Letters

Thursday, March 12, 1998

Letters

Education has import too

Daniel Inlender’s article, "It’s time to look beyond the
numbers," (March 10) misses an important point: students today are
not getting the basic education that they need. In the three years
I have attended UCLA, I have not noticed that many students have a
deficit in the area of experiencing life. I have, however, noticed
that most of us have gaping holes in our knowledge of history,
philosophy, literature and geography. Many people I have met have
difficulty adding in their heads. This is not to say that these
students lack intelligence, but that many of us have not been
forced to do enough reading and memorizing in school. While there
is no substitute for actually experiencing life, this kind of
experience cannot replace the kind of knowledge books and classes
can offer.

Lisa Ounjian

Communication studies

Rally coverage contained errors

Your coverage of the March 6 demonstration against the presence
of 36,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East and the deadly sanctions
which have killed 1.5 million people in Iraq contained the
following errors:

1. It reports that there were "50 to 200 onlookers" when there
were 200 to 300 participants. While there were a large number of
people who stopped to listen out of curiosity, the majority of the
crowd were active participants who came out to support the goals of
the event: stopping war in the Middle East and lifting the
sanctions that prevent food and medicine from reaching the people
of Iraq.

2. Quotes attributed to me belong to Ahmed Shama.

3. My name was spelled incorrectly.

Accurate coverage of this issue is especially crucial in order
to counter the chauvinism that pervades public sentiment when
American political leaders crow about how the United States must be
the cops of the world.

This imperial chauvinism underlies the arrogance and intolerance
some elements of the campus have displayed in the past two weeks.
Educational posters documenting the impact of the sanctions have
been defaced and torn down.

Just for carrying one of these posters across campus, I had one
woman shout the following at me: "It’s Saddam’s problem not ours."
I responded that the United States is the main supporter of a
military blockade against Iraq and has vowed to veto attempts by
the United Nations to end the sanctions. The United States has also
led the world in proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons. She then stated that the United States has the right to
build all of the weapons it wants because "we have money."

A male student simply called me a "dick" as he passed by in the
Royce Quad. While our campus provides classes, lectures and
programs to promote the free exchange of ideas, apparently there
are some who prefer to promote their points of view through slander
and intimidation. Is this that Bruin spirit that gets talked about
so much?

Scott Kurashige

Graduate student

History