A Message from President George....

[guest@endurance.net]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net


..Rupp to the Columbia Community


This is the way the subject line of the following message came to me
since the subject line field on my e-mail program was not long enough
to get the whole subject line in.

Being an alumni of Columbia Business School, I am on their Internet
mailing list (so yes, some people I knew at school were in the World
Trade Center when it collapsed).

I consider it unfortunate that the message did not come from President
George Bush, as I consider it to be the best thing I have see written
about this event so far.  I forward it here so that some people can see
a measured and intelligent reponse from somebody and an institution
that was (and still is) very close to the event.

---------------------------

Dear Fellow Columbians:

We now know with certainty that thousands of lives have been lost
in the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001.  Among those
thousands are dozens of members of the larger Columbia family:
alumni and relatives of current students, staff, and faculty.
The horrible numbers include Americans from across the country --
and also citizens from around the world, not surprisingly from
England, Germany, Japan, and Canada but also from Mexico, India,
Australia, China and some thirty other nations, including such
predominantly Muslim countries as Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
The sheer scale of the carnage is staggering, as is the global
representation of those slaughtered in this heinous crime.

On behalf of the whole Columbia community, I express deepest
sympathy for the loved ones of the victims.  Even those of us who
have not lost close friends or family members still share in a
profound sense of loss at the wanton destruction of this horrific
assault.  We in fact suffer with the victims and the mourners,
the literal meaning of the compassion that we cannot but feel.

Along with our acute yet also numbing awareness of the suffering
of the direct victims and their grieving families and friends, we
also know that the casualties of this tragedy extend much
further.  No community in this country or in any other country is
exempt.  We have all been diminished by these terrible deeds.  We
are fearful as we see the full horror of how distorted, how
perverse, human motivation and action can become.  And we must be
on guard that we do not in turn also become instruments of hatred
or captives of a self-delusion that prevents our acknowledging
how others view us and thereby leads us into counterproductive
actions.

In particular for us who are members of the larger Columbia
family, we must be sure to maintain and strengthen the core
values that characterize our common life.  We are a community
that encompasses and affirms diversity.  We come from every
ethnic and religious tradition in this country and from many of
the nations around the globe.  We must continue to reach out
across lines that mark unbridgeable divisions in much of the
world.  At precisely the time when the march of events threatens
to drive us apart and turn us against each other, we must come
together.  We must rise to the challenge of rebuilding out of the
wreckage that terror has wrought.

The rebuilding will be literal: the fabulous landmarks of the
skyline of our city will be recreated.  But the rebuilding must
also go beyond literal reconstruction.  We must build on our
common humanity so that in the generations to come we -- the
human race -- will see the devastation fueled by such hatred as
an unthinkable self-inflicted wound.

Our Columbia community is one of the places where reconstruction
in this larger sense must be an ongoing project.  In this regard
the response on campus to the current crisis has been
encouraging.  Students, staff, and faculty across all ethnic and
religious divisions lined up to donate blood and organized
donations of fresh clothing, towels, and toiletries for rescue
workers -- and donations of money to secure whatever was most
desperately needed.  The University lent special firefighting and
heavy construction equipment to fire and police units, and when
our own supplies ran out, purchased new crowbars, rope, hard
hats, and other items to meet the continuing need at the World
Trade Center site. We opened our facilities for emergency
overnighting.  We invited WNYC, bereft of power at its facilities
near the crash site, to broadcast from our student-run WKCR radio
station.  Doctors, nurses, and other mental health professionals
at our teaching hospitals were on special mobilization, and our
mental health professionals organized volunteers to assist relief
agencies.

Even as we continue to address immediate needs, we are looking
ahead in planning research programs and forums across the campus,
notably in the Law School and the School of International and
Public Affairs, to examine how the United States and the
international community move forward in ways that do not simply
replicate the dead-ends of the past.

Along with such special studies and symposia, we must engage
these issues at the center of the education we offer.  In our
classrooms we must confront the questions that divide us even
when we pursue common programs of study.  We must therefore
resist the easy alternative of uneasy silence and instead engage
the tough issues that polarize our world.  Such engagement will
occur more readily in some programs of study than in others --
for example, in international affairs or global policy or area
studies or comparative law or religion.  But in principle every
course must be an arena in which respectful debate on fundamental
disagreements is allowed and even welcomed.

Similarly, in our lives outside of formal courses, symposia, and
research projects, we must work against ethnic or religious
stereotyping and intolerance.  To be specific, we must take
special measures to counter hateful speculation or harassment
directed against Arabs and Muslims.  One indication of the need
for such measures is the extent to which anyone who appears
different may become the object of inappropriate attention --
Sikhs, for example, who are neither Arabs nor Muslims but do wear
their traditional headdress.  It is unacceptable at Columbia to
stigmatize entire peoples and traditions, even if responsibility
is in fact established for the indefensible attacks visited on
New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

Not only current students, staff, and faculty but also Columbia
alumni worldwide are a resource for the ongoing task of building
multi-ethnic, multi-religious communities that are both inclusive
and just.  We must face the fact that in the history of human
experience we have not yet fully succeeded in creating such
communities, which is why the task is so daunting.  Yet as we
mourn the victims of an unspeakable tragedy, we must commit
ourselves all the more to reach out to each other across the
lines of our differences and to work all the harder to realize
ideals that so far have been only partially and imperfectly
achieved.  To reach out and to work together to build communities
that bridge divisions in our pluralistic world is a challenge
worthy of the core values that Columbians over the generations
share.  I urge all of us to address this challenge in the days,
months, and years ahead.

Sincerely,


George Rupp