BREAKINGTHEWAR MENTALITY he...
Transcript of BREAKINGTHEWAR MENTALITY he...
our hearts. and taking continual, tangible ~teps to prevent war, becomes a difficult task.
Two groups on campus, Anns RaceAlternatives (ARA) and StudentsAg-ainst Militarism (SAM), work withinthese mental limits to foster awarenessand practical action neces::-ary to counter the growing threat of war. Thoughthe emphasis of the two p:roups differ.they share an aversion to current government policy. These groups, visualizing the possibilities of destruction andg-rasping the-tendencies of distorted national priorities, are throwing theirweight into shifting America off thedead-end track.
"Most people my age rememberwell the air-raid drills in school, under
Hy Harack ObamaMost students at Columbia do not
have first hand knowledge of war_ Military violence has been a vicarious experience, channeled into our mindsthrough television, film, and print.
The more sensitive ~lmong usstruggle to extrapolate experiences ofwar from our everyday experience, discussing the latest mortality statisticsfrom Guatemala, sensitizing ourselvesto our parents' wartime memories, orincorporating into our framework ofre·ality as depicted by a Mailer or a Coppola. But the taste of war-the soundsand chill, the dead bodies-are remoteand far removed. We know that warshave OlX.'WTed, will occur, are occWTing,but bringing such experience down into
the desk with our heads tucked betweenour legs. Older people, they rememberthe Cuban Missile Crisis. I think thesekinds of things left an indelible mark onouf souls, so we're more apt to be concerned," says Don Kent, assistant director of programs and student activities at Earl Hall Center. Along with thecommunity Volunteer Service Center,ARA has been Don's primary concern,coordinating various working groups offaculty, students, and staff members,while simultaneously seeking the everelusive funding for programs.
"\Vhen I first came here two yearsago, Earl Hall had been a holding tankfor five years. Paul Martin (director ofEarl Hall) and [discussed our interests,and decided that ARA would be one ofthe programs we pushed. tl Initially,most of the work was done by non-student volunteers and staff. "Hot issues,particularly EI Salvador, were occupying students at the time. consequently,we cosponsored a lot of activities \'I.rithcommunity organiza.tions like SANE(Students Against Nuclear Energy)."
With the flowering of the nuclearFreeze movement, and particularly theJune 12 rally in Central Park, however,student participation has expanded.One wonders whether this upsurgestems from young people's penchant forthe latest 'happenings', or from gro\\;ngawareness ofthe consequences ofnuclear holocaust. ARA maintains a mailinglist of 500 persons and Don Kent estimates that approximately half of the active members are students. Althoughhe feels that continuity is provided by
BREAKINGTHE WAR MENTALITY the faculty and staff members, studentattendance at ARA sponsored events--in particular a November 11 convocationon the nuclear threat-reveals a deepresevoir ofconcern. "I think students onthis campus like to think of themselvesas sophisticated, and don't appreciatesmall vision, So they tend to come outmore for the events; they do not want tojust fold leaflets."
Mark Bigelow, a graduate internfrom Union Theological Seminary whoworks with Don to keep ARA runningsmoothly, agrees. "It seems that students here are fairly aware of the nuclear problem, and it makes for an underlying frustration. We try to talk to thatfrustration." Consequently. the tbrnst ofARA is towards generating dialoguewhich will give people a rational handleon this controversial subject. this includes bringing speakers like Daniel
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ElIsberg to campus, publishing factsheets compiled by interested faculty,and investigating the possible development of an interdisciplinary program inthe Columbia curriculum dealing withpeace, disannament, and 'world order.
Tied in with such a thrust is theabsence of what Don calls "a party line."By taking an almost apolitical approachto the problem, ARA hopes to get theuniversity to take nuclear arms issuesseriously. "People don't like havingtheir intelligence insulted," says Don,"so we try to disseminate infonnationand allow the individual to make his orher own decision."
Generally, the narrow focus of theFreeze movement as well as academicdiscussions of first versus second strikecapabilities, suit the military-industrialinterests, as they continue adding totheir billion dollar erector sets. WhenPeter Thsh sings that "everybody's asking for peace, but nobody's asking forjustice," one is forced to wonder whether disannament or arms control issues, severed from economic and political issues, might be another instance offocusing on the symptoms of a probleminstead of the disease itself. Mark Bigelow does not think so. "We do focus primarily on catastrophic weapons. Look,we say, here's the worst part,let's workon that. You're not going to get rid ofthe military in the near future, so let's at
.".·it
least work on this."Mark Bigelow does feel that the
links are there, and points to fruitfulwork being done by other organizationsinvolved with disarmament. ''TheFreeze is one part of a whol disarmament movement. The lowest commondenominator, so to speak. For instance,April 10-16 is Jobs For Peac week, \\;tha bunch of things going on around thecity. Also, the New York City Councilmay pass a resolution.in April calling forgreater social as opposed to militaryspending. Things like this may dispellthe idea that disarmament is a whiteissue, because how the governmentspends its revenue affects everyone."
The very real advantages of concentrating on a single issue is leadingthe National Freeze movement to challenge individual missile systems, whilecontinuing the broader campaign. Thisyear, Mark Bigelow sees the checkingof Pershing rr and Cruise missile de·ployment as crucial. "Because of theirsmall size and mobility, their deployment will make possible arms controlverification far more difficult, and \dBcut down warning time for the Sovietsto less than ten minutes. That can onlybe a destabilizing factor." Additionally,he sees the initiation by the U.S. of theTest Ban Treaty as a powerful first steptowards a nuclear free worlel.
