Student Leadership Goes A. W. O. L.

On Monday night during a public forum on the war in Iraq, over 200 students eagerly filled the Union to hear President George W. Bush, deliver an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein.
For the most part, it seemed that most students had a common interest in what our Commander-In-Chief had to say while others were there merely for bonus points.
However, when our President announced that U.S. troops were going to invade Iraq to overthrow their dictator if Saddam didn’t flee his country within 48 hours, groans of disgust and shouts of disbelief filled the room.
“How can Bush call Saddam a dictator? Isn’t he doing the same thing to the people of Iraq,” one voice cried.
Someone else muttered, “How could he go to war without the support of the UN or the consent of the people?
The answer is simple. We allowed him to.
Our grandparents marched with Dr. Martin Luther King for Civil Rights. Our parents protested in the streets to bring American soldiers home from Vietnam. In 1972, two Southern University students lost their lives in a student led demonstration against the administration of this university.
What have we done to voice our opinion on this unjust war against a people and their leader who is suspected to have weapons of mass destruction?
Absolutely nothing.
We are a generation of all talk but no action. We haven’t marched, protested or demonstrated for what we believe in. Are we blind to the fact that each day more and more of our fellow classmates are withdrawing from school to fight in a war over weapons that our government thinks Hussein is hiding?
Does anybody remember someone by the name of Osama bin Ladin or a little country known as North Korea who we know have weapons of mass destruction and are willing to let them go to the highest bidder?
I guess we will wake up when our brothers and sisters return to us in a coffin draped with American flags.
What makes matter worse is the fact that our student leaders aren’t initiating these activities.
Where were our presidents of organizations such as the Student Government Association, Association of Women Students and Men’s Federation at Monday’s forum?
These are the three largest and most powerful student organizations on campus. They alone should know the sentiment and the grievance of the student body in which they were elected to represent.
If you were there and I overlooked you, I certainly do apologize but clearly you didn’t make your presence known.
I have seen these organizations put more effort into trying to organize a barbecue, a fashion show and T-shirt day than they are willing to do to unite the student body to voice their opinion whether it is for or against this war.
Some organizations may claim that it’s not their job to get stir up things politically and that their only purpose is to promote the social growth of students while in college.
Please! Wait until we return from spring break and you will see how these same people use political propaganda and tactics to get your vote.
The finger is not pointing solely at these organizations, but all of those who claim to have the students’ interest at heart.
Malcolm X said that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.
These organizations have the power to get the ball rolling. Discussion and debate on this crisis shouldn’t have come on the eve of war nor should have been initiated by faculty members.
We must realize that while our brothers and sisters are fighting on foreign soil, we must continue to fight here. It’s too late to protest Bush’s plan to wage a preeminent strike against Iraq, but we can start now protesting to bring this war to an end.