Dear City Council members:
I am writing in support of making Nablus a Sister City of Boulder. Three years ago this request was rejected by the Council (for very poor reasons in my estimation). Since then, the advocates of the Nablus Sister City project have worked exceedingly hard to build an even more compelling case.
One of the many virtues of Boulder is its intellectually cosmopolitan nature. This involves incorporating representatives of different cultures and different philosophical standpoints. It also involves tolerance of opposing political outlooks. Making Nablus a Sister City will contribute to our community’s attractive cosmopolitan nature. It will help individuals in our community expand their cultural, philosophical, and political horizons. It will enhance the depth and rigor of their intellectual discourse. It will widen their understanding of our complex world.
There are also other reasons why the Nablus Sister City project is important. We live in a time of dangerous Islamaphobia (prejudice against Islamic people and culture). Making Nablus a Sister City will help to counter this menacing prejudice. It will also help Islamic people living in our community feel more welcome. On the other hand, rejecting the Nablus Sister City project will have the opposite effects. It will validate Islamaphobia and possibly alienate our Islamic neighbors who may question whether they are really accepted in Boulder.
There are many other reasons to support the Nablus Sister City project. These are the ones particularly important to me.
Peace and Justice,
Tom Mayer
Thomas Mayer is a professor emeritus at CU Boulder. He was born in Nazi Germany in 1937 (in a previous letter to the ‘Daily Camera’ he wrote regarding this topic, he wrote: “It may be interesting that I am Jewish by origin, and that my family suffered terribly in the Nazi Holocaust. I myself narrowly escaped from Germany as an infant”). He earned his PhD in sociology from Stanford University and has been at CU since 1969.
