Opinion

Anti-war applause offers no answers 

Michael Twigg
Opinion Columnist

My professor e-mailed our class that we were to attend the lecture by Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan activist, and write an essay about the event. I spent the morning researching Menchú on the Internet. What I found was similar to the biography printed in The Daily Cougar on Wednesday. Her family was murdered, her life became a book and she won the Nobel Peace Prize. But many sites with information about Menchú also spouted anti-war sentiments.

I started thinking about the people, like Yasser Arafat, who have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Not all of them were about peace. Worried, I spoke to my professor about the possibility of Menchúis speech being an anti-war rally. He was interested in my concerns, told me that my opinion mattered and asked me to write about what I saw. He said I could write about how her words made me feel. I could write the truth.

When I arrived outside the lecture hall an excited Latino woman instructed her daughter to "save at least nine seats!" I had expected to see more students, but the place was full of people from all generations. 

Then Menchú arrived.

She was greeted by a standing ovation. I was struck by how "native" she seemed in her traditional Guatemalan garb, almost like the pictures from my professoris book. 

As the introductions commenced, I wondered if she knew that people had died for her to have this forum, whether she was American or not. 

She began speaking in Mayan, then switched to English and Spanish. She spoke about respecting peace and values with our neighbors of the world. She mentioned some war statistics: 50 years ago one civilian died for every 10 soldiers, but today the numbers are reversed. She didnit say where she got these numbers. 

"The enemy is not the enemy of before … war is just about killing civilians," Menchú said. 

I was never so sickened in my life as when I heard people applaud this statement. The looks I received didn't stop me from booing; the clapping was so loud few heard me. I was the only one who seemed to care that this type of rhetoric was out of place. Even the celebrities who booed Michael Moore at the Oscars understood that.

"We don't know where weapons are … chemicals are cancer … Iraq now, Columbia next … oil is war, war is a business," Menchú said. "Every war makes people suffer." 

She offered no answers or alternative solutions to war, but the people cheered. 

Near the end of her speech, Menchú brought up the cost of a heart machine for a national pediatric hospital in Mexico. 

"A heart machine is more than a million dollars," she said. "How much is a bomb for Iraq?" 

How does buying a heart monitor for a hospital stop Iraq, or Afghanistan, from attempting another 9/11? What's the price of freedom? Is it too high to protect your right to speak here?

I brought a quote to the speech, but I was unable to give it to Menchú because of the crowd around her. The quote was written by a man who saw genocide firsthand and understood the type of danger America is fighting against. 

"The world is too dangerous to live in ­ not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen." ­ Albert Einstein.

After the speech, I was inspired by this woman's struggles, appalled at her words and sickened by my contemporaries. I watched everyone smiling and filing toward the hors d'oeuvres and punch. I thought of my buddy Matt in the Navy, who told me his job is a duty and a privilege. I wonder if he would have clapped for her, standing there in his full military dress. 

Twigg, a senior psychology major, can be reached at egosophist@yahoo.com.