2 - Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4,
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( 4c ligoan Daily
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Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327
www.michigandaily.com
ANDREW WEINER RACHEL GREINETZ
Editor in Chiec eusiness Manager
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anweeiner@msichigandailycom s rmgrein@michigandaily.com
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS PROTEST GEOdDE IN DARUt
To fight genocide, go without
K SKEEPS
50 years ago this week
(December 8,1962):
After returning from a trip
to East Asia, then-University
President Harlan Hatcher
urged the use of English as
the language of international
communication, the Daily
reported.
At a public reception in Hill
Auditorium, Hatcher said the
first objective of American
universities should be keeping
English as an international
language. He reported the
decreasinguse of English in
the nations he visited and
cited the University's English
Language Institute in Thai-
land as an important project
combating this trend.
25 years ago this week
(December 4,1987):
Then-Vice President George
H. W. Bush visited Oakland and
urged Michigan Senate Repub-
licans to ratify the intermediate
nuclear arms treaty that was to
be signed by President Reagan
and Soviet leader Mikhail Gor-
bachev, the Daily reported.
At an "Ask George Bush
Town Meeting," Bush
addressed about 300 people
on the elimination of weapons,
urging attendees to demon-
strate their support.
"We're about to get a deal
where the Soviets take out all
1,600 (weapons) and we take out
our 400, and for the first time in
history eliminate a whole class
of weapons," he said.
5years ago this week
(December 6,2007):
A campaign organized by the
national anti-genocide student
organization STAND encour-
aged students to give up one
luxury item from their daily
lives to help protect displaced
Sudanese civilians in Darfur,
according to the Daily.
Instead of buying her daily
latte, LSA senior Alice Mishkin
chose to give $3 to victims of the
genocide in Darfur.
"If you only spend $3, then
you could protect a woman in
Darfur for a day - that's pretty
ridiculous," said LSA freshman
Joe Pieroni.
- TOM MCBRIEN
Newsroom
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PATRICK BARRON/Daily
Law students Laura Wolff and Annie Kruger enjoy
cross-country skiing in