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Thursday, March 19, 1998

No one has right to question good intentions

IRAQ: Attacking motives of rally protesting sanctions serves simply as method to divert students' attention

By Hoda Shawky

Last week, Roee Ruttenberg attacked USAC members Kandea Mosley and Stacey Lee for supporting the March 5 rally put on by a coalition which called for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq ("Rally serves as kickoff for election games," March 12). According to him, they viewed this time as a perfect opportunity for Students First! to find new constituents in order to get reelected in the spring. However, before such rhetoric may be used to divert the attention away from the issue in Iraq, many things need to be made clear.

Sarcastically implying that the time of the rally was no coincidence, Ruttenberg asked why students were suddenly interested in Iraq. If people had been paying attention to the news lately, they would know that there was talk of bombing Iraq after March 23. For that reason, the Muslim Students Association, as well as students from other concerned groups, have been handing out fliers and displaying posters on Bruin Walk to educate people on the situation, as well as planning for a rally in an effort to prevent the bombing. Although the bombing did not occur, the need to end the sanctions still remains an issue more important than the prevention of war. The sanctions are the reason why we decided to hold the rally in the first place - with or without the help of any other group.

Because of U.S. sanctions, more Iraqi children have died than Japanese from the atomic bombs and Bosnians from "ethnic cleansing" combined - and each one of those events was a genocide. Ruttenberg claims that much of our information is incorrect. He is ignorant of the fact that our information came from reports made by U.N. agencies such as UNICEF. While people with compassion for mankind rallied to increase campus awareness on the issue, they were discredited for not having taken enough political science classes on the Middle East to prove that they know something about the topic. Since when do we have to take courses on issues before we can stand up for what is just?

I've never taken a course on African American history, but I know slavery is wrong.

He admits that 4500 Iraqi children die each year in Iraq, further claiming that this number has not increased since the time of the sanctions. To correct his mistake, that is the number of children who die in Iraq each month - now multiply that by 12 months per year! This unfortunate ignorance is why MSA felt the urgency in educating the UCLA campus about Iraq. Perhaps Ruttenberg had a point in arguing that the rally was too one-sided (the other side is presented all day long by the popular media). However, we hope that some awareness was raised about the situation in Iraq. Instead of fuming with rhetoric, perhaps he could have suggested a way in which our efforts would have garnered results. We always welcome honest and productive criticism.

We are all entitled to our own opinions about issues, but no one has the right to question the intentions behind others' choices in supporting a cause. The rally for Iraq was a much-needed spark to awaken Bruins to what the media has failed to adequately cover. Do not try to cover the attempts of students to educate others on Iraq by using the elections of spring quarter to divert attention away from the topic.

The concerned students on campus would like to thank Roee, however, for initiating another avenue by which we can further help to educate our campus on such humanitarian issues.