Articles


An author meets his Waterloo

Posted On 08/12/04
By: Howard Rotberg

A quiet Sunday afternoon at the Chapters store in Waterloo, Ontario. A nice, relaxed informal lecture to a small group about The Second Catastrophe, my new novel.

I had just started talking about why I had written the book — about how, after the failure of the Oslo process, and Arafat’s rejection of Barak’s generous offer for a two-state solution at Camp David II, the Palestinians had started the Second Intifada. I mentioned how disappointed a lot of us were to see that Arafat apparently did not want a state alongside Israel, but one in place of Israel.

That was a mistake.

I now realize that I was in Canada, where only politically correct speech is protected.

I was in Canada, the land of cultural relativism, where the most important value is tolerance. Criticizing any other country or culture is a breach of the now distorted policy of multiculturalism. Now, I would pay the price.

If I had only known how big a price.

A young man came in and sat in the second row. He picked up a copy of my book from the table, took a perfunctory look at it, and started interrupting me.

“You think all Muslims are terrorists,” he asserted.

“I do not,” I replied, as categorically as possible.

“Well, that’s what your book says,” he retorted.

It looked to me as if he had just taken a few glances at it, so I replied: “Have you read my book?” He paused and then said, “Part.”

I decided not to take him seriously and I continued. Another mistake.

Suddenly a man appeared, standing off to my left, and started into a rant. It was something about how the Americans and the Israelis are the real terrorists, and that democracy is really fascist. He was scary.

University of Waterloo Professor Dennis Stoutenburg was there and tried to calm the man.

“Sir, this is a lecture. Why don’t you sit down and listen?”

Another mistake.

The first man identified himself as a Palestinian, and the second as a Kurdish Iraqi.

Then they took turns talking — and talking. It was apparent that they were not going to let me speak any more. They had decided to take over my lecture.

The Palestinian was shouting something about how the Israelis kill five Palestinians a day. Some audience members had heard enough.

“Be quiet and let the author continue with his lecture; he has the right to give his lecture,” said one audience member.

“He has no right to lecture if he is going to say things in support of Israel,” said the Palestinian. His words cut me like a knife.

Then the Iraqi started in. Again someone pleaded with him to be quiet so I could lecture. Then came the words that still ring in my ears: “He’s a f****** Jew.”

Up to this point there had been no store employees sitting in on the lecture. A couple had earlier come by and stood at the periphery of the seats for a few minutes each. One of them, a young woman, was wearing a hajav, the head-covering worn by many Muslim women.

That was the end of the lecture. I said something to the effect that I would not be called a “f****** Jew” at my lecture. The store manager came over to me and told me not to swear. I told him that I was the one being sworn at; he said that it didn’t matter. He gathered up the books on the table and escorted me to his office at the back.

“I want you to call the Police.” I said.

“What for?” he replied.

“Because these totalitarians just stopped my right to lecture, and are swearing at me, and who knows what they will do next?” I said.

“I don’t have the number,” he claimed.

I couldn‚t believe this. “Try 911,” I suggested.

Professor Stoutenburg and his wife Laura, who teaches English at Conestoga College, came by to see if I was all right. I wasn’t. I was in a state of shock.

Stoutenburg said he had just finished talking to the store employee with the hajav. “She is a Palestinian,” he added. “I think she knew the protestors.”

Finally, the police officer indicated he was ready to talk to me and any witnesses. He had been interviewing the protestors outside.

“Do you know that one fellow stopped my lecture, and then called me a “f****** Jew‚” I said.

Apparently he didn’t know, because he began to jot down the derogatory expression.

“I hope you are going to charge them,” I said.

“Well, I have investigated, and the only thing I could really charge them with would be causing a disturbance, but I decided to let them go, with a warning not to come back to this store.”

I was incredulous. He had let them go before talking to me and some of the witnesses, like the Stoutenburgs.

“Do you mean that it’s not a crime to use Gestapo tactics to break up a lecture and tell the author that he is a “f****** Jew?” I said.

The constable looked as if he would rather be somewhere else. “Well, we get 2 or 3 racial slurs a day in Kitchener-Waterloo; I can’t charge everybody,” he replied.

“But don’t you see a difference between a racial slur used in a dispute over a traffic accident, and one used to silence an author at a lecture he was invited to give by Chapters?”

“I can’t give you any special treatment because you are an author,” he said with what sounded a lot like sarcasm.

I was in shock. I said to him, “Don’t you understand what it is like for a Jewish author whose grandparents were gassed in Auschwitz to be called a ‘f****** Jew’ at a lecture?”

He looked at me blankly.

Then I understood. I said, “You don't know what Auschwitz was, right?” He didn’t say anything.

I asked him to escort me to my car, for my safety. When we got outside, there was a man milling around, who looked to me like he might be of Middle Eastern background. The officer just climbed into his cruiser.

