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By Dr. Aubrey Bonnett |
September, 2002: This month, our nation remembers the day of infamy, September 11,2001, that wrought havoc on our shores and still impacts, gravely, our entire body politic. Many will use this occasion to reflect on patriotism, the need to focus on higher moral virtues- and even religious ones and yet others on the need to rid our nation and the global community of 'true believers' who would do us harm. My fear is that in this quest for solace, and a sense of comfort our nation will, as is emerging in many European nations and Australia, delve into xenophobia frenzy in its foreign and domestic policies. We have done so previously in our history but must now resist that urge.
A recent incident comes vividly to mind. Some months after our national ordeal, I received a frantic call from a young man in California, whom I had met and mentored during my decanal years in the state university there. He was seeking my advice as to a choice of career in this post 9/11 era, as he was trained in national security studies at the university. This young man was of Afghan descent and imbued with a strong sense of patriotism to this his native land, which had given shelter and succor to his parents and sibling, who had flown their war ravaged homeland. In the national newspapers and news magazines, versions of this story repeated itself in many colleges and universities as immigrants and their progeny, many from our elite universities and colleges, sought to join the CIA, NSA, FBI, State Department and many of our national think tank organizations and embrace public as opposed to more lucrative "private' service. If only we had more of these nimble minds, of our best and brightest, pre 9/11,many of the intelligence tapes from al Qaeda would have been read and hopefully revealed clues as to the great catastrophe which would later befall our nation.
Make no mistake, from corporate board rooms, medical institutions, defense and silicon valley industries for example the need for immigrants and their progeny will wax not wane, as these 'new Americans' continue to take their rightful place in our society. In the mid 1960's, our universities, in the midst of the cold war, competed for and inculcated American values in many of the budding power elites from the then developing world. In innovative area studies and cognate programs, educational institutions such as Yale, Columbia, Harvard, UCLA, Berkeley, Princeton, Texas worked with national foundations such as Rockefeller, Russell Sage, Carnegie, Kellogg and Ford to introduce these elites to the values of democracy and an open society, and to the positive consequences of market capitalism. This was buttressed, not always well, by our military and national police institutions that tried to develop a professional officer corps and, concomitantly, to inculcate respect for and obedience to civilian authority and control. Generally, the benefits were beneficent to our nation through the 1970's in that many nation states in the so called non aligned world-Nigeria, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Sierra Leone for example- were supportive of our foreign policy goals, if only unobtrusively at times. Unfortunately we failed, in the heat of unbridled military expenditures and sagging national economies, to focus on nation building in their societies and, in default, created ossified oligarchic dictatorships which caused many in these societies to take a dim view of our nation , especially our leaders.
America, however, must continue to open our doors to bona fide students and immigrants in our quest to build a lasting circle of global equality. Treated well and properly these are our best ambassadors for the continuation of American global influence. We must find a delicate balance between preserving our domestic homeland and respecting the liberties that are the cornerstone of our nation. The detention of many immigrants, and even some citizens, and the harsh reactive policies emanating from the department of Justice toward our universities as they educate these students will create much animosity and even hatred that will linger for generations and hamper us globally.
Further, the ranks of incarcerated criminals, assassins, deviants and social misfits are not disproportionately drawn from the immigrant pool, but rather our native population. Sure, immigrants are located heavily among our poor and lower class, and overcrowd our hospitals' emergency rooms seeking medical care, but they perform much of the onerous work in the underground economy are heavily economically exploited by our economic institutions, large and small. Many seek, through education, vertical social mobility, if not for them for their offspring and native born. . We must support such ventures, and that is why the recent action by New York Governor George Pataki is so outstanding. Despite the state's precarious fiscal situation and in the midst of some national "unease" over immigrants and immigration since 9/11, he signed legislation that would allow them to pay "in state tuition rates ' at the two public universities SUNY and CUNY among the largest in the nation. This is sensible and far-reaching policy and should mirror national policy at some levels.
Immigrants and their offspring are infectiously imbued with the American dream of freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, and indeed many from over eighty nine nations perished in the destruction of the World Trade Center, Pentagon and the United flight 93.Yet little fanfare is made of their ultimate sacrifices. America is a strong and compassionate nation and as we seek to understand the envy and hatred some have of our nation and its policies we must continue to pursue the strengths of internationalism while simultaneously seeking to develop a new paradigm to fight the scourge of terrorism on our shores and globally.