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John Silber, Governor

The voters of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will be going to the polls today (Tuesday) to elect a Governor. The time difference of 9 hours will ensure that the results of the election would be known to Pakistanis by breakfast tomorrow on CNN. While the results may not effect the life of Pakistanis as much as our own recent General Elections, there is a definite Pakistani interest in the possible ascendancy of John Silber to the Governor’s Mansion in Boston. The incumbent lame-duck Governor is Michael Dukakis, the Democrat aspirant against Bush for the office of the US President in the elections in 1988. Having lost to Bush, Dukakis went onto a roller coaster downslide in popularity, aggravated by widening budget deficits as well as the more personal problem of his wife’s alcoholism. The Democrat nomination was thus left open to a clutch of Democrats, John Silber, President of Boston University since 1970, 20 years after moving from the State of his birth, Texas, is now the confident aspirant.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was one of the founders as well as the leading State in the establishment of the Union of the United States besides being one of the original 43 British colonies along the Atlantic seaboard in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts on December 21, 1620, though European seafarers had tapped the fertile fishing areas throughout the 1500s. The Indians found this territory almost 3500 years ago while Lief Erikson and his Norsemen probably landed here around 1003. Massachusetts is the rightful claimant among all the States of the Union that history is woven into its very fabric of life and is its most valuable resource. Massachusetts has been a leading force in American education right from its founding, most of the leading Universities being based there, among them Harvard University, founded as Harvard College in 1636, Boston University (1839), Massachusetts Institute of Technology known internationally as MIT (1861), Tufts University (1852), Brandeis University (1948), Amherst College (1821), Williams (1791), Radcliffe (1879), Mont Holyoke (1837), etc. As far back as 1840, Massachusetts had developed a uniform State Public School system, being the pioneers in kindergarten and secondary education.

Boston as the capital became synonymous with the highest attainments in America’s cultural and artistic life while as a State provided Massachusetts industrial and financial leadership for the Union. The other States and Regions having grown faster, this leadership position may have been overtaken but a significant mark has been left on the development of the American Dream and the consciousness of the American people. Inhabited by about 7 million people, who are an amalgam of the early Yankee spirit and the later immigrants, it has contributed four Presidents, father and son, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, Calvin Coolidge and John F. Kennedy. Known once for its textile and shoe industry, Massachusetts retains its pre-eminent position in the financial, cultural and educational fields. The State Legislature tends to be dominated by Democrats, liberal Democrats at that, but there have been Republican Governors and US Congressmen.

Who is John Silber, what does he stand for and how does the office of the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts be of concern to Pakistanis?

John Silber was born in San Antonio, Texas, son of German immigrant and a Texas school teacher. He graduated Summa Cum Lande from Trinity University, earning graduate degrees in Philosophy from Yale. After being selected as a Fulbright Fellow (1959) and Guggenheim Fellow (1963), he served as Professor of Philosophy and University Professor of Arts and Letters at the University of Texas/Austin, later being appointed there as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1967 to 1970. In 1970 Silber became President of Boston University and University Professor of Philosophy and Law. In 1970, Boston University was facing financial disaster, a deficit of US$ 8.8 million was projected in total revenues of US$ 73 million. Within a year, after an intensive budget review, Silber had cut the deficit to less than US$ 1 million (US# 173000 to be exact) by reorganisation meant to deal with demographic realities. In the face of declining Admissions in all American Universities in the 1970s, Boston University has presented a balanced Budget for the last two decades. With financial stability, he has created (in the words of President Francois Mitterrand, who accompanied by President Bush visited Boston University recently), BU into a truly “grande et belle” University. In 1988, Boston University successfully capped a US$ 200 million fund raising campaign. After spending US$ 328 million on improved facilities and equipment, much of it from ongoing revenues, BU had increased its endowment ten-fold. Silber brought in US$ 66 million in 1989 to fund sponsored research only, transformed BU into one of the world’s pioneering research institutions in science, engineering, bio-technology and medicine. Silber insisted that his top Researchers be teachers also, net result of his policy has resulted in the world’s leading classicalists, novelists, playwrights, artists, literary critics, musicians, economists and sociologists being from Boston University. This has attracted students from the top 18th percentile of US high school graduates as also the largest contingent of foreign students enrolled at any American University.

