Say Genocide, Or Else!

by Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg

The Universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford, each are nearly a thousand years old. They were the centers of true learning that elevated civilization. They were the birthplaces of the arts and sciences that liberated mankind.

More recently, however, not so much.

Universities have become the harbingers portending the twilight of the West. They have become the sources of decay and decline leading to the enslavement of mankind to the political order.

All of which begins with the abuse of speech.

The Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin, Nazi Germany’s Joseph Goebbels, and Saul Alinsky (“Rules for Radicals”), among many other historical scoundrels, fully understood that by controlling the language, one could control the masses.

Consequently, abusing and controlling speech has become the tyrannical mission of the modern university.

Here in America, wealthy anti-American donors fund outside actors from leftist activist groups to go onto campuses to organize gullible students. From the inside, professors have prepared their students to be susceptible to political activism. This is true at UCSB as it is true on virtually every university campus.

On June 10, 2024, the UCSB “Autonomous Collective” of students and agitators formed a new group, calling itself – “Say Genocide” – and took over Gevirtz Hall on the UCSB campus. In the process, they bullied the janitorial staff and damaged school property. Its members created a scene of a war zone, with rocks and rubble on desks, simulated blood, and fake bodies around a green chalkboard inscribed with their name and their demand: “Say Genocide.”

The narrative, conveyed by the Liberated Zone’s Instagram post and the student newspaper, Daily Nexus, gives the basic details. “Say Genocide” claims USCB’s participation in the war in Israel means “the University is illegitimate. They have forfeited their legitimacy…” therefore UCSB students “must answer the call #escalateforgaza by any means necessary.”

Along with this condemnation, a letter was sent to the University stating:

“We demand that you release a statement recognizing the genocide in Palestine; that in this statement the university apologize for its past unwillingness to name the genocide in its communication; and that this university refer to the genocide in its communications; and that this university refer to the genocide in Palestine as such in all future communications, be they digital, physical, or spoken. (sic)”

The UCSB administration returned a diplomatic correspondence with the demand that “Say Genocide” immediately vacate the premises and then schedule future discussions. “Say Genocide” rejected the demand and reiterated their own demands, adding and including “full legal and academic immunity for those participating in this action.” They redoubled the commitment to occupy Gevirtz Hall until their demands were met.

Shortly after, the rumor of impending police intervention spread. Hundreds of students and UCSB staff gathered at the encampment late Tuesday night in anticipation of a police response. Early Wednesday morning the police arrived and included the UCPD, SBSO, Lompoc Parks and Rec, Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, K-9 units, riot gear, and five industrialized tanks. This was too much for the resolve of “Say Genocide.” The police encountered an empty hall, and no arrests were made.

George Orwell wrote that “Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Few quotes better characterize the spirit of pro-Palestinian protests. This latest attempt to force a speech code demanding that we all say “genocide” is identical in form to all the other abuses of speech lately imposed upon society. Think of the “insurrection,” “gender,” and “vaccine,” just to name a few.

None of these words mean what they say they mean.

The ongoing event in the Middle East is a brutal conflict with unspeakable horror and tragedy on both sides. Its origins are deep and complex and ought never to be reduced to inflammatory political speech. “Say Genocide” cites the United Nations and its International Court of Justice (ICJ) that claims – in response to a petition submitted by South Africa – that Israel is verging on genocide in Gaza. These are the same folks who have politicized science, medicine, and justice to spread falsehoods across the world for the sake of power, money, and control.

Asking the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) to adjudicate on genocide is as irresponsible as asking Alfred Kinsey to write our schools’ sex-ed programs. However, on a typically contradictory note, the ICJ did not call for a ceasefire after its ruling.

To omit Hamas’s complicity in the death of innocents on both sides of this atrocity is irresponsible at best. To ignore their genocidal “River to the Sea” rhetoric is dishonest. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stated at a press conference: “Hamas has only one agenda: to destroy Israel and to murder Jews.” Also, we should not be so naive as to think Benjamin Netanyahu or the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) are beyond criticism. In the interest of truth, we must not allow ourselves to be cowed by disingenuous accusations of antisemitism if malice is discovered.

Wrong is wrong no matter who is committing it, and right is right in the same light.

“Say Genocide” and its adherents are illegitimate. They have no right to force anyone to say anything that is not true. This abuse of speech is an attack on nature, authority, and the First Amendment of our Constitution. Our college students are being used as cannon fodder by political actors, much as Greta Thunberg is being used by promoters of the Green Agenda.

Universities are training our children to be vicious, to believe politicized lies, to contrive pathological outrage, and then to act with violence to make vicious demands. It is time for us to take sober stock of the destruction wrought on this country by our public universities.

We must return to the model of the great universities of the past if we ever wish to recover what has been tragically lost.

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