W E D N E S D A Y APRIL 2, 2003
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 43
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
Art and politics come together at peace event BY SARA PERKINS
Art and politics belong together. Several performers and speakers expressed their beliefs at an antiwar event at Providence’s Beneficent Church Tuesday night, among them actors Woody Harrelson and Marcia Gay Harden, Brown Professors Neta Crawford and Oskar Eustis and activist Barbara Lubin. The event, sponsored by Brown Faculty, Alumni, Staff and Graduate Students Against War and the American Friends Service Committee of Southeastern New England, included musical performances, speeches and the performance of the first act of a play by Tony Kushner that addresses the injustice of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. “Probably all of you are wondering why should I, an actor, be up here,” Harrelson said during his speech. “The job of an artist is to comment on society, so I’m just doing my job … and I am a concerned citizen who just happens to have a microphone.” Harrelson came with a stack of books, among them Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” and sketched a history of the United States’ foreign policy as obviously serving corporate interests. “I believe in war as the best means to accomplish U.S. corporate policy,” he said. In particular, architects of military interventions in Latin America viewed such actions as opportunities to open the area to American investment. He called Richard Perle — who spoke earlier in the day at Brown — and members of the Defense Policy Board, “profiteers. … War is lucrative,” he said. Harrelson criticized the American media, saying, “We have an embedded system where the media is in bed with the Pentagon.” “This war on terrorism was started as a response to 9/11,” Harrelson said, “and one question was never asked by the mainstream media, and that question is ‘Why?’” Harrelson quoted one of Osama Bin
Kavita Mishra (top), Cassie Ramirez (bottom) / Herald
TOP LEFT:Tuesday evening’s discussion included (from left to right) Paul Kennedy, director of International Security Studies at Yale, moderator Joseph Nye, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Advisory Board.TOP RIGHT: Protesters called Perle a “war criminal.” BOTTOM:The line for the panel stretched across the Main Green.
Antiwar activists protest Richard Perle BY PHILISSA CRAMER
Antiwar protesters in the Salomon balcony tossed leaflets into the audience and booed loudly during “The Reluctant Empire: In a Time of Great Consequence,” a discussion Tuesday night featuring experts on international security issues. Most of the protesters’ criticism was directed toward Richard Perle, who recently resigned as chairman of the Defense Advisory Board to the United States Secretary of Defense. Perle was a leading pro-war voice in the Bush administration. Antiwar demonstrations occurred both outside and inside of the discussion, which was part of the annual Public Affairs Conference titled “A Time of Great Consequence: America and the World,”
see PEACE, page 7
cosponsored by Brown and the Providence Journal. Other speakers included Paul Kennedy, director of International Security Studies at Yale University, and moderator Joseph Nye, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. All presented perspectives on America’s role as the lone modern-day superpower in international relations. Protesters on the Main Green greeted attendees with signs decrying American military intervention in Iraq. Ayelet Amittay ’04 said she chose to protest at the event because of Perle’s high profile in the war movement. “(Perle) is a big symbol of policies toward Iraq that I really feel are wrong,” she said.
Brown students rally on Main Green in support of affirmative action; simultaneous protest in Washington BY KIA HAYES
While protestors in Washington, D.C., demonstrated outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in support of affirmative action, Brown students staged a rally on the Main Green to show their solidarity. The court heard arguments concerning two cases challenging the University of Michigan’s admission. The cases charged Michigan with discrimination because it takes race and ethnicity into account when evaluating student applications. The event at Brown was organized by a coalition of Third World organizations, including the Organization of United African Peoples and the Latin American
Students Association. Carmelle Romaine ’05, one of the organizers of the Brown rally, said participants wanted to show support for the group of about 35 students that traveled to D.C. for the demonstration. Romaine said that students in the Organization of United African Peoples wanted to voice support for affirmative action. The group also wanted to dispel some of the myths surrounding the policy, she said. Romaine said the number one beneficiary of affirmative action is white women and that the policy does not benefit unqualified minorities. Marching in a circle carrying banners like “Fiction: Unqualified Black and
Latinos” and “Make No Assumptions About My Intellect,” students chanted in support of affirmative action while Dwight Vidale ’05 and others spoke from the steps of Faunce House about affirmative action and its history. “Affirmative action does not equal quotas. That is a big misconception,” Eldridge Gilbert ’05 shouted. In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that quotas are illegal, but considering race to ensure a diverse student body was ruled acceptable in the admission process, Vidale said. Professor of Sociology Paget Henry also spoke in support of the marchers,
As Perle began to speak, protesters tossed leaflets into the audience and unfurled a banner from the balcony that read “You’re a war criminal, Mr. Perle.” Each panelist offered his own perspective on America’s role in and relationship to the rest of the world before opening the floor to questions from the audience. Kennedy said the war will inflict significant collateral damage on international organizations, especially the U.N. Security Council. “The costs of the war cannot nearly be measured by money and lives,” he said, instead focusing on the loss of “soft power,” the ability to influence rather than coerce other nations, as the greater cost. Nye, a leading analyst of soft power, said American unilateral action in Iraq will undermine U.S. ability to negotiate with other world powers and gain support from them in the future. “(Unilateral action) gives away the gains of what we learned from the first half of the 20th century,” he said. Kennedy said American military intervention in Iraq without the consent of the Security Council is destructive to the United Nations. “The whole coalition of the willing business is an insult to American intelligence,” he said. Kennedy also criticized Congress for abdicating responsibility in initiating war and the secrecy of top governmental officials, comparing their attitude to that of their British counterparts. “When I see (British Prime Minister Tony Blair) in open debate ... with never a bodyguard in sight, then I think I see democracy in action,” Kennedy said. Echoing the theme of the conference, Kennedy said, “This is a time of great
see RALLY, page 4 see PERLE, page 4
I N S I D E W E D N E S D AY, A P R I L 2 , 2 0 0 3 Too few faculty at meeting Tuesday to vote on resolution against war in Iraq page 3
Alex Schulman ’03 thinks students who compare Bush to Hitler are just spoiled brats opinions,page 11
Bush is putting American lives on sale, argues Nick Bayard ’04 opinions, page 11
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Women’s lacrosse lose to both Stanford and UC Berkeley over Spring Break sports, page 12
Softball improves performance over Spring Break winning five of 11 games sports, page 12
mostly cloudy high 55 low 42