Graduates should be voice of change
COMMENTARY
James Zwilling

When an editor asked me to write a senior column a couple of weeks ago, it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up — an opportunity I’ve actually been waiting for since my freshman year. Finally, it was my chance to say one last word, reflect on all those college memories and thank the people who’ve made my last four years here a remarkable and rewarding journey.

But I’m unable to reconcile in my conscious such a waste of space on trivial matters when my heart tells me that there is so much more that could be said in this column space.

As the class of 2003 enters the workforce, or graduate studies, our world faces the most uncertain times any of us have seen. Four short years ago, we entered college in a thriving economy, with an elected official (not a court-appointed Republican puppet) leading our country.

The word terrorism meant something that happened to somebody else, in some other place. People didn’t think much about their civil liberties because they weren’t being threatened by a reactionary, unnecessary Department of Homeland Security, an agency created by the Republicans to protect us from terrorism — terrorism in response to America’s unnecessary and hostile actions toward other nations.

The government didn’t have the right to check my library records to see if I was reading about terrorism or Islam, and a simple class geology trip to a water treatment plant didn’t require names and photo IDs from all participants.

Today, our country is at war — trying to rid the world of evil, as President Bush would say. In the process, thousands of Iraqi’s, American’s and coalition forces will perish.

The Bush administration calls the war Operation Iraqi Freedom. Its goal is to create a democracy for the people of Iraq — a democracy that will unarguably benefit the United States in terms of oil.

Yet while the men and women of the armed forces are fighting for Iraqi freedom, we as Americans, are watching our democracy crumble. A country founded on the principle of free exchange of ideas now punishes those who speak out.

Musicians are called traitors for speaking their minds, film stars become a publicity threat, and the average American who speaks up in protest like myself, is called unpatriotic.

The very people and the very country that take pride in the first amendment right to free speech have damned us. The president and his administration say now is not the time for protest.

The war in Iraq is already being called a success and a possible blueprint for future wars all over the world. So quickly has the world forgotten the United States’ snub of the international community, the lies being told by the administration and the military’s inability to locate any great quantities of weapons of mass destruction that Bush and his comrades have been preaching about. There is no greater time for protest, my friends, than right now.

People continue dying daily at the hands of our government and we have a responsibility to stand up for those people. The big picture is not as important as the government would like us to believe. Human life is the picture that we need to think about. One death — be it an American or an Iraqi — is too many deaths to be tolerated.

We must come together as Americans, and as the future of tomorrow, and say enough is enough. Our world has reached a point where it must begin maturing if we will ever have a truly global community.

I’m reminded of Martin Niemoler's remarks following World War II: “In Germany they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. They then came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. They then came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. They then came for me and by that time, no one was left to speak up.”

We have a chance as a world power to speak up and set an example. Human life does not need to be shed to attain peace, and we, the graduating class of 2003 do not need to be ashamed to be the voice that sets those events in motion.

James Zwilling is a graduating senior news-editorial journalism from Phoenix, Ariz. He can be reached at (j.g.zwilling@tcu.edu).