As a liberal Democrat, John Silber still remained one of those who did not accept communism in Eastern Europe. He gave an early commitment to the cause of civil rights, leading the effort in the late 1950s and 1960s to integrate the University of Texas/Austin. On desegregation of the Boston Schools by Federal Court order, Silber sponsored a novel plan — subsequently adapted by the Court — to pair Boston’s public schools and colleges in an effort to enrich as well as integrate the educational system. The waste of human potential among the poor led Silber to propose to the US Senate fund special Federal programmes for pre-school-going children. While exhorting US Congress to remedy the situation, Silber has been active with Boston University help in Massachusetts. Boston University has accepted responsibility for day-to-day management of Chelsea Public Schools, which had one of the highest dropout rates in the state. This rate has now been halved, more children are being saved to go onto higher education.

Massachusetts has always been host to a great number of Pakistani students who have filled the great institutions of learning, Harvard, Radcliffe, Boston University, MIT, Tufts, etc, etc. Many Pakistani scholars have returned to teach in these Universities besides working in the burgeoning electronic field and other industries. Since BU is a fairly large Campus (over 25,000 students), it has an unusually large Pakistani contingent among the teaching staff, administration and students. They have been so taken in by John Silber’s all round qualities that when he decided to run for Governor, the Pakistani community centred around Boston University, made a “Pakistani Friends for John Silber Society”, making an early commitment by fund raising and acute campaign work.

We have misplaced conceptions about a number of things in the USA, particularly about Jews and liberal Democrats. We mistakenly label all Jews as Zionists and liberal Democrats as pro-Indian, this is a general broad brush which is at once unfair and counter-productive. Some of our best friends in USA have been Jews, take for instance Morton Zuckerman, SQA, whose law firm Dunn & Zuckerman has been legal counsel for Pakistan in one capacity or another almost before Pakistan was born. He still functions as the President of US-Pakistan Economic Council Inc, encouraging US investment in Pakistan. It is true that we do get a short end of the stick from the media which may be dominated to an extent by Jews but that is more due to our failure to have a proper lobbying effort and media projection to present our point of view and counter the propaganda. The likes of Senators Kennedy, Moynehan and Representative Stephen Solarz, who tend to shoot from the hip because of their personal preferences for India, makes a large portion of Pakistani populace accept it as a vested pro-Indian anti-Pakistan stance. This is most unfortunate but then again we must take into account that they did support Pakistan during the reign of Ms Bhutto and that was no sin. One feels that we should have made more effort to educate them about Pakistan, most animosity may be entirely due to benign ignorance.

John Silber is thus important, because he is a liberal Democrat of Jewish origin who is being supported by Pakistanis, some of whom may have known him for over two decades. His credentials are that much more solid because of his ability to reach out and take the confidence of people of disparate ethnicity. His abilities to balance the Budget will be sorely tested in the Governor’s Mansion in Massachusetts, his effectiveness in this Budget balancing has been tested in the smaller arena of Boston University. What is of utmost importance to us is his qualifications as an effective administrator in the academic field. God knows that any Third World country wanting to progress needs definite strides in the field of education, we look forward to some sort of a relationship in the education field between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Pakistan, any academic input would be more than welcome.

In 1992 President Bush will drop Vice President Dan Quayle probably for Secretary of State James Baker, positioning Baker as the Republican candidate for a shot at the US President’s job in 1996. At about that time, Governor John Silber, in his second term as Governor, would be an ideal Democrat candidate for the US President. He has the human qualities and background that must make up the complete profile for a person aspiring to be a US President.

Governor John Silber today, YES, but why not John Silber for US President in 1996?

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