Seton Hall Magazine, Winter 2003 - Seton Hall University

2 SETON HALL UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE
Newsworthy
Noted Journalist Shares Insights into the World after September 11
Thomas L. Friedman, the
New York Times foreign
affairs columnist and
three-time winner of the
Pulitzer Prize, delivered
the inaugural lecture in
the Philip and Mary
Shannon Seton Hall
Speaker Series
on October 16,
2002. Speaking
on “The Global
Economy and
Foreign Policy
Since 9/11,”
Friedman
openly offered
his views and
insights to an
audience that
included more than 1,600
Seton Hall University students,
faculty and administrators, as
well as visitors from the
New York/New Jersey
metropolitan area.
Introducing Friedman as a
journalist of “clarity and evenhandedness,”
Monsignor
Robert Sheeran ’67,
University president,
noted the
guest speaker’s
commitment to
education. Friedman
is “convinced that it
is the one-on-one
contact of real human
interaction — of
education, of
educational
exchanges of
all kinds, of dialogue
and diplomacy
— that can
begin to reverse the
sad situations in so
many countries that
give rise to terrorism,”
Monsignor Sheeran said.
Friedman spoke
eloquently about how the
world has changed since
September 11, 2001.
“If your daily life is full of
repression, it will be
reflected in your religion.”
—THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
SETON HALL UNIVERSITY
OCTOBER 16, 2002
“What the terrorists really did
was profound,” he said.
“They punched a hole in the
foundation of civilization. It
was outside the scope of our
imagination.”
The widely traveled author
recently published a collection
of his columns that has become
a New York Times bestseller
(Longitudes and Attitudes:
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman (second from left) was the inaugural speaker in the Philip
and Mary Shannon Seton Hall Speaker Series, which began in October 2002. Welcoming Friedman are (from
left) Philip Shannon ’60 and his wife, Mary; Monsignor Robert Sheeran ’67, University president; and Clay
Constantinou, J.D. ’81, LL.M., dean of The John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations.
Exploring the World After
September 11). His book on
globalization received widespread
attention as well (The
Lexus and the Olive Tree). And
another book earned a national
Book Award (From Beirut to
Jerusalem).
The columnist divides the
terrorists into two groups: the
Saudis and the Europeans.
Referring to the Saudi terrorists
as the “sitting-around people,”
he said they come from a large
pool of young men who do not
work. The European terrorists,
Friedman said, are the key
plotters and pilots who orchestrated
the attacks, and who
“have something very striking
in their biographies. They
were all radicalized in Europe
as a result of their contact with
the West. Europe does not
aspire to be a melting pot [like
the U.S.], and therefore they
[the Europeans] cannot assimilate
into society,” he explained.
“This causes some people
to drift … all the way to
Al Qaeda.” The terrorists, he
noted, suffer from a “poverty
of dignity.”
Friedman touched on a
controversial topic that