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(04/15/03 12:00pm)
Manar Darwish, adjunct professor of modern languages at the College, said "although illiteracy is high, the awareness of world news is very high in the Arab world, not only through TV, but also through the Internet and radio," at the Politics Forum last Tuesday.
Darwish grew up in Egypt, and has resided in the United States for the past 17 years. A professor of several courses in the Arab culture, Darwish's objective is to broaden understanding and break stereotypes of the Arab culture by helping others "look at the culture, class and more of the social aspects."
According to Darwish, Egypt has actually been a leader in the media. "When Napoleon came to colonize it he brought the first printing press with him, and a newspaper was started," Darwish said.
Today, more popular than newspapers is the controversial TV station, "Al Jazeera" (The Peninsula), which has been known to take many journalistic liberties in providing the public with the blatant truth, according to Darwish.
Al Jazeera is "trying to look at things objectively," Darwish said. As a result, it has recently suffered several attacks, mostly due to its attitude toward revealing horrifying truths about the Arab world, with the exception of Qatar.
"It is allowed to function completely free as long as it doesn't say anything about Qatar," Darwish said.
This is an unwritten rule, as all of Al Jazeera's funding has come from Qatar ever since it commenced in 1996, with the plan to "be free from the authoritarian government and society," according to Darwish.
The rest of the media in the Arab world is heavily swayed by authoritarian governments and the Muslim religion.
"More often than not the picture of the president is on the front page of the paper," Darwish said, "often shown praying at a Mosque, which shows the prevalence of religion there."
The sample copy Darwish displayed of "Al-Ahram," an Egyptian newspaper, featured a large photograph depicting exactly that on the front page.
Because of this tendency, Darwish said "there is freedom as long as you don't write something against the president and the rules. So, basically, there's no freedom of the press. The government is in control. There is no freedom of expression coverage."
Darwish said that the current media scene in the Arab world has been inundated with material concerning the current war, described as the "war on Iraq" by the Arabs, rather than the "war with Iraq."
On March 21, the day after the war started, after the regular Friday prayers in Egypt, many protests and demonstrations against the U.S. occurred, which were shown on Al Jazeera, Darwish said.
After this, however, the government banned the protesting.
Darwish's brother in Egypt told her over the phone, "all we are told to do is 'Ask God for help,'" as the Arab people were threatened with torture if protesting proceeded.
"What's important is that they all emphasize the unity of the Arab people during wartime," Darwish said. "Of course, they watch other fun stuff when there isn't a war going on, but right now everything is basically centered on the war."
Darwish subscribes to Al Jazeera here, and mentioned that on the morning of the presentation, they were showing dead bodies being brought out from the attacks.
"It is more explicit footage of this sort of thing than they'd show here. They feel the journalists are there and should be showing the war the way it is," Darwish said. "It's gruesome, but it's war and what do you expect?"
She said, however, that it does go against some religious viewpoints which ask for respect of the bodies and for them to be covered and not as they were shown. Despite many objections to the content featured on Al Jazeera, the station remains a form of media all Arabs heavily rely on for their world news.
"Even if people don't have a TV or a satellite to subscribe, they will often go to a coffee shop to watch," Darwish said. "Other television stations often show clips from Al Jazeera, too."
Although many Arab women wear coverings, according to class and educational background, women on television are not allowed to be covered. They must be dressed in what Darwish calls "Western style."
"If women cover themselves or wear a scarf," Darwish said, "they lose their job."
Darwish also emphasized how the religion is displayed in the media by showing a clip of a children's cartoon for Ramadan, a Muslim holiday.
"The majority of the population is Muslim, so the entire media caters toward their religious events," Darwish said.
Because of the presence of the media in the Arab world, Darwish thinks "Arabic television and films have united our world in a way, because it's a cultural access through which everyone watches and is united."
"The world now is becoming more like a village," Darwish said, "less huge - because of the internet and everything else being interconnected through the media."
The presentation received much positive feedback from those in attendance.
"I think it was really interesting," Rachel Levy, sophomore political science major, said. "The Middle East has always held a deep fascination for me. This sort of feeds my desire for knowledge about that region of the world."
(04/08/03 12:00pm)
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rallying for affirmative action, approximately 50 students of the College joined 50,000 protestors who marched from the U.S. Supreme Court to the Lincoln Memorial, on Tuesday, April 1.
The participants attended the march in response to "a national call by BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) for a new national civil rights movement," Roy Dean Johnson Jr., president of the Black Student Union (BSU), said.
According to Johnson, BSU payed for one bus and Union Latina and the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) split the cost of a second bus. The Minority Mentoring Program also participated.
All students at the College were invited to attend the march.
"We decided to come together to defend the rights necessary to heed the call," Johnson said.
The Supreme Court heard two cases that day regarding affirmative action at the University of Michigan, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger.
"If lost, affirmative action would not be a policy protected under law, as previously in cases such as Brown vs. Board of Ed, and so we thought it was necessary to defend these rights," Johnson said.
Affirmative action is defined by Dictionary.com as a program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment.
Recently, California and Texas have eliminated affirmative action programs from their systems of higher education.
According to CNN.com, Bush called affirmative action "a quota system" that rejects or accepts students "based soley on race."
This caused debate at the University of Michigan.
"There are many who oppose this viewpoint, as evidenced by the enormous turnout at the march," Darren Lewis, freshman mechanical engineering major, said.
He marched "because it's for a good cause, as I agree with the usage of affirmative action. I think it gives a far advantage not just to black and minority students, but any students in urban areas where they didn't get as many advantages academically."
