AUB President: A Message on Honorary degrees

Although I do not agree myself with the selection of one of the honored guests for this year. AUB has been extremely cautious when it comes to relations with Israel over the years. We should thank AUB to sustain a decent position (vis-a-vis the Palestinian cause) at the time where a lot of Arab and Muslim countries are runing toward Israel.

If AUB was dealing differently with the Palestinian cause, it would surely get much more funding from the States.

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Dear Members of the AUB Community,

I would like to share with you a personal note, in view of several e-mails that have been circulating among the faculty and on the alumni listserv in the wake of the controversy surrounding the recent honorary degree ceremony at Commencement. In particular, I want to address the comments relating to this administration's purported agenda related to Israel.

The first and paramount observation is that AUB has always respected and complied with the laws of Lebanon, and always will, particularly the laws prohibiting the normalization of any kind of relations with Israel.

Indeed, this position has come at a cost to some of our faculty members in recent years, particularly those who have had to give up significant funding or research partnerships because of the involvement of third-party partners who had ties to Israeli institutions.

Second, this administration at AUB has no normalization or Zionist agenda of any kind. Those who make that claim or imply it are simply wrong on the facts. But raising questions about AUB's presumed Zionist leanings is a sensational charge that catches the eye, can spread quickly, and understandably raises deep alarm among Lebanese and others who have suffered from Israeli depredations.

The circulating messages entitled "Can AUB Find Only Those Complicit with Zionism to Honor?"--taken straight from the extremist coverage published by al-Akhbar newspaper‹is a rhetorical question that belies our history of honoring distinguished Arabs or friends of the Arab world such as Edward Said, Helen Thomas, and Hanan Ashrawi. In the last three years alone, the University has honored Walid Khalidi, Dourade Al Lahham, Eric Rouleau, Mary Robinson, Marcel Khalife, Owen Gingerich, Mostafa El-Sayed, Anthony Shadid, Wadad Kadi, and Munib Masri. Eight of these honorees were nominated by our own faculty.

Some have criticized the administration for awarding an honorary degree to individuals who do not adhere to the Palestine Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel campaign, an initiative intended to isolate Israel from such contacts. I defend the right of those who take such a position; it is a principled stance, and one that many feel passionate about. Yet institutional decisions cannot be subordinated to an absolute litmus test imposed by the demands of outside groups. Otherwise, to pick just one example, AUB could never have decided to honor Edward Said, who initiated an acclaimed cultural dialogue through his highly visible sponsorship of a Palestinian-Israeli youth orchestra.

I was born in Lebanon in the same year as the nakba; like so many of you, I have never lived in the world without the dreadful specter of Palestinian dispossession and an expanding Israeli settlement agenda, which are deeply immoral and ultimately, in my view, self-destructive.

As for AUB, our campus is a precious and protected space where differences of opinion do‹and must‹exist in a context of mutual respect.

Free speech is fundamentally a core value of AUB and a part of our long tradition of academic freedom. We will continue to honor it, for every voice in our community.

The Provost and I will be meeting this coming week with a delegation of faculty members, who wish to present their petition of disagreement. The Board of Trustees has also asked me to review the process of vetting candidates for honorary degrees. I know the faculty delegation speak for a good number of you reading this message; but I can assure you that we jointly have only the reputation and good name of our beloved institution at heart, alongside a profound commitment to AUB's proud legacy, our home country, Lebanon, and the region we serve.

Peter Dorman
President

I am Beirut (from my inbox)

I used to be a beautiful city… Some people say I'm still as beautiful as I was before... I don't like me anymore… I scare my kids away… I kill my people unintentionally… I starve them to death… I even turn some of their brightest days to a funeral in a split of a second…Every day I stand there, waving to all these people, mostly young, leaving on these big airplanes… Jealousy kills me, knowing that they will go and enjoy grocery shopping in a street I've never heard of, smiling to a stranger who doesn't even know where their country is… Working hard and becoming successful… I wish they could be here with me, becoming successful with me… I feel helpless without them, thousands and thousands leave, few come back while I sit waiting and waiting and waiting…A girl came to me the other day, young and beautiful… Wearing that white dress made her look like an angel. Stood at the 'Corniche' with a coffee in her hand… She was staring at the sea with words coming out of her eyes'I miss you Beirut.I miss your weather, miss your sea breeze.I miss staring at you at night from my bedroom balcony… when the world is sleeping and there is only you and I miss feeling loved.I miss belonging to you, miss feeling the security… You don't know how hard it is to wake up every morning wondering if your parents or friends are ok, until you read the news and make few phone calls in case there was an explosion… Try harder Beirut…'Tears filled my eyes and anger filled my heart… Didn't know what to say to comfort her! My body is heavy and scattered, my land enjoys blood and every now and then one of my veins explodes and many of my innocent kids die… I can't help it... I try...'I want to come back and live here Beirut, next to my family, next to my dad and brother… I want to raise my kids in Beirut, just the way I was raised… Never knew the difference between a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew… never heard about terrorism… Want my kids to grow up on discipline, respect, beliefs, freedom… and mostly integrity. What happened to you Beirut? You're no longer the same…I turned and left, didn't want to hear her anymore… She kept calling me but I never answered... She broke my heart, only because she was telling me the truth! I'm no longer Beirut she once enjoyed when she was 4… They took my magic away…Ashamed I am… I starve my people to death; I have no shelter for them anymore, no security, no love among each other… I'm in pain, I want to endure more, maybe, maybe someday my people will understand the pain I'm going thru and help me stand instead of walking all over me… I don't blame them; they are hungry and poor…She left on one of those big airplanes few days later, sad she looked back at me hoping to come back and see me at least in the same condition, but we both knew it was not the case; I screamed and screamed hoping for her to hear me…I order you to come back… Yes I can't promise you security but I promise you that you and me can make it together, come back and bring all those people who once left… because I miss them, miss their faces and their laughs… Come back and fight for me, clean my body from rotten creatures, change the world for me, help me stand… I can't do it alone.I'm your city,I'm your mother,I'm your child,I am Beirut.