VT Vigils Make Us Ignore Other Tragedies
Commentary
By Philip Grant
Dear Chancellor Drake,
My most heartfelt sympathies are also with those affected by the terrible events of last week at Virginia Tech.
I write to you nonetheless not merely to share my sympathies with you, but to express my anger. I am deeply disturbed by the message you have sent to the community of UC Irvine. My misgivings lie at two levels.
Firstly, I do not understand why the victims of the massacre at Virginia Tech are alone deemed worthy of special e-mail messages from the chancellor of the university, of candlelight vigils and so on. Consider the following statistics:
Wednesday, April 18, 2007, Baghdad, Iraq: 200 dead in six separate bombings.
March 6, 2007, Hilla, Iraq: 90 dead in two bombings.
Feb. 3, 2007, Baghdad, Iraq: 130 dead in a single bombing.
Dec. 2, 2006, Baghdad, Iraq: 50 dead in a single bombing.
Nov. 23, 2006, Baghdad, Iraq: 200 dead in a series of bombings.
These are only the major "incidents" of losses of civilian life in Iraq in the eight months since I have been at UCI. I do not recall any e-mail messages inviting us to candlelight vigils on their behalf. I do not recall that they were even considered worthy of a single second of serious reflection on any of our parts. Perhaps we are overcome by a surfeit of suffering: Whether one Iraqi dies or 100 is all the same to us, since there are just too many deaths for us to comprehend. What need solidarity, therefore? Yet the "families and friends of the victims" of the more than 60,000 Iraqi civilians (Iraq Body Count, reported deaths only) or the 100,000 to 150,000 Iraqi civilians (Iraqi Ministry of Health), or the 655,000 Iraqi civilians ("The Lancet") that have been killed since the beginning of the war - could we but speak with them face to face - might have something to teach us concerning what it means to be confronted with suffering on an unimaginable scale. Perhaps we can no longer muster the humility required to look on them and listen in attentive silence.
What happens to our sense of solidarity, our compassion, our shared humanity, when we turn our attention from Virginia to Iraq? No doubt: The candle-flame of our sympathies is quickly extinguished by the chill currents of the Atlantic.
Secondly, I am astonished that I am being told that "our nation" is in "stunned sorrow," that "everyone at UCI and across the nation" is affected by this tragedy. I remember being very impressed during my TA training when I first came to UCI by the instructors who taught us of the importance of being sensitive as teachers to the great diversity of the UCI community, to the wonderful variety of origins and backgrounds of the people we would be teaching or with whom we would be interacting during our careers here. I hope I have taken this lesson to heart and that I practice it during every waking hour of my time here.
Yet I find that the chancellor of the university is appealing to my sympathies as part of "our nation," and I do not know how to react, except with sorrow.
I am not of your nation! If I were in a minority of one, then perhaps I would shrug my shoulders and let these words pass. But I am not: There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of students, staff, and faculty at UCI who are not of "our nation"; we are grateful for the opportunities we have here, and we strive as hard as anyone to contribute to this community. Have you forgotten this? Am I - are we - not part of this community too? May we not express our sympathies and solidarity for the victims of the Virginia massacre, not because we are members of "our nation," but because as human beings we know that those who died in Virginia had faces like us, because we can imagine ourselves as others who are like us? "We are, on a fundamental level, all members of one community," you write. Does this truly mean "all" of us, or only those of us who are part of "our nation"? The answer must be the first: "Our nation" has no role to play in how we commemorate and mourn this tragedy.
Why is it, in this community that is so palpably diverse, in this country where people have as many origins as there are stars in the sky, that we have to resort to the exclusionary rhetoric of "our nation"? Why mourn those who died and commiserate with those who remain on the grounds that they too are part of "our nation," when we could instead speak in a spirit so much more generous and hospitable, so much more open and humane: We mourn those who died not because they were like us and of us, but because they were like us and yet different from us. Surely ethics starts not with ourselves, but with others.
