Last night the ASUC passed a controversial bill recognizing, mourning and commemorating the “direct and indirect victims of 9/11.”
The bill, passed 16-2 with one abstention, calls to commemorate the lives lost on 9/11, as well as the more than 7,000 American soldiers and “over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani lives…lost as a result of the tragic wars waged in these two countries.”
Student Action Senators Connor Landgraf and Daniel Ternan objected to the political aspects, such as Islamophobia, addressed in the bill.
“I don’t think, regardless of whatever language this bill is going to read, it’s going to represent the perspectives of every student here,” Ternan said.
Shawn Lewis, president of the Berkeley College Republicans, and Ariel Boone, former CalSERVE senator, presented opposing views on the issue at the meeting.
“Any commemoration that is there should focus on the original victims of 9/11,” Lewis said. “We see an injection of politics.”
While Lewis said the tragedy of the day should not be associated with the events that followed, Boone said she supported the inclusion of indirect victims of 9/11.
“By broadening this bill, the work and collaboration that has gone into this bill is perhaps most representative of the feeling that in death there should not be a hierarchy of memorials,” Boone said.
CalSERVE Senator Andrew Albright said due to the large population of Middle Eastern students on campus, not recognizing Islamophobia is a disservice to the students at this school.
Objections were also raised to the language of the final bill and its specification of victims. The original bill only addressed the victims directly and indirectly lost as a result of 9/11, but the final bill was revised to specify the victims as not only civilians who died 9/11, but also the American soldiers and Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani civilians who have died in the aftermath.
“A commemoration does not have to be a compromise,” Ternan said in criticism of the language of the new bill. “It’s too dangerous to be too broad and too narrow.”
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
[“over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani lives…lost as a result of the tragic wars waged in these two countries.”]
Sorry to burst your bubble, but anybody who knows anything about statistics OR Iraq knows that the so-called “study” that these claims are based on, was a sloppy attempt by a particular group pushing an agenda.
I see no pushing agendas here. Would you be happy if the statistic says it was 999,999 killed? or 900,000? The point is that masses of innocent people are killed as a direct result of the 9/11 Muslim terror attack, and anyone who tries to remind people the association of terror with religion is a Islamophobic. Now do you really think 9/11 attack has nothing to do with Muslims? Nothing to do with the core teaching of Islam? Why not read the Quran and the Hadith and then judge?
[I see no pushing agendas here. Would you be happy if the statistic says it was 999,999 killed? or 900,000?
Try closer to 100,000-200,000, and by no means am I an apologist for militant Islam. The 1 million number was floated by individuals with an anti-American agenda in Lancet, as they tried to pin those deaths on the US and Coalition military. That’s the point I was trying to bring up.
If academia wishes to speak of “phobia”, one should speak instead of Candor-phobia, the fear of and revulsion toward perfectly legitimate criticisms of Islam.
Lacking candor, Secular Muslims (interested in reform) are left unsupported because most Leftists fear being accused (falsely) of bigotry by jihadists, more than they fear being branded moral cowards for abandoning the defense of human rights.
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/isis
It is a direct threat to free speech when criticizing Islam legitimately based on facts is automatically labeled “Islamophobia”. This term is now used so arbitrary (but effectively) to silence critics, we have to wake up to the fact that free speech is now under threat. Islamophobia means “Fear of Islam”. Those who are brave enough to speak the truth do NOT fear Islam, because any political, religious and racial forces has to bow before truth.
This is awesome, way to go ASUC for once!
Why do they even bother with this cr@p.?
Yeah!