Taking the Iran
Quiz to the Campuses:
“YOU have been systematically lied to and kept in the dark”
“While I don’t think war on Iran is
inevitable, there are many real signs that show it’s a growing danger and a
real possibility. A U.S.
attack on Iran would have
catastrophic consequences not just for the people of Iran,
but possibly for a large part of the Middle East.”
I jotted down those notes this past summer at a presentation given by Larry
Everest at workshop called “Iraq, Iran and the Need for Resistance,” for the
national World Can’t Wait Mission of a Generation Conference.
Later that week
we screened Normon Solomon’s documentary War Made Easy. The film’s
examination of the role of the media in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq exposes the
repetitive lies, distortions, and nauseating displays of patriotic bravado that
dominated television screens across America NON-STOP. The film reminded me of
how intensely the population was systematically lied to before the invasion,
but also underscored how important it is when a large section of the population
knows they are being lied to by their leaders and resist with that
understanding.
After discussing the problem that many people in the U.S. don’t even know
some basic facts that should inform their opinion on a possible war with
Iran-and that there has been a very limited amount of resistance aimed at
preventing a strike on Iran, or even people discussing it-World Can’t Wait
developed a quiz on Iran and the Middle East. We debuted the quiz this summer
at the Coachella Music Fest and since than have taken it out to campuses,
concerts, e-lists, classrooms, workplaces, cafeterias, and anywhere else people
gather.
Cutting Through the “USA=Good
Guys” Assumption
On one level the quiz is a genuine attempt to test what people understand
about an area of the world that their government is planning to bomb. But the
questions were also consciously designed, yes designed, to cut through the
faulty assumptions and popular consensus of “USA=Good Guys”-“Iran=Evil, Bad
Guys” by forcing the quiz taker to think, participate, find out the truth, and
see how their understanding matches up to it.
- The quiz takes on a different
character when it is taken together by a group of people. What does that
look like? - Distributing it in class for
students to take - Having students take it while
they are hanging out in their dorm lounge or in the cafeteria - Having people take it
together in the break room or at the beginning of a work meeting - Using it at church social
gatherings
Important Initial Experience
World Can’t Wait has gained some important, initial experience with taking
out the quiz that needs to be built on and taken to a whole different level
throughout society. The first thing many of us noticed is that the international
students we polled consistently did far better than students from the U.S. As some of
us were building opposition to the October 22-26 “Islamo-Fascism Awareness
Week”* among students in college dorms, we used the quiz at every opportunity,
whether it was during a commercial break in the TV lounge or a room full of
guys playing video games.
Very few people breeze through the quiz. Most students take a significant
amount of time to read through the questions and think about the answers. Part
of doing it in a group setting is to get a conversation going after everyone is
finished and you tally up the results. On one occasion in a school cafeteria, a
group of students told us that they didn’t know what each of them thought about
a war with Iran
and they had never discussed it together until taking the quiz.
Midway through the quiz many people ask, “Is this supposed to make me feel
stupid?” When we went door-to-door in the dorms, some students took a shot at
the first two questions and decided to hand it back because they “don’t know
anything of this.” The purpose of the quiz is not to make people feel stupid,
but to sharply point out: YOU have been systematically lied to and kept in the
dark about the most important issues of the day. What does it say that a majority
of students at American universities are not getting these questions right,
particularly question number 2: What country in the Middle East agreed to be
monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and opened up its
country to IAEA inspectors? People did best on question 4 (What country(ies)
has/have ever used nuclear weapons on civilian populations?), but there is
still just a staggering amount of students who do not know that the U.S. is the
only country to have dropped atomic bombs on civilian populations. If this
government can lie to you about this¼what else are they lying to you about?
Some universities like Columbia
and NYU did relatively well, with most people getting at least the second and
fourth question correct. However, that was not the majority of the cases. Here
are a few samples with the (#) indicating the question number, followed by the
percentage of correct answers:
U of Michigan
(1) 12% (2)
24% (3)
28% (4) 48%
John Jay in New York
(1) 26% (2)
31% (3)
39% (4) 28%
Texas
Southern (1)
11% (2)
17% (3)
57% (4) 81%
While the quizzes have not yet been taken out in a thoroughly systematic and
scientific way, the results point to a major problem throughout the country and
one that needs to be transformed in order to prevent a war or strike on Iran.
Seriously, for a generation who has more access to information than any other
previous generation due to the unprecedented growth of technology, we really
don’t get bombarded by the media when it comes to the things that matter.
The simple fact that people are better able to talk about American Idol
contestants than a possible war that will shape the future of the planet is
reason in itself to be outraged.
After people finish the quiz, two questions need to be posed and discussed:
(1) Do you think it is okay to not know this information as your government is
preparing to go to war with Iran?
(2) Now that you know”what you going to do to STOP IT? And for people who get
most of the questions correct (and we have run into quite a few people who do
get them correct): if you know this, why haven’t you done anything to stop it?
Why have you remained complicit as the U.S.
builds up its military forces around Iran?
How Can We Actually Stop the Bush Regime from Attacking Iran?
The quiz itself can’t, but the millions of people it could potentially reach
CAN. On November 16, World Can’t Wait is uniting with anti-war/progressive
forces to mobilize a mass outpouring of people in the streets for a “No War on
Iran Orange Friday,” which will be the same day of the Iraq Moratorium
protests. The Iran Quiz needs to be a key component in reaching out to and
mobilizing the large number of students who are deeply opposed to U.S. war in the Middle East
and want to do something about it. The quiz needs to be used at every classroom
we speak in, every meeting we attend, every dorm we visit, every concert we
table at, and everywhere people are resisting as we spread the color orange and
call people into the streets for November 16.
Right now there are millions of people saying there is nothing they can do
because there are not millions of people doing anything. This must end now.
Anyone who has seriously looked at the potential presidential candidates and
has a shred of honesty knows that there is no viable option among them that
will do any fundamental good on anything, whether it’s the war or torture or
spying. No one has included preventing a war with Iran on the platform-in fact it has
been the complete opposite. It cannot be said enough that Obama, Edwards, and
Clinton refuse to take the nuclear option off the table when it comes to how to
deal with Iran.
You can do something. Right Now. There will be no real fundamental change
until the people stop looking up to the powers-that-be and
start manifesting their power in the streets. How can you go along
with business-as-usual when your government is threatening another country with
nukes? Think about how the rest of the world will look at us if we don’t stop a
U.S.
war on Iran¼but also stop to think about how they will look at us if they do
see a people who have been paralyzed find their senses and take powerful action
to stop this. As President Bush backs up threats of war on Iran with a massive
build-up of the U.S. military along the Iranian border and Democratic leaders
like Clinton and Obama scramble to outbid each other in who can perpetrate war
crimes in the Middle East more effectively-a determined movement of people
breaking with the paralyzing conventions of official politics can dramatically
re-shift the entire equation and alter the disastrous course the current
administration is taking society.
Allen Lang
Student Organizer, World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime
* “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” was a week on college campuses spearheaded
by right-wing battering ram David Horowitz to put a chill on dissent and whip
up a social base of students to support the “war on terror.”