I remember only too vividly how, after Sept. 11, young people in Iran poured into the streets and held spontaneous candlelight vigils for those who died in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, without it ever occurring to them that they should only mourn those who were of "their nation." Strange thought! It is the "Axis of Evil" that teaches the "land of the free" respect for others, and not the other way round, whatever we might expect. We know what follows, and perhaps now at last, however obscurely, we begin to glimpse an answer - a troubling answer - to the question a very great man posed nearly two millennia ago:
"What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?"
I did not attend the candlelight vigil on Monday, April 23, not because I do not wish to express my solidarity with the victims of the massacre in Virginia, but because I cannot express my solidarity with them while excluding those who are not of "our nation," those who die like cattle in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere.
However, from the time I went to bed that Monday night until the time I woke up on Wednesday morning, I abstained from all food and drink except tap water, as part of what the French call a "jeûne d'interpellation," an untranslatable phrase that means something like a fast designed to call people's attention to a problem. I wish to call our attention to the selectivity of our solidarity and compassion, to ask us all not to quench our candlelight in the sea but to bear it aloft in memory of all those who die a violent death anywhere, just as the young women and men of Iran have taught us. I am not expecting to change the world by this one tiny action; perhaps all I can hope for is to make people stop and reflect, if only for a second, on the fact that our community extends well beyond Virginia.
Philip Grant is a graduate student in the department of anthropology.
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Original Source:<a href=http://www.newuniversity.org/showArticle.php?id=5791>New University - April 30, 2007</a>
Philip Grant
New University
2007-08-19
Sara Hood
Zachary Gale <newueic@gmail.com>
eng
Bruins gather to grieve
By Carolyn McGough
Friday, April 20, 2007
Tears rolled down many UCLA community members' faces in De Neve Plaza on Thursday night, as hundreds gathered to honor the memory of the victims of the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech.
Following Monday morning's shootings - in which 33 were killed, including professors and students - a vigil was planned by the Office of Residential Life and the Undergraduate Students Association Council.
Five hundred tea candles were distributed before the somber ceremony began, but there still were not enough for each person in the huge crowd that gathered, said USAC President Marwa Kaisey.
Kaisey was the first to speak, as she strived to bring community members together and encouraged them to share feelings.
"We want to show Virginia Tech support, to show that the Bruins care and have been touched by the tragedy," Kaisey said.
During the ceremony, Kaisey read the names of each of the victims in an effort to "humanize the tragedy."
A quilt will be sent to Virginia Tech to show that UCLA identifies with and cares for the Blacksburg, Va. school, she said.
Students were invited to decorate a patch for the quilt and become a direct part of the support.
Former member of the Peace Corps and UCLA Ombudsperson Donald Hartsock also spoke. He emphasized the close bond UCLA and Virginia Tech have with each other, both great American universities.
"Respectfully, I say 'Go Hokies.' And I say to us now, 'Go Bruins.' We are family," he said.
This is the largest shooting massacre in the United States that has occurred on another college campus - a campus not too unlike UCLA, she said.
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old student at Virginia Tech, opened fire Monday morning in two buildings, killing two students in a dorm room and then 30 more in one of the buildings on campus. Afterward, Seung-Hui then proceeded to kill himself.
The gunman had mailed NBC a package containing a 23-page written statement, which exemplified a struggle he had between himself and his surrounding environment. Photos and videos were also sent of himself holding and aiming guns.
Since the event, many universities and students across the country have shown their support for the Virginia Tech community through social-networking Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Some students have also changed their profile pictures to Virginia Tech insignias.
Kristin Gardner, a Virginia Tech alumna from the class of 2003, attended the vigil to thank UCLA for its consideration.
Encouraging all to wear orange and maroon - the colors of Virginia Tech - students and alumni of the university have declared today as "Hokie Hope Day," she said.
Students were encouraged to seek support from friends, family and university resources, said Director of Student Psychological Services Elizabeth Gong-Guy.
"SPS wishes to offer you whatever support you need. But the best support really does come from your peers," she said.
A theme of the night portrayed by speeches and the somber environment was the closeness between UCLA and Virginia Tech students.
