wish to speak will have the opportunity to do so.
Event organizers have said the teach-in will not be partisan.
“This is not for political haranguing,” Simpson said. “This is to try to hear as wide a range of views as possible.”
Although the organizers hope to keep politics out of the event, they all agreed that the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib is reprehensible and puts the United States in a negative light.
“The publication of these photographs is going to do enormous damage to the reputation of this country,” Castro said. “We have a lot of work to do to overcome that.”
Simpson sent out e-mails to every student organization asking them to become involved in the teach-in, he said. Recipients included members of College Republicans and College Democrats, but only NOWAR responded, offering to help with publicity and partake in the event.
McCormick freshman and NOWAR member Kyle Schafer said his group plans to speak objectively about campus activism without discussing its political stance.
For Simpson the event will be a success if students walk away from the teach-in with a greater understanding of the issues.
“(This event) is for paying attention and reflection rather than ranting,” he said.