"It may seem like affirmative action is only for blacks," Lewis said, "but it really is for anyone from urban areas. It's just more blacks come from those areas."
Johnson described the event as being "one of those really meaningful experiences that you have in life."
Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton were among the speakers at the event.
"The parts listening to them speak were sort of hyped moments of fun," Johnson said. "To see so many people there marching in something for civil rights was very historic," he added.
"The best part was the actual march," Lewis said. "Every time we were at a street corner, I'd look back behind me, as I was in front holding the banner, and I could see the people just flowing as far as I could see."
"It was cold at first and raining a little bit, but as soon as we started marching, it was like the sun came out of the clouds and it was nice for the rest of the day," Johnson said.
Lewis described the crowd as being "all riled up, and screaming and shouting the whole time."
He noted that the initially dreary weather failed to lower the group's morale.
"Overall, it was a wonderful experience," Johnson said.
His only hope is that if a similar event occurred in the future, more students of the College would attend.
(04/01/03 12:00pm)
John C. Landreau, associate professor of Modern Languages and professor of women's and gender studies at the College, spent Thursday, March 20, blocking the doors to the Federal Building in Philadelphia with 106 other protestors, and then was arrested.
Landreau committed this act of civil disobedience as a part of what is called the Iraq Peace Pledge.
Members of the group signed the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, promising to "join with others to engage in acts of non-violent civil disobedience in order to prevent or halt the death and destruction such U.S. military action causes the people of Iraq."
Over 70,000 members of the Internet-organized anti-war group, at 21 different locations, participated in non-violent civil disobedience acts nationwide the day the war started. Some 1,000 were arrested in San Francisco alone.
"Non-violent civil disobedience is done in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.," Landreau said. "The purpose of it is to bring attention to an issue of justice."
The group of 107 received the attention they desired, from both the U.S. Marshalls and the press. "It's scary to be arrested, with people snapping photographs there and press all around as they handcuff you," Landreau said.
The group, Landreau said, was diverse.
"There were men and women, black and white, young and old, from 18-year-old college students to one 90-year-old woman in a wheelchair," he said.
The protesters were charged with blocking an entrance. "We were allowed out with just a $250 fine for the crime," Landreau said.
"It was especially scary because the maximum sentence we could have gotten could have been 30 days in jail," he added.
"It was definitely worthwhile for a cause like this," Landreau said. "I felt the war was gone into too hastily and not in agreement with the United Nations.
This is not the first time Landreau has been arrested for a nonviolent act of civil disobedience.
"He told us about how he was arrested for protesting war in the 60's," Daniela Flores, freshman journalism major and one of Landreau's students, said.
Landreau e-mailed his students early March 20 to let them know what he was to be involved in that day.
"Many students were very supportive of me and happy that I did it," Landreau said.
"He explained himself well in the e-mail, saying that he could not just stand by and watch what was going on," Flores said.
Alan Dawley, history professor at the College, stood in the street outside the Federal Building, amongst about 300 other supporters who carried banners and chanted.
"In paying respect to the bravery of soldiers, I believe we should also pay homage to those antiwar (protestors) because they are willing to suffer the burden of arrest, imprisonment and fines for the sake of their beliefs," Dawley said.
Dawley said that the protest was effective in shutting down the building and "made the point that as long as the war goes on, business as usual should not."
- Information from www.peacepledge.org
(02/18/03 12:00pm)
Approximately 20 students have been deregistered from The Electronic Student Services Menu (TESS) and the Simple Online Courseware System (SOCS) for neglecting to pay their bills.
According to Frank Cooper, director of records and registration, the request came from the Office of Student Accounts.
After a student has failed to pay his bill and following numerous attempts of the Office of Student Accounts to contact him through e-mails and phone calls, warning of such consequences, he will be removed from TESS.
At that time, the student is not eligible to be registered as a full-time, paying student, Cooper said.
Within 24 hours of being deregistered from TESS, a student will also be deregistered from SOCS.
"SOCS, on a nightly basis, connects to the mainframe TESS works off of," Craig Kapp, instructional technology coordinator, said.
"If a student has been removed from TESS, we will receive a feed for them to also be removed from SOCS," Kapp said.
Instructors, too, have consequently been affected, as the Advising, Registration and Transcript Information Exchange (ARTIE) system where they attain their student rosters, runs off of the same mainframe system.
All students removed from the system have been notified of this status by the Office of Student Accounts.
Upon payment of their bills, the students will be reregistered onto the system with their previous schedules.
As a result, all students should have no problem regaining their status as a student, according to Cooper.
"This is something regularly done every year, so I don't know why they're making it seem like a bigger deal this time," Cooper said.
"If the students had time to give their money and were not responsible in doing so then, yeah, deregistering is fair," Sangita Desai, freshman finance major, said.
"The Office of Student Accounts goes to great lengths to contact the students and help them out through e-mails and personal phone calls and this is what has to be done when there is no response after all that," Cooper said.
Despite the College's numerous attempts to make students aware of the effects of their unpaid bills, Kapp has received several inquiries from students through the SOCS help system asking why they were removed.
"SOCS is just an end-customer of the whole system," Kapp said.
"If a student cannot log-in to SOCS, it is because their removal from the whole system has rolled through to us," he added.
"If students can rectify the situation, they will be able to log back in as soon as we get new info through the mainframe," Kapp said.
According to Cooper, several students in this situation who have recently paid their bills have already been reregistered with their previous schedules, glitch-free.