American exceptionalism on Palestine: Professor censored at Maryland award ceremony

Just 30 minutes before the award ceremony hosted by the National Communication Association (NCA) was kickstarted on November 18 in Maryland, Palestinian professor Ahlam Muhtaseb learned that her scheduled speech has been canceled due to use of the words “genocide” and “free Palestine”.

Muhtaseb refused to succumb to the pressure and, instead, declined the Community Voices award she had been declared as a winner for.

“I don’t inhibit myself or self-censor. I described what happened in Gaza as genocide and I’m not regretting it. I will always do the same thing,” Muhtaseb tells TRT World.

She says the decision was “devastating” and she felt “insulted, angry and humiliated” by the NCA, who had ironically picked the theme of the convention as “freedom”.

“This is a shame on an association like NCA that prides itself on uplifting and centering issues of academic freedom, freedom of expression and free speech,” says Muhtaseb, who is a media professor at California State University in San Bernardino.

During the award presentation, when her name was called, she briefly stood with duct tape over my mouth before leaving the stage.

“If I had accepted the award, this means I was okay with the action against me so I refused,” Muhtaseb says.

The president of NCA, Dr. Walid A. Afifi announced that Muhtaseb rejected the award, and in a show of solidarity another speaker also decided to reject his award.

“Subsequently, around a hundred scholars stood up and placed duct tape over their mouths in solidarity, and they all walked out of the ballroom,” Muhtaseb explained.

In besieged Gaza, Israeli attacks have killed over 14,000 Palestinians so far, nearly 10,000 of them are children and women.

More than 6,800 Palestinians, including more than 4,500 children and women, are missing or said to be buried under the rubble of bombed homes, Palestinian authorities say.

Six-part presidential address

In September, as the association’s first Palestinian President, Afifi asked six Communication Studies scholars to contribute parts of his presidential address on various social justice issues.

As one of the six, Muhtaseb was to deliver her speech in Arabic and focus on Palestine. It was translated and shared with the NCA five days earlier and received objections, according to Muhtaseb.

But at the last minute, Afifi was told the speech had to be spiked because naming colonial structures would cast the NCA in a negative light from which it might “never recover.”

“All six speakers, along with the president, refused to present the address without me. We initially planned to stage a protest by going onto the stage in defiance of the cancellation decision, but we were cautioned that we might face removal by security,” Muhtaseb says.

“To defuse the situation, we opted to exit the ceremony and perform our speeches and spoken words outside.”

Muhtaseb’s speech began by drawing attention to the irony of the conference’s theme of “freedom”:

“What an absurd coincidence that I address the NCA Convention assembly under the theme of ‘Freedom’ at a time when it has perhaps been more evident than ever before that my home country of Palestine is not free!

How absurd it is that I am expected today to envision with you all a future of freedom when we are witnessing genocide unfolding in front of our very own eyes and with our own money in Palestine!”

Her speech even addressed the silencing of Palestinian voices and the “deafening silence” in the discipline of academia “especially by those ‘decolonial scholars’ who wear their decoloniality as a meaningless badge?”

“I wonder, would a Palestinian voice be on this stage today had we not had a Palestinian President of our Association? Past history tells us no.”

And yet the national office of NCA, said no to Muhtaseb, who ends her speech by saying:

“Look at me here performing today in a way to be ‘accepted’ by you all and to get my word across, but in fact, all I want to do is to scream ‘Stop the genocide in Gaza now and free Palestine’.”

NCA members felt ‘unsafe’

Although it was not cited as a reason, Muhtaseb believes external pressure played a role in the NCA’s decision to cut out her portion of the speech.

She said NCA members reported feeling “unsafe” after a walkout conducted in solidarity with Palestine.

“We did a walkout for Gaza at 12:30pm (GMT) where we congregated in the atrium of the hotel, we chanted and I delivered a speech and we all marched outside of the hotel and went around the town,” Muhtaseb tells TRT World.

Muhtaseb said she is considering taking legal action against the NCA, which has not responded to TRT World’s request for comment on the situation.

“It’s so shocking and appalling that they would do this and it’s going to backfire in their faces. A lot of scholars are already very angry at them and there is definitely a breach of my constitutional rights”.

Muhtaseb said it seems to be that the United States is “progressive on everything except Palestine.”

“So there is always the exceptionalism of Palestine in the United States and that’s evident in so many different ways including of course not allowing free speech such as in this case.”

In addition to being a professor, Muhtaseb is also an acclaimed film director. She tells TRT World that she faces “constant challenges” in regards to getting funding, such as for her documentary on 1948.

However, Muhtaseb who describes herself as an "activist scholar”, centres her activism in all of my work, whether it’s teaching, research or service and vows to continue to do so always.

Additional reporting by Necip Eren Doguoglu.