“Aren’t you going to escort me to my car?” I asked.

He started his car. “I can see what happens from over here,” he replied.

That evening Mantua Books, my publisher, issued a press release saying they regretted to announce the cancellation of my speaking engagements at Chapters/Indigo, including the previously advertised events at the Ancaster store on May 30 and the Ottawa store on June 13.

The release went on to say that Mantua was NOT giving in to inflammatory tactics, but were trying to protect the author from physical harm and not inconvenience and annoy Chapters/Indigo and its customers when it came to heckling and racial /religious slurs.

In the meantime, Mantua Books said they would endeavour to find more secure forums for me to lecture, where they can provide the necessary level of security for my physical safety, and where they can provide personnel who can eject those whose purpose is not to engage in free and open debate but to silence those with whom they disagree.

Another mistake. My publisher had not precleared the wording of the press release with the director of public relations at Chapters. Sorya Ingrid Gaulin, the PR director, went ballistic.

She called me and said it was improper for my publisher to issue a media release before going over it with her. I said that it was up to my publisher, and that I didn’t think my publisher’s release had been in any way critical of Chapters.

Then she lowered the boom: “I heard you said some things at the lecture just as objectionable as what was said to you. We are going to issue our own press release, and you may not be happy with what it says.”

“What are you alleging that I said?” I was shocked, to say the least.

“Racist things.”

“What do you mean, exactly?” I asked.

“I heard that you said that all Muslims are terrorists!”

I was sinking deeper into my state of shock. All I could say was: “I definitely did not say that. If you put out a press release with such nonsense, I will sue to protect my reputation.” I hung up.

She issued her press release all right. Suddenly, I was in an Orwellian world where the victim of racism was now the racist. The press release apologized for any “inappropriate behaviour and… racist comments both from the guest author and some of the attendees at this particular event.”

Two months have passed. I have written to or spoken with most of the civil rights organizations in Canada, most of the Jewish organizations in Canada, and the organizations that serve the interests of authors. Some ignore my letters, some call back with messages of empathy, some even say they are investigating. But to date, not one organization has published a statement, in a newsletter, in a press release, or by verbal statement to the media, expressing dismay at what has happened to me, at what has happened to freedom of expression, at what has happened to someone who dares support Israel, at what has happened or not happened in the police investigation.

I have had a lot of support from individuals on Internet sites. I have had no official support from any organizations to date, Jewish or non-Jewish, except from PenCanada (which wrote a letter of concern to Chapters) and the Canadian Coalition for Democracies. Three newspapers saw fit to report the incident. One (the Kitchener-Waterloo Record) portrayed it as a “scrap” with competing claims of who was the racist. Until this article in the Jewish Tribune, only one newspaper (the Globe and Mail) has thus far carried an opinion piece (by Professor Emeritus Herbert Lefcourt) warning that allowing this to happen unchallenged is conducive to the “slippery slope” where it is much easier for the next incident to happen.

Professor Lefcourt was right. In June, someone wrote in to the Public Forum message board of the website for the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, a message board where quite a few people had posted messages of concern over the incident. This person used the name of a reputable Jewish family in Waterloo, and in broken English, wrote that he/she was in attendance at my “reading” (if he had been there, he would have known it was a lecture not a reading), that he was Jewish, and that I am a “hypocritical evil little bigot,” a “rascist (sic) scum” and then the clincher; he claims that in response to my being sworn at, I had said, “This just proves that all arabs and muslims deserve to die.”

The Canadian Coalition for Democracies, to its credit, is undertaking a court application to require Rogers, the Internet provider for the computer from which this message was sent, to disclose the name of its customer.

The awful irony for me is that my book, The Second Catastrophe, is in part about a Canadian professor who writes a book about Israel, and then gets in trouble after giving a lecture at his university. Most of the lecture is completely unassailable, but in one small portion he gets a little loose with his wording. The lecture takes place in early 2002, the peak of the suicide bombings. He asks what are Israel’s options when faced with these almost daily attacks. I have him state: “(One) suggestion is to create a series of impenetrable fences and buffer zones, essentially to keep the animals in the zoo.”

Of course, the next day, the novels Anti-Israel student newspaper runs a big headline: Zionist professor calls Palestinians (animals in the zoo).

The poor professor pays dearly for his slightly inappropriate wording. He is charged with offences against the university’s Human Rights Code, which makes it an offence to demonstrate bias against an ethnic, religious or national group, and an offence to make statements that would reasonably cause some students to think a professor is biased against them.

However, as much as I think about what I have said, or what I have written, I can never find the words that are inappropriate or find any words that are racist. Maybe I should not have repeated the ‘f’ word, even to admonish someone else for using it. But a racist I am not.

I have met my Waterloo, and I don’t like it.

Howard Rotberg is a Toronto-based author. His most recent novel is The Second Catastrophe. His web site is www.howardrothberg.com.