The newest club on campus doesn’t have a name, and the co-founders are in no particular rush to give it one. This club doesn’t have an advisor either, or consistent funding. Quite frankly, the newest club on campus doesn’t have much in the way of convention. This “group” is on a mission to oppose the war in Iraq and to get Fairfield students to talk about the issues in more than an automatic sense.
Co-Founders of this unnamed group are fellow seniors Emmett Kearney and Ed Feldheim. Kearney said that the unofficial status of the gorup is not the issue and that “we’re not concerned with becoming an official club.” What they are concerned about is raising awareness of the situation in Iraq and steadily building an opposition to war.
The group is attempting to get information to students that is not available from major media sources, such as: over 1,000,000 people have died directly because of economic sanctions; 600,000 of those dead being children; the Bush administration’s goal of regime change is a flagrant violation of international law; and the CIA issued a report earlier this year stating that the weapons threat from Iraq is the lowest since 1992.
Kearney and Feldheim were very opposed to the administration’s build-up to war throughout the year, and decided to take action. Their opportunity came when John Humphries, a guest lecturer who spoke about the atrocities he witnessed first hand in Iraq, came to Fairfield. Kearney and Feldheim met students with similiar views at this lecture and saw it as an opportunity to keep the momentum from the lecture going.
While they both admit that apathy at Fairfield is a problem concerning issues such as these, they have found that it is not as bad as they originally thought. They don’t plan to let this apathy get in the way of their group’s purpose.
“More people seem to want to be involved in some way,” Feldheim said. “A lot of people have surprised me.”
The group has about 25 people in it now and hope to have more come to their meetings at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday in the BCC each week.
“Because this is such a recent development and because of the unpredictable nature of geopolitics, we’re focusing on short term goals,” Kearney said.
The main short-term goal, beyond education, is to rally as many students as possible to attend the national war protest in Washington, D.C. Jan. 18 -19, the first weekend back from winter recess in January. As a buildup to the trip, the group invited Rev. Simon Harak, S.J., a former teacher, to speak on Tuesday, Jan. 14. Fr. Harak resigned from teaching in 1998 to become a full time activist for peace in the Middle East.
Feldheim mentioned that he’s already been called unpatriotic and was told to “kill himself if he opposes war,” but he insisted that “not questioning your government is foolish.” Kearney agreed that “democracy is about having a voice.”
Ultimately, both Kearney and Feldheim agree that the big challenge facing Fairfield students is in seeing things from the other side and recognizing that compassion should be given to all innocents, including the ones who don’t live here in America.
“If war is something you don’t want to see happen, you should come by on a Tuesday night,” Feldheim said.
To become involved in the group show up on Tuesday at 8 in the lower BCC or email of the two co-founders at 03_ekearney@campus.fairfield.edu or 03_efeldheim2@campus.fairfield.edu.
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