-Allen Lang, World Can’t Wait National Student and Youth Organizer
When Kansas University Professor Paul Mirecki decided
to offer a class equating Intelligent Design and Creationism to
mythology, he did not antcipate in a few weeks he would face death
threats, cause a national campaign calling for his resignation, be
hunted down and beaten by two attackers angered by his course, be
demoted from his post as the Chair of the Religious Studies Department
and end up with his career ruined. Read below to hear how the
events unfolded, the need to oppose these attacks and how this drives
home the need to force Bush to Step Down and take his program with him.
“If you’re going to have an intelligent
design course and call it mythology, I think in the very least it’s a
slap in the face to every Judeo-Christian religion that’s out there,” –
Republican Senator Kay O’Connor
‘Intelligent design is not a scientific argument at
all, but a religious one) It no more belongs in a biology class than
alchemy belongs in a chemistry class’ ( Jerry Coyne, Professor of
Ecology at the University of Chicago
There is a point at
Lawerence’s city limits where Haskell Avenue branches off into the long
rural roads that wind through the empty fields of Kansas. It was on an
early Monday morning when screeching tires and screams echoed up and
down these back roads as Kansas University Professor Paul Mirecki was
stalked, tailgated and beaten by two Christian Fascist thugs. Two men
in a pick- up truck followed Mirecki for several miles, swerving back
and forth on the road until Mirecki pulled over to let them pass and
eventually got out of his car. Mirecki’s attackers made references to a
class he was planning to teach that equated intelligent design and
creationism to a mythology as they beat him on the side of the road.
The professor checked himself into a Douglas County hospital later that
morning with a broken tooth, bruises covering his back and cat-scans
taken of his skull after sustaining several blows to his head from a
metal object used by the attackers.
Mirecki woke up early that
morning in the midst of a national controversy and his life turned
upside down after Christian Fundamentalists, including local Republican
Senators like Kay O’Conner, launched a campaign calling for the
termination of his position asChair of the Religious Studies Department.
Mirecki went out for a long, pre-dawn drive in the countryside to clear
his thoughts only to find himself hospitalized by attackers and then
standing in the doorway of his office as Douglas County Police Officers
searched through his desk and confiscated his computer. Along with
having his car and computer seized, he was interrogated like a criminal
several times with one interrogation lasting 5 hours straight.
This past November, the
Kansas Board of Education instituted new standards for science classes
that attack evolution by enforcing “intelligent design” being taught in
public schools and signaling a dangerous leap in moving the Christian
Fascist agenda into the formal institutions of everyday life. In the
backdrop of a nation rapidly moving towards a theocracy, the Kansas
Board of Ed’s decision should serve as a wake up call for millions.
‘This act) took us back 100
years in science and education’ -Barry Lynn, executive director of
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
Professor Mirecki was one
of the many people outraged by this theocratic intrusion on public life
and the overall direction society is moving under this regime. ‘I
see the Religious Right as an extremely organized national political
movement’, said Mirecki in a recent statement. In an effort to provide
a forum for looking at creationism for what it actually is, Mirecki
decided to offer the course: ‘Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent
Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies’.
After a set of comments
Mirecki made against Christian Fundamentalists on a private web forum
was published by a self-described “conservative researcher/ activist”
on various blogs, a campaign of slander and hysteria ripped through the
University and society, with right-wing columnists, preachers,
professors and Senators like Kay O’Connor fanning the flames of a
McCarthy-style witch hunt.
A professor hunted down
and beaten for teaching the truth about “intelligent design”. A
sympathetic University board that demotes and fundamentally blacklists
that professor from their post after capitulating to the intimidation
and threats from raving religious fanatics. These are the scenes that
serve as sign posts down the road towards fascism.
However, this can’t be seen as one man’s plight in the face of enraged bible thumpers. This
attack represents part of a much larger agenda that encompasses the
remaking of fundamental cohering norms in society to serve the
interests of a fascist theocracy. The Christian Right and fascist
elements like David Horowitz recognize college campuses as bastions for
critical thinking and the historic role universities have played in
resistance movements. The attack on Professor Mirecki makes it
clear that liberal universities are not off limits and sends the
chilling message: do not attempt to speak out against us and if you do
your position in society will not save you from the horrors we will we
create for you. Within the religious right’s drive to tear up these
basic societal norms, there is a tremendous and in many ways
unprecedented amount of outrage felt among millions of people watching
society move in this direction. Mirecki’s mailbox received 2,500
letters of support for his brave stand.
But it has to be asked:
Why is deciding to teach “intelligent design” as a mythology a brave
act? Why is it even controversial to teach what nearly every scientist
has established as an objective fact: Intelligent design is not science
and is only a sophisticated version of the more openly Bible-literalist
Creationist program.
‘The Bush regime is
setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way,
and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the
balance.’- from WCW Call
Not only is it critical to
mobilize millions to oppose the future we face under Bush, but to also
recognize the real life transformations THEY HAVE MADE in society.
Mirecki’s attack and demotion should shoot up a flare for millions of
people to overturn the new normalcy setting in and to dramatically
reverse the direction society is headed.
What should have been the response to organized book burnings that raged throughout Nazi Germany?
How is this fundamentally different? Piles
of books were burned before piles of bodies were set ablaze. (Sure, you
could raise various minor points how the book burnings were different,
one being Nazi youth danced around the flames which Christian
Fundamentalists like John Ashcroft would not be down with, considering
he believes dancing is a sin!)
There is a whole battle to be waged in defending
dissent and critical thinking in academia, and the right to teach
science, as well as the very definition of science itself, face
increasingly grave threats. Until Bush is forced to STEP DOWN and take
his program with him, we will continually lose more and more ground to
this whole onslaught. The 2,500 people who wrote letters of support and
the millions of others sickened by these attacks, need to be part of
raising a powerful voice that shatters Bush’s legitimacy the night of
the State of the Union address and demands BUSH STEP DOWN and take his
whole program with him. This is not a request, it is a demand: BUSH
STEP DOWN. The Bush Regime is criminal and its rule is illegitimate.
The demand that Bush Step Down can only be realized with millions
involved, acting with urgency, determination and a real sense that the
future hangs in the balance in this decisive moment.