Thursday September 20, 2001

Professors say students must remain open to all races

Nearly 200 members of the campus community attended a panel discussion last night in which UA professors stressed the need for Americans to remain non-hostile toward people of Middle Eastern origin in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks.

"The focus on the Arab community is a recipe for violence on the domestic level," said Kathy Powers, a University of Arizona political science professor. "I question what we will do to the social fabric of this society given the paranoia on the ethnic community."

David Dunford, a political science professor and former ambassador to Oman, agreed with Powers.

"One of the things we have to overcome is ignorance," he said.

Dunford pointed to an exercise he uses with his students in which he puts the word "Arab" on the board and asks for the first thing that comes to mind.

"The honest students respond 'terrorist,'" he said.

Dunford said, however, he thinks Americans have been more accepting of the Arab community this past week than during the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s.

"We've learned we need to engage in the international world," he said. "We need to embrace the Arab world. This is hard because many of these countries have bad governments."

Leila Hudson, associate director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and assistant professor of Near Eastern Studies, said it is false to portray Arabs as haters of freedom and democracy. She said they want change in their governments.

"Democracy is much more stable and self-regulating than dictatorships that put large amounts of money into small constituencies," she said. "Those leaderships grow unpopular over time."

Political science professor David Gibbs said the current terrorist problems result from the United States' past policy failures.

"Our enemies today were our allies in the 1980s,"he said, explaining how Osama bin Laden, a prime suspect in last week's attacks, gained power by fighting against the Soviet Union with aid from the United States.

Susan Jackson, a political science graduate student, asked the panel members if they foresee lawmakers using rhetoric to justify hurting innocent people in foreign countries.

"I hope we're smarter. I hope we're getting smarter," Dunford said. "But there is no way I can say with confidence that no one innocent will get hurt."

Hudson called on those in the audience to remember international policy when choosing an elected official and warned them to be skeptical of clichˇs and rhetoric.

Powers said voters must move beyond partisan identification when choosing a candidate.

"Help make this country strong," Dunford said in closing. "Make it a beacon of democracy."