October 31, 2014
There are several advantages to a liberal arts institution: small classes, educational freedom and an emphasis on critical thinking and resources. Here, I am referring to physical monetary resources that have easily allowed Hamilton to build an elegant new art center, or to bring a celebrity to campus for a speech each year. However, we are not the only ones who do that. Colgate University also has their version of our Great Names Series, called “Global Leaders.” Last week, Colgate invited Shimon Peres, the former President and Prime Minister of Israel. Fortunately, Hamilton’s Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs Alan Cafruny invited ten Hamilton students, along with Coordinator of the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Program, Barbara Britt-Hysell.
After passing through the strict security, we sat in our reserved section. The lecture comically started with a poor a cappella performance featuring pop songs. President of Colgate University Jeffrey Herbst proceeded to introduce the speaker and thank recent donors. President Peres was interviewed for the next hour and a half Colgate’s alumnus Bob Woodruff.
President Peres has been one of the most significant Israeli politicians in his country’s history. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he played a key role in the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords in 1993, and jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin the following year. During his political career, he held many different positions such as Israel’s Minister of Transportation, Finance, Foreign Affairs and Defense. He was also the Prime Minister on three different occasions, and finally served as President of Israel from 2007 until his retirement earlier this summer. Despite being an advocate for dialogue and peace, Peres is not excluded from involvement in the controversy that surrounds the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
From the first impression, the interview seemed rather a disappointment. The questions were mostly shallow and the answers were expected. The problem was not really the type of the questions (although some questions were simply ludicrous); the problem was a naïve approach that negated the notion of the critical thinking typically present at a liberal arts institution. For example, after discussing the Iranian nuclear program, the interviewer asked Peres if Israel has a nuclear arsenal. Peres answered expectedly with a statement that complied with the nuclear ambiguity policy that Israel has had for decades. Instead, the interviewer could have simply asked: “Why does Israel deny having nuclear weapons despite of all the evidence?”
The event ran as expected, except for the sudden interruption by one of the audience who suddenly exclaimed: “What about the settlements in the West Bank? What about the 500 children who died in Gaza this summer?” Peres responded very calmly saying that he cannot respond to her while she was asking angrily. What surprised me was the audience’s negative response who collectively “booed” her. One of the Hamilton students next to me even told her to “shut up.” That truly was a tyranny of the majority moment.
The motive behind the tradition of bringing big names to college campuses is not clear. Is it really done to deepen the learning experience of the students, or to simply to improve the image of the institution and to follow the steps of other colleges? If it is the first motive, the intellectual quality of the Peres lecture is no better than any commercial TV show. I think these questions need to be asked again when Derek Jeter visits campus in a few weeks.
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