Excerpts from a series of articles that appeared in the Oklahoma Daily covering the Nov.2 protest at Oklahoma University. Students dramatized Guantanamo Prisoners as part of the national protests that challenged many students and set different terms of debate on campus.
She confronted the protesters, pacing in front of the three kneeling figures and shouting. “You don’t understand!” she screamed. “You’re liars!” (excerpt from article)
Copyright 2005 Oklahoma Daily via U-Wire November 3, 2005 Thursday
Three men knelt on a street at the University of Oklahoma. Their bodies were shrouded in sand-colored jumpsuits and burlap sacks covered their heads. The chainsaround their necks were clipped to black leashes that they held in their hands and offered to passersby.
“Take the leash!” they shouted through the sacks. “Does this make you sick to your stomach? It should, because people are being tortured!”
The startling display of anger at the war in Iraq drew a crowd quickly. The group of protesters, which was made up of sign-wielding students and Norman residents as well as the hooded men, gathered at noon in front of one of OU’s busiest buildings.
“If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention!” they shouted to passing students. “Stop the abuse and the torture!”
It wasn’t long before the protesters’ passionate pleas evoked passionate responses from students.
Courtney Johnson, education senior who fought in Iraq, strode up to Dan McAniels, English graduate student and one of the men holding a sign. “You can’t tell people who’ve been there what it’s like!” he shouted.
McAniels yelled something back and Johnson advanced, still shouting, until nothing but a few inches and McAniels’s “Drop Bush Not Bombs” sign separated them. Johnson’s friends had to pull him away from McAniels. A police officer who had been on the way to the scene addressed Johnson. “What are you trying to do?” he demanded. “If you get in their face, try to start a fight, guess who’s going to jail?” Johnson agreed to back off but didn’t seem to regret what he did. “That’s passion,” he said of his shouting. “I was in Iraq. This is bullsh–.”
The protesters, most of whom are affiliated with The World Can’t Wait, a web-based organization dedicated to opposing the Bush administration, insisted that the protest was not degrading to the military.
In central Oklahoma, the reaction was varied. Some passersby flashed peace signs and called out thanks to the protesters, but more students either rolled their eyes or openly challenged the protesters.
“Is this allowed?” a girl wondered out loud as she walked by demonstration.
“Yes, it’s called dissent!” Kerryn Laumer, human relations senior, yelled. “It’s patriotic! You should try it!”
Having men dress like torture victims and offer their leashes to passing students was designed to combat the disbelief, said Kyle Ellis, political science sophomore and one of the three who donned a jumpsuit and sack. “It’s out of sight, out of mind about things like this. But this puts it right in their face. They see it. Better than pictures, better than video,” he said. This “in-your-face element” infuriated many students.
Adrea Clark, public affairs and administration sophomore, was offended by how everyone walking through the South Oval was forced to watch men dressed as torture victims deride the current military effort.
She confronted the protesters, pacing in front of the three kneeling figures and shouting. “You don’t understand!” she screamed. “You’re liars!”
She turned to leave the circle of onlookers that had gathered around the men, but when one of the protesters said something about her family member in Iraq, she whirled around. “No!” she said. “I don’t have a family member over there! There’s a man I want to marry over there!” Again she turned to leave, but a protester’s voice stopped her.
“Why are you letting him die?” a hooded man called out.
“I’m not letting him die!” Clark screamed. She rushed through the bystanders, pausing about 10 yards away, where she was briefly comforted by a friend before sinking to the ground.
Tears rolled down Clark’s face as a man came up to comfort her.
“They think this accomplishes something, but it doesn’t,” she said. “That’s not how you solve things.”
Protest elicits strong feelings on both sides
By James S. Tyree
Ashley Cook, for the life of her, cannot understand why so many people lack the guts to demand an end to U.S. occupation in Iraq and its rising casualty count.
Adrea Clark, for the life of her, cannot understand how people can be so heartless by protesting the military operation carried out by people like her fiancé. The views came to a head Tuesday afternoon during a demonstration against the war in Iraq. The protest happened outside Dale Hall on the University of Oklahoma’s South Oval.As sign-holders and “prisoners” decried the military and civilian casualties in Iraq, others said they were disrespecting this country along with military personnel in harm’s way and their families.
Clark, in particular, wiped away tears falling beneath eyes shielded by her OU cap and called the protest “ridiculous. I wanted to punch them, but I didn’t.”
Clark is a sophomore engaged to a Marine stationed in a part of Iraq “where people die every day.” Watching the TV news terrifies her because so many soldiers and Marines in his area have been killed. “It’s not the way to stop a war and it’s not the way to treat people,” she said of the protest, sobbing but with conviction, after walking away from a brief shouting match. “They have no regard for anyone but themselves and their point of view.”
(C) 2005 Oklahoma Daily via U-WIRE
November 3, 2005
Protest necessary
) ) Unfortunately, many of the negative responses to the demonstration exhibited the great failure of our student generation: ignorance and an unwillingness to listen. There were many cries, “They attacked us first,” to which the protesters replied, “When did Iraq attack us?” There were no replies to that question.
War protest represented freedom
by Lindsay Hodges
November 07, 2005
OU is one of the laziest, most apathetic and defeatist campuses I have ever known. So last week’s protest on the South Oval was, for me, a welcomed and admired sight. Regardless of whether you agree with the protest’s topic, I hope you agree that it’s refreshing to see students get involved on campus. Why would you face possible criticism for expressing your own opinions or listening to others when you could just float along in a safe little bubble?
Wake up. Face the world.