Musicologist: A Threat to National Security?

As of today, October 1, 2007, the United States government’s national threat level is “elevated,” while the threat level for all international and domestic flights is “high.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s website directly states that “While there continues to be no credible information at this time warning of an imminent threat to the homeland, the department's strategic threat perspective is that we are in a period of increased risk.” Perhaps this “imminent threat” during this “period of increased risk” is what caused up-and-coming musicologist, Nalini Ghuman, to be detained for eight hours in the San Francisco airport on August 8, 2006 and subsequently to be refused reentry into the United States. On September 17, 2007, Nina Berstein from The New York Times caught up with the case. Over thirteen months later, Ghuman has still not been allowed reentry and has yet to receive any information on the reasons for the revocation of her visa.

The situation with musicologist Nalini Ghuman, whose image is seen below, is one of sheer puzzlement. Ghuman, a British citizen of Welsh-Indian heritage, received her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, and is a Professor of Music at Mills College in Oakland. She is esteemed as one of the world's preeminent scholars on the musical works of Sir Edward Elgar. As a perfectly innocent and prominent musician with respectable education credentials, the United States has, in flagrant violation of law, revoked her residency visa and refused to allow her back with no explanation given and no rights afforded; not even a phone call. The difficulty with this situation is that Ghuman’s case has not been able to be closely studied as a result of the government’s refusal to release any specifics on her case. Despite having a clean background and no direct links to any sort of national security threat, she has been treated as though a huge danger to the United States. As a result, her situation has caused uproar amongst the musicological community, her colleagues, and others who believe that she is being unfairly kept out of the country. The American Musicological Society has even been sending out regular newsletters regarding Ghuman’s current status.

While Ghuman has heard no specific information as to why her visa was revoked, the officers who originally detained her reported to Ghuman and her representative that, although no information has been released dealing with her case, there is a strong likelihood that there are deeper security reasons for holding her from entering. On July 27, 2007, the American Musicological Society, concerned with the lack of movement on the case, wrote directly to Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice to query about the status of Ghuman’s return. The response they received was short and unsatisfactory. It stated that “Dr. Ghuman's case is undergoing administrative processing. It is not possible to predict when Dr. Ghuman's case will be completed.” As of yet, that is the most information anyone has heard about the matter. Perhaps there is some other problem that the public is unaware of that is causing the government to not release any other material on the case, or perhaps they are worried about security. Whatever the reason, nothing appears to explain this inexcusable situation.

While Ghuman’s story is the story of just one woman, there have been many other instances where the United States has denied entrance or revoked the visas of foreign scholars. Not surprisingly, most of these foreign intellectuals were critical of the Bush administration and spoke out publicly about it before being denied entrance. One such example is of Riyadh Lafta, an Iraqi professor of medicine who had been invited to visit the University of Washington to share his research on cancer among children in southern Iraq. Upon being deprived entrance into the U.S., Mr. Lafta decided to deliver his lecture at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, and the video was broadcasted at the University of Washington. These actions that have been taken by the United States’ govenment against these foreign scholars are not only unjust and unfair, but if this continues, America’s pre-eminence as a place of scholarship is at stake.