The 40th edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival kicks off on
Friday (June 30) in Montreux, Switzerland, and will run for sixteen
days. The event that has become one of the most prestigious music
festivals will draw more than 200,000 spectators. More than 200
musical acts will perform on various stages with most of the
headline acts playing in the Stravinsky, Miles Davis and Casino
halls.
One of the many highlights of the festival is the competition
featuring undiscovered musical talent. Dozens of young musicians
from more than two dozen countries will perform for recognition and
cash awards. It is kind of a global “American Idol” competition for
jazz enthusiasts.
One American contestant who will perform is Jean Rohe. She
intends on singing Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You.” In an
article posted on an online website, Rohe wrote “that one of my
strongest and most enjoyable methods of communication is
music.”
It would be shameful and entirely disrespectful if spectators
heckled Rohe during her performance. It would be a travesty to good
public order if audience members tried to disrupt her performance
by waving banners because she is an American or because they
disagreed with U.S. foreign policy. It would be downright juvenile
if a contestant who was to take the stage before Rohe would
ridicule her musical selection or belittle her singing talents.
Understandably, Rohe would be upset if this were to occur.
It is only too bad that Rohe did not practice the simple
adolescent maturity and respect for others that she is likely
expecting to experience while in Montreux. It was Jean Rohe who
collaborated with students who heckled, booed, hissed and jeered,
who waved banners and flyers, and who shouted at Senator John
McCain when he spoke at The New School University commencement last
month. Rohe was one of dozens of graduating seniors who wore orange
armbands to protest McCain’s attendance at the ceremonies. As one
of two graduates who delivered remarks immediately before McCain,
Rohe “was about to make him look like an idiot,” she later wrote.
McCain had already announced that he was going to deliver the same
remarks at The New School he had previously given at two college
commencements days earlier. Rohe attempted to ridicule McCain’s
prepared speech in her remarks.
In her online posting, Rohe thanked those students who shouted
at McCain during his remarks. She observed, “McCain was undoubtedly
shouted-out and heckled by people who were not politely absorbing
his words so as to consider them fully from every angle. But what
did he expect?” And then in the height of irony Rohe justified such
narrow-minded behavior by writing “precisely because we listen to
the views of others, and because, as I said in my speech, we don’t
fear them, that we as a school were able to mount such a thorough
and intelligent opposition to his presence. Ignorant, close-minded
people would not have been able to do what we did.” Hmm. “Ignorant,
close-minded people would not have been able to” shout down someone
offering a different viewpoint. One would be hard pressed to find a
sliver of logic and commonsense in that position.
Rohe wrapped up her commencement remarks by offering, “We have
nothing to fear from anyone on this living planet.” She is correct
if she meant that a nation with a strong national defense bolstered
by a vibrant, democratic society willing to listen to varying
viewpoints has little to fear from external aggressors. However,
that did not appear to be her position.
Her viewpoint is rather naive considering that the class of 2006
was the first to enter The New School University in Manhattan,
virtually under what was once the shadow of the World Trade
Center’s twin towers. The nearly three thousand who perished in the
9/11 attacks likely thought they had “nothing to fear from anyone
on this living planet.” New York City and the rest of the nation
painfully learned otherwise.
One may hope that years later Rohe will look back at her
graduation actions and realize just how childish they were. Perhaps
she will chalk them up to immaturity and the reality of living the
sheltered life of a college student. Her online observation that
she and her fellow students “chose to be in New York for our years
of higher education for the very reason that we would be challenged
to listen to opposing viewpoints each and every day” illustrate she
has so very much to learn. The New School in Manhattan is one of
the last places in America to look for a variety of political and
cultural viewpoints.
Maybe after Rohe sings in Montreux the realization of her
infantile actions of weeks earlier will hit her. And she’ll grow
up. A lot. And if John McCain was at the festival it is likely that
even if he did not enjoy her performance, he would neither heckle
nor boo her and would probably join the audience in a round of
applause.