ARA encourages members to joinbuses to Washington and participate in a,
March 7-8 rally intended to pushthrough the Freeze resolution which ismaking its second trip through theHouse. ARA also will ask United Campuses to Prevent Nuclear War(UCAM), an infonnation and lobbyingnetwork based in universities, nationwide, to serve as its advisory board inthe near future. Because of its autonomy from Columbia (which does notfund political organizations) UCAMcould conceivably become a more activeann of disannament campaigns on campus, though the ARA will continue tofunction solely as a vehicle for information and discussion.
Also operating out of Earl HallCenter, Students Against Militarismwas fonned in response to the passageof registration laws in 1980. An entirelystudent-run organization, SAM casts awider net than ARA, though for thepurposes of effectiveness, they havetried to lock in on one issue at a time.
"At the heart. of our organization isan anti-war focus", says junior RobertKahn, one of SAM's fifteen or so activemembers. "From there, a lot of issuesshoot forth-nukes, racism, the draft,and South Africa. ''We have been betterorganized when taking one issue at atime, but we are always cognizant ofother things going on, and collaboratefrequently with other campus organizations like CISPES and REELPOLITIK."
At this time, the current major is-sue is the Solomon Bill, the latest legislation from Congress to obtain compliance to registration. the law requiresthat all male students applying for federal financial aid submit proof of registration, or else the government cofferswill close. Yale, Wesleyan, and Swathmore have refused to comply, and planto offer non-registrants other fonns offinancial aid. SAM hopes to press C0lumbia into following suit, though so farPresident Sovern and company seemprepared to acquiesce to the bill.
Robert believes students tacitlysupport non-registrants, though themajority did not. comply. "Severalstudents have come up to our tables andsaid that had they known of the ineffectiveness of prosecution. they would nothave registered." A measure of such underlying support is the 400 signatureson a petititon protesting the SolomonBill, which SAM collected the first fourhours it appeared. Robert also pointsout that prior to registration, therewere four separate bills circulating inthe House proposing a return to the~, butnoneevergotoutofcorrrnti~
tees, and there have not been renewed
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mentality. contin"edfrompageJ
efforts. An estimated half-million nonregistrants can definately be a powerfulsignal.
Prodding students into participating beyond name signing and attendingevents is tricky, but SAM membersseem undaunted. "A lot of the problemcomes not from people's ignorance of thefacts, but because the news and statisties are lifeless. That's why we searchfor campus issues like the Solomon billthat have direct impact on the studentbody, and effectively link the campus tobroader issues." By organizing and educating the Columbia community, suchaetivities lay the foundation for futuremobilization against the relentless, often silent spread of militarism in thecountry. ''The time is right to tie together social and military issues," Robertcontinues, "and the mopre strident theAdministraion becomes, the more aware people are oftheir real interests.
The belief that moribund institutions, rather than individuals are at theroot of the problem, keep SAM's energies alive. IIA prerequisite for membersof an organization like ours is the faiththat people are fundamentally good, butyou need to show them. and when youlook at the work people are doing acrossthe country, it makes you optimistic."
Perhaps the essential goodness ofhumanity is an arguable proposition,hut hy obsEl'rving the SAM meeting lastThursday night, with its solid turnoutand enthusiasm, one might be persuaded that the manifestations of our better instincts can at least match the badones. Regarding Columbia's possiblecompliance, one comment in particularhit upon an important point with theSolomon hill, "The thing we need to do isexpose how columbia is talking out oftwo sides of its mouth."
Indeed, the most pervasive maladyof the collegiste system specifically, andthe American experience generally, isthat elaborate patterns of knowledgeand theory have been disembodied fromindividual choices and government policy. What the members of ARA andSAM try to do is infuse what they havelearned about the current situation,hring the words of that formidable r0s
ter on the face ofButler Library, nameslike Thoreau, Jefferson, and Whitman,to hear on the twisted logic of which weare today a part. By adding their energyand effort in order to enchance the possibility of a decent world, they may help
deprive us of a spectacular experience-that of war. But then, there aresome things we shouldn't have to livethrough in order to want to avoid theexperience.
Green • continuedfrom page 1
and soon, it is quite probable that theGermans will do something on theirown. The Reagan administration's stalling at the Geneva ta1Iks on nuclear weapons has thus already caused severetension and could ultimately bring abouta dangerous rift between the UnitedStates and Western Europe. By beingintransigent, Reagan is playing directlyinto the Russians' hands.
In 1933 the German establishmentthought it could use Hitler to restore amodicum of order to the confused andconfusing Weimar Republic. In fact,Hitler did strengthen the German establishment, but not exactly in the waythe bankers and businessmen hadwanted; and now, fifty years later, it isclear who was using whom.
Nevertheless, the Western Worlddid not complain in 1933 because Hitler,though a fascist and a totalitarian, wasseen, like counUess American puppetdictators today, as someone who leaves
the established order in place.Not so the Greens. If a group of
young, anti-establishment pacifistsv,ith unusual ideas and uncomfortableanswers to hard questions terrifies usmore today than Hitler, Himmler,Goering and Goebbels did back in 1933,our terror says more about us than itdoes about the Greens or the Germans.It indicates that we have failed to comprehend the meaning of Nazism andhlind obedience to authority in their fullhorror, and that we, unlike the Greens,have yet ourselves to learn the dem<>cratic lesson that we have taught theGennans so well.
Since the European peace movement has long since become the American peace movement, and since America now has its own Green Party, the riseof the Greens in Germany has profoundsignificance here. It is at once a warningto us that the old solutions of more weapons and again more weapons will nolonger be accepted in a Europe that isalready a powderkeg waiting to go off;and it is an invitation to work towards apeace that is genuine, lasting and nonnuclear.