Ignatieff and nine other luminaries avoid mentioning Islamism while reflecting on 9-11

Academic seminars can be fascinating. Sometimes for what one learns from scholars and experts, and sometimes as opportunities to observe the extent to which so many people who expect to influence public policy are how out-of-touch with reality.

Yesterday, a seminar conducted by the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto provided an example of both phenomena. Called “9/ll” – Ten Reflections after the Passage of Ten Years: An Opportunity to Contemplate and Remember ten speakers presented their thoughts about the repercussions of the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon a decade later. The speakers included former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and Jean Chretien's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bill Graham, as well as eight others, mostly academics, including a familiar face on TVO, Janice Gross Stein and  The Canadian Centre for Global Security Studies' Ron Diebert.

What was most remarkable about the talks that the ten speakers gave over an hour and a half about how 9-11 has changed the priorities and concerns in the world is that there was a word that remained unspoken by every single one of them. Not one speaker said the word "Islam." Not once. Not even as a part of another term, such as Islamism.

None of them had the courage to talk about the elephant in the room; that while Muslims are overwhelmingly opposed to terrorism and want freedom, the inability within much of Islam and many Muslim societies to address violent, repressive ideologies and to promote reform is at the root of the conflict that is misleadingly referred to as "The War on Terror."

The result was an implicit suggestion (and sometimes more explicit than implicit)  that fanatical Islam had nothing to do with 9-11 and that it was America that had somehow brought the attacks on itself.

Another thing that stood out was, with the exception of Ron Diebert, only the two politicians seemed to have any cohesive grasp of the challenges and dangers that the post 9-11 world presents. Janice Gross Stein was one the one person to put that phenomenon into perspective when she observed that she has a particular scholarly focus and she tends to slant all information to it. It appears that the other academics fell victim to just that approach, but without the self-awareness of Stein.

Many of the speakers talked about serious concerns of the last ten years, such as the erosion of civil liberties, but what they failed to note was that for the vast majority of us, these changes won't directly affect us and are possible because they will be unnoticed in what remain free societies. But in the cases where they do occur, such as some invasive aspects of the Harper government's Omnibus Crime Bill, which intends to make access to personal information available to law enforcement without a warrant, and its criminalization of linking to offensive websites, government needs to be held to account and most likely will in the form of court challenges.

Diebert had some interesting observations about how public security, which used to be exclusively a function of government, has been largely privatized since 9-11, and there are ominous consequences. He also discussed the insidious cooperation that some private companies that provide such private security in the west have with repressive regimes, such as Syria and China.

However it was Graham and Ignatieff who provided the most cogent insight of the evening. Graham noted that Canada's close relationship with the United States has benefited us in our ability to devote funds to our social programs since the US has guaranteed our security and we did not have to dedicate as many resources in that area as many other countries; many people in the room took the benefit for granted without appreciating how the US might expect something in return.

Ignatieff's observations were a reminder that while he was not an apt politician, he remains a keen and thoughtful scholar and intellectual. His reminder was simple, but one that is frequently forgotten by the supposed cognoscenti of the west. There is a lot of hatred towards us in places far away and we can't ignore it, because 9-11 should remain a constant lesson that if we forget, that hate will reach out and try to grab us by the throat.

The call to public service was the most important lesson that Ignatieff drew from 9-11. As he said, the only people going up the stairs of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers were wearing uniforms, and the heroism that those public servants displayed that day was a demonstration of the nobility of the men and women whose job it is to protect and serve the citizens of their country.

UPDATE -You can view the seminar: