Page 4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 3, 1990 EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 ,,. , NOAH FINKEL Editor in Chief DAVID SCHWARTZ Opinion Editor Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. Reunification GAR6AI &&T YLK A NARukSO 17 oP ~T7b'v7-tiUKj O WRo )I'(YG \3~~ThN lam ' f 41 / t S C/ r9-, Swift process ignores the TODAY, LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER the Berlin Wall came down, the two Germanys will be united for the first time in 45 years. West German Chan- cellor Helmut Kohl has pointed to this day as "the birth of a free Germany." But amidst all the media's hoopla proclaiming an end to history, the vic- tory of capitalism, and the triumph of the West, those celebrating the birth of a new world should pause and reflect on the meaning of the old one. For Kohl's vaunted freedom will not ex- tend to everyone - and to the suppos- edly liberated East Germans least of all. The reunification process has pro- ceeded too quickly and with too little thought for the East German people to make a free and unimpeded decision about their future. EN. Through the inspiring demonstra- tions that swept East Germany last au- tumn, the East Germai people hoped to regain the right to determine the shape of their own lives and their own des- tiny after the long nightmares of Nazism and Stalinism. But despite Western impressions to the contrary, East Germans' quest for democracy was not a quest for capitalism. During the demonstrations that pre- cipitated the opening of the Wall Nov. 9, only two of the more than 7,000 placards in Leipzig and Berlin called for a "social market economy"; not one called for reunification. The rest - with slogans such as "the left against those on top" and "instead of co-man- agement, self-management" - re- flected the overwhelmingly working- class demonstrators' desire for a form of socialism that was democratic and not bureaucratic, responsible and ac- countable to the people rather than a totalitarian force that terrorized them. .East Germans, clearly did not want to give up the guaranteed employment, low rents, progressive reproductive rights laws, social services - includ- ing free education, healthcare, creche services, and legal aid - that they had long enjoyed. What they wanted in- stead was the right to manage the pro- duction and distribution of these ser- vces themselves. Reunification, as East German feminist Ina Merkel rightly observed, "would be to the detriment of the East German population; because West Germany is not ready to pay enough to compensate for the social inequalities." U.. Ready or not, Chancellor Kohl was determined to have reunification - and as quickly as possible. In the months following November, the West German political parties poured mil- lipns of Deutschmarks into their strug- gjing East German sister parties' cof- f rs. Kohl's Christian Democratic party atone hired 4,000 full-time staffers in Est Germany. 'The demoralized East Germans cTUld neither match these expenditures nor avoid the message accompanying tlem: do things our way and accept the free market, or confront a complete economic strangulation and face disas- ter. Like most hostages, the East qerman people "chose" to live. In the following months, East Germans' prospects for controlling their own future became increasingly il- lusive. In May, their leaders were flown to Bonn in a West German air force jet after being given a mere 18 hours to sign an economic pact ceding direction of their entire economy to the West German finance minister. In July, Kohl presided over the two Germany's economic union by promising that "iobody will be in a worse situation than before." wishes of East Germans Just three months later, more than 900,000 East Germans - almost one- sixth of the entire work force - had "officially" lost their jobs; this figure includes neither the hidden unemploy- ment covered by the redefinition of erstwhile women workers rediscover- ing their "natural" vocation as mothers and housekeepers, nor the elimination from the statistics of everyone who is too intimidated or resigned to sign on at the unemployment offices as looking for work. Massive strikes involving up to half a million workers in chemicals, engi- neering, printing, the public sector, and among farmers have protested these measures - all to no avail and with lit- tle media coverage. Even the most op- timistic estimates forecast 3-4 million Germans being unemployed by the end of the year. East German women have watched the two governments sign over their considerably progressive abortion rights. All German women will now be subject to the West German penal code, article 218 of which only allows abor- tions in situations where the woman is defined by a doctor as under "distress." Only 13.3 percent of all the abortions performed in West Germany are done legally - the second lowest figure in northern Europe. Salaries in East Germany are half of what they are in West Germany, even though the end of state subsidies has meant that prices in the East are signifi- cantly higher than in the West. The price of medicines and medical subsi- dies - along with retirement benefits and aid to the elderly - has been slashed dramatically. The "petty cash" fund Kohl promised for such subsidies has evaporated. East Germans' political rights are being assaulted along with their eco- nomic ones. The Party of Democratic Socialism had its funds impounded by the state for supposed "irregularities" after they won a hefty 30 percent of the municipal election vote in East Berlin and other towns. Nothing has been said about the massive fund transfers from the now defunct East German Communist party (SED) to Kohl's Christian Democrats. U.. Given this context, is it any wonder that so many East Germans are upset about reunification? Or that New Forum, the citizens' movement which spearheaded the popular revolution last November, will hold a requiem rather than a celebration today in Gethesmane Church, one of the birthplaces of the East German protests? Does one really have to ask why Protestant churches throughout East Germany - themselves so active last autumn - have refused a request from the government to ring their bells today in commemoration of reunification? One can only answer these ques- tions by understanding that the freedom Chancellor Kohl ushers in today is freedom for only a select few. It is a freedom to exploit a people who are waking up to the meaning of democ- racy West German style. This is not the democracy East Germans fought for so heroically - a fact we would do well to remember as we traverse the space from last November's utopian moment to to- day's hostile takeover of a people whose oppression has not ended, but rather taken on a more subtle form. Tomorrow: New freedoms in Eastern Europe have brought with them open- ness, which has revealed attitudes of hatred and bigotry throughout Europe. tin NAUJ\L N TERND1N'S h'E J) 7%5AUTLFUK-- 5OOTR4 U - On politics and life at the University By Jonathan Chait The greatest thing about Ann Arbor is. that it can provide students with a wide range of enlightened and educated political ideas from representatives of the entire range of the political spectrum, some of whom don't even foam at the mouth. Last weekend, on the Diag, a man spoke against the deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia, fearing that his son would be drafted, a broad oversimplifi- cation which ignored several delicate con- siderations, such as: There is no draft. The Army now attempts to recruit teenage males through television commer- cials which use slogans like: "We do more before 8:00 than most people do all day." This commercial was actually designed by Russian Communists who know full well that teenage males have absolutely no de- sire to wake up at the crack of dawn, espe- cially for the purpose of being ordered to perform extremely difficult and pointless tasks such as crawling eight miles through a swamp and converting it into a radar base, for God only knows what reason. Nevertheless, these commercials repre- sent an advance over the days before the draft was halted, when recruiting adver- Chait is a first-year LSA student. tisements tended to stress benefits such as not being thrown in jail. All details aside, the gist of this man's message was that American troops would not be on the other side of the globe fac- ing the threat of poison gas attack by a ruthless genocidal dictator if marijuana was legal. No, he was not suggesting that President Bush would have called a press conference following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait to announce, "Dude, the invasion thing is, like, totally uncool, but let's chill out with the army deal. Gotta be pru- dent, man." No, this man explained that American troops are in Saudi Arabia to defend oil which we don't need because our cars could be fueled just as well by marijuana. Yes sir. And there was a substantial crowd of onlookers who were saying, "Yes, by God, he's right!" But even when the activists are sup- porting good causes, they have a way of making it seem kind of looney. Take the controversy over the University's decision to deputize a campus police force. MSA President Jennifer Van Valey rightfully de- nounced the administration for sneakily making this decision during the summer term when nobody was around to protest, shortly before she approved a $1,000 grant to send two members of the Palestine Sol- idarity Committee to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, when most of the MSA dele- gates weren't around to protest. The two students returned to report, to the great surprise of everyone, that Israel is still the modern equivalent of Nazi Germany, just as they suspected. So anyway, some students staged a protest of the deputization of campus secu- rity, but got confused about what they were protesting and ended up spending most of their time insulting Deane Baker, who no doubt masterminded the entire scheme while spending his summer vaca- tion clubbing baby seals. (We could make things a lot easier for them by getting Deane Baker to run for Prime Minister of Israel, where he could send the Israeli army over here to police the campus.) The effect of these protests on the cam- pus's small, paranoid right wing, of course, is that they would now probably support arming the cops with short-range nuclear weapons. Personally, I don't think that deputizing a University police force will make the campus any safer. Then again, we wouldn't have this problem if marijuana was legal. Don't blindly accept the world status quo To the Daily: The viewpoint by Manuel Olave ("Conservatives shouldn't despair," 9/27/90) displays an attitude that is quite frightening to hear from any student in a university of higher education. While most of his editorial deals with campus election issues, it reflects a callousness and blind adherence to the status quo so common among our generation in its ref- erences to general philosophies towards political activity. Conservatives certainly should get in- volved; however, the rhetoric and irational name calling that Olave invokes is typical of status auo reactionary behavior. His name-calling of liberal/radical students - "a sign of how obnoxious a few recalci- trant idiots" - is a demonstration of the emotional appeals conservatives have had to rely upon to muster the support of the United States. A rise in i itional conservatism has been obvious over the last 12 years. Thankfully, the damage done by the "Reagan Revolution" - to schools, urban centers, the national debt, and the erosion of national infrastructure in general (with a huge recession imminent) - is beginning to be noticed by the general public. Recent opinion polls give Jimmy Carter a higher approval rating than Rea- gan. In light of this conservative thrust, however, it is all the more imperative forg students to remain outspoken critics of the information we hear and read; students are, all around the world, the voices that insist that the truth be heard and that hold gov- ernments accountable for their actions. Many students today do: ot question at all what their government tells them, for- getting the lessons of the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration. Students must continue to speak out for reform. Support of disarmament, resistance of ,mnnhhia andi rorim and md ,mantQ Tau Gamma Nu responds to EQ allegations To the Daily: We, the brothers of Tau Gamma Nu, would like to respond to the article appear- ing Sept. 28, 1990, concerning an incident that took place in East Quad. Supposedly on Wednesday night of that week a group of men ran through the halls of the dorm acting in a destructive manner. According to the article, the men yelled "Tau Gamma Nu" repeatedly as they van- dalized the building. The article went on to quote a member of our house who denied the incident. Despite this, the East Quad building di- rector demanded that the president and members of our house provide an immedi- ate explanation. Furthermore, a student stated that we should be held accountable for our infringement upon his or her rights and those of homosexual women. We found this article absolutely outra- geous and morally reprehensible. Our To make a difference, don't give' U' money To the Daily: Everyone has been commenting on the need to protest against the University po- lice force. The question is, why should the administration care? They get your money whether you like the police force or not. Whether you like Deane Baker or not. In fact, they get your money, period. If we want to stop the cops, we've got to stop giving them our money. Move out house did not hand out bids on Wednesday night. The reporter who came to our house and talked to our president was told this but chose to ignore it. The writers of the article failed to print this response, but rather concentrated on portraying us as being guilty of the inci- dent. We feel this is an infringement of our rights. We were not in the residence hall at the time, and it is wrong that we should have to prove our innocence. For whatever reason, another group of men chose to portray themselves as mem- bers of our organization while displaying inappropriate behavior. We are disap- pointed that this would happen and we hope these men come forward and identify themselves. Whether this happens or not, our fraternity played absolutely no part in this incident and regret we have been un- fairly associated with it. The brothers of Tau Gamma Nu of dorms so they don't get room and board money. Disenroll so they don't get tuition money. Stop going to football games so they don't get ticket money. Because money, for them, is the bot- tom line. What's that you say? Those things are too much fun, too convenient, or just too important to give up? Congratulations. You've just figured out why the regents don't care what you say.v Jason Larke First-year LSA student 0. 03 ~4d JTo AR TerAt., - A E &c.OPFA D cuP' i1I 114E.FT, AN B t.t NaED)bi EWLi4I..2 CdER UP, OR GE4~L4Y ~4/1~ 1 .A I ... 'N & B is a great strip' To the Daily: Nuts and Bolts is a great comic strip. I can understand what Lumus feels like. Keep up the great work. Jason Wenglikowski LSA sophomore reads "I @x*!! hate bicyclists." Now that's humor. It could become a series; next he could rape a jogger, then bash a gay, and wrap it up by gunning down a dozen or so women in the Engi- neering Building. Have I missed some subtle point? An explanation or apology is warranted. :.