Activists pay too little attention to oppression abroad
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 25, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 David M. Drucker Drucker is a history
student in his final quarter at UCLA. E-mail him at [email protected].
The thing about political activism on campus is that it’s
just so darned predictable.
In terms of the United States of America’s interaction
with other national entities, Bruin politicos generally adhere to
the following three positions:
Blame the United States, blame the United States, and blame the
United States.
On second thought, that claim is not entirely accurate.
Meyerhoff Park melées also tend to exclude any mention of
the world’s real tyrants and the suffering and oppression
they inflict on millions of their own people every single day.
Your favorite rabble-rousers, from the United Arab Society all
the way up the ladder to the “establishment” Daily
Bruin Editorial Board, continually waste too much focus on our
country’s own perceived wrongdoings.
Simultaneously, they excuse murderous dictators, totalitarian
regimes and heinous acts galore, even if only by default.
If one believes the Daily Bruin, President George W. Bush is
planet earth’s most notorious dictator-in-chief.
“(The president) decided last week to disregard the health
and lives of thousands of women around the world in order to
advance his own political agenda,” ("Political agenda
will hurt women worldwide, Feb. 1) charged the Daily Bruin
Editorial Board, in a scathing rebuke of Bush’s decision to
cut taxpayer aid to foreign family planning clinics that perform
abortions.
 Illustration by JENNY YURSHANSKY/Daily Bruin In the
editorial, The Bruin makes an admirable call for concern regarding
the plight of women in other countries, as well as for the victims
of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Unfortunately, by scapegoating U.S. leadership as the ultimate
guilty party, the editorial board members miss the mark.
While U.S. policy in this arena should never be above scrutiny,
neither should the actions ““ or inaction ““ of the
governments and powerbrokers under whom injustice occurs.
Just out of curiosity, if the Daily Bruin is so concerned about
the rights of women in other countries, why no outcry over the
People’s Republic of China’s population-control
policy?
It’s common knowledge that the so-called
“People’s Republic,” in an attempt to stem the
growth of their burgeoning population, long ago put into place
child-bearing limits on families.
In practical terms, that policy resulted in a disproportionate
number of female fetuses landing on the floor of Chinese abortion
clinics. This is because males are the preferred heirs of choice in
the country that contains one sixth of the world’s
population.
Where’s the outrage?
I believe that The Bruin genuinely cares about women. So in
addition to criticizing an elected U.S. official, if they feel
it’s warranted, it would be nice if they occasionally
targeted, as the object of their disdain, those foreign powers that
are more directly responsible for enforcing policies that are not
just anti-women, but truly frightening as well.
And instead of accusing a U.S. president of “sacrificing
the lives of people around the world who had no say in electing
him,” try reading up on current events from the African
continent.
As recently as last week, authorities were on the lookout for a
ship suspected of carrying 200 African children on their way to
being sold into slavery.
Maybe our campus daily does plan to speak up, but hasn’t
yet figured out how to pin this one on Washington.
And it’s not just the Daily Bruin.
Is anyone on campus making hay about this travesty? It could be
that the average UCLA activist can’t bring him or herself to
attack the governments of Africa for the chattel slavery
proliferating within their midst.
To be fair, students spend a great deal of time studying and
simply trying to figure out their own place in the world. Such a
lifestyle is not always conducive to zeroing in on
obscurely-reported stories, however horrific they may be.
Too bad we can’t apply that excuse to excuse the
apologists of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose support in
Westwood can only be attributed to some form of irrational
exuberance.
Examine the United Arab Society’s continuous condemnation
of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf, and you’d never know this
calculating mass-murder exists.
Reserving their criticism strictly for the U.S.-led policies of
economic sanctions and military containment, the UAS has apparently
chosen to ignore Hussein, the titular head of state responsible for
having these actions taken against Iraq in the first place.
“… His tactic of imposing his authority by terror has
gone far beyond the occasional arrest and execution of
opponents,” reported the BBC on Jan. 4 of this year, in a
historical retrospective.
“In attempts to suppress the Kurds … he has
systematically used chemical weapons. And in putting down a
rebellion of the Shi’ia in the south he has razed towns to
the ground and drained marshland,” the report continued.
I didn’t see any pencils commemorating the
chemically-extinguished Kurds during the latest protest the UAS
organized against the economic sanctions.
“Just because someone doesn’t support sanctions
doesn’t mean that they support Saddam Hussein,” UAS
President Fadi Amer told The Bruin on April 11 during the pencil
protest.
That’s nice to hear.
If that’s the case ““ and there’s no reason to
believe Amer’s statement is insincere ““ why
didn’t the UAS add a big, fat eraser to their event to
symbolize an Iraqi problem that is at least on par with that of the
U.S.- enforced sanctions?
Ironically, the UAS and their sympathizers may have a legitimate
point. Maybe sanctions aren’t achieving their intended goal.
Even Vice President Dick Cheney, who was Secretary of Defense
during the Gulf War, has floated the idea of easing ““ or at
least rethinking ““ the sanctions.
After all, Hussein has been described by a former Iraqi diplomat
as “a dictator who is ready to sacrifice his country just so
long as he can remain on his throne in Baghdad.” His hold on
Iraq may be so strong that sanctions will never loosen his grip on
power (Saddam Hussein profile, BBC, Jan. 4, 2001).
And the U.S. government definitely bears some responsibility, as
it supported Hussein’s regime during the Iran-Iraq War.
But that’s no excuse for the deafening silence we hear
coming from the anti-sanctions crowd concerning the atrocities
perpetrated by this wanna-be human being, especially when they
spend so much valuable airtime calling the United States the sole
bane of the Iraqi people’s existence.
Although sanctions may indirectly lead to the inhumane suffering
of innocent Iraqi civilians, Saddam Hussein and his cohorts are the
ones directly responsible for the carnage.
Hussein and others like him worldwide must be held accountable
for their actions.
When evil policies are ignored and those who enforce them are
let off the hook ““ as they are when activists and
commentators pursue a “blame-America-first” policy
““ such thuggery is merely enabled, not to mention
encouraged.
This strategy should not be replaced by one that holds the
United States and its actions abroad above reproach. Far from it.
Smacking your own, as they say, is a virtue.
But when campus activists fervently and repeatedly single out
the United States for blame in matters of foreign policy, without
spreading the blame around to include those truly and directly
responsible, they exhibit an extreme lack of perspective.
And they don’t do their cause or the people they’re
trying to help much good, either.