"Even though it seems so far away, it's an American university," said Angie Noffsinger, a fourth-year communication studies student.
"It's important for us to show that at UCLA we identify with the students at Virginia Tech."
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Original Source:<a href=http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2007/apr/20/bruins_gather_grieve/>April 20, 2007</a>
Carolyn McGough,
The Daily Bruin
2007-07-15
Sara Hood
Saba Riazati <editor@media.ucla.edu>
eng
Mourning Tech on Facebook
If you don't know what Facebook is, you've probably heard of it, especially if you have children in high school or college. It's one of those social networking sites that parents, lawmakers and educators discuss when they're concerned about cyber bullying or child predators. But after the Virginia Tech tragedy on April 16, the site truly brought the world closer together in the most remarkable scene of solidarity and compassion I have ever seen online.
Within a day of the shootings, the most common symbol on Facebook was a combination black hope ribbon and maroon "VT" logo. Most Facebook users have default profile photos of themselves posing with friends, at parties, on vacation or with their significant others; almost overnight, most were replaced with the Hokie hope ribbon. It was heartwarming to see students from across the world join together in mourning - e-mourning, you could say.
Many Facebook users posted on their profiles or in common-interest group bulletin boards the Hokie hope ribbon accompanied with their school's mascot or coat of arms with the phrase "Today we are all Hokies."
And we all certainly were.
Facebook usually is used to keep in touch with friends, post and share photos, organize and publicize events and find other people with common interests, and all of those features were used in the days after the tragedy to report breaking news and new information, organize vigils and charities, post photo illustrations and sketches commemorating the shootings and even share poems Facebook users composed. Only a handful of users have discussed politics; it seems most e-mourners are first and foremost focused on their grief and sympathy, and how they can help.
In the first frantic and confusing hours and days after the tragedy, one group was dedicated to posting updated information on the event and its aftermath, and others sprang up declaring "Nationwide Orange and Maroon Day," "April 16, 2007 - A Moment of Silence" and "Prayer Group for Va. Tech," for example.
When the media reported that the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. - a cult of hatemongers who have picketed military funerals with inflammatory banners - would show up at Tech victims' funerals, a protest Facebook group emerged to organize and voice opposition. The congregation eventually did rescind their plan to protest the Tech funerals, but not before the Facebook group's membership swelled to more than 59,000.
Perhaps the most touching Facebook group I've discovered was "All Schools Unite for Virginia Tech," created by a University of Tennessee student. The goal is to tally one volunteer representative from 1,000 different schools and then engrave those names on a plaque that will be presented to Tech; I'm representing my alma mater, the University of Delaware. Students from schools I've never heard of, even schools in Canada and high schools from across America, have joined and shown their support. More than 725 colleges and high schools are represented on the list thus far.
Facebook groups also have been dedicated to the victims as a place for users to share funeral and vigil information and messages about - and to - their lost friends. I didn't know any of the victims, but I did join a group dedicated to Mary Read, since she attended my high school in Annandale, Va. Mary was remembered most by friends for her friendly, heartwarming smile, and many of her friends have replaced their Facebook profile photos with photos of Mary. "Look Mary, there are so many people that love you," one person wrote on the message board, referring to Mary's profile on The New York Times Web site. "I love you and can't wait to see you again in Heaven."
As Blacksburg tries to return to a sense of normalcy, so is Facebook. Many users have reverted to their former profile photos, and Tech commemoration groups are being updated less and less.
But like the gravestones at Arlington or memorials in the nation's capitol, the posted messages of compassion and heartache on Facebook will always be there; the photos of America's college students at vigils and donning orange and maroon in a show of solemn solidarity and hope will always be there; the photos of empathetic banners signed by countless students in a time of mourning will always be there; and the photos of memorials, flowers and notes on Tech's Drillfield will always be there.
Facebook helped to document history that week, and none of us will forget when we were all Hokies.
Mike Fox is a copy editor with the Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier.
Originally published on Sunday, April 29 in the Bristol Herald Courier, of Bristol, Virginia.
Mike Fox
2007-05-02
Mike Fox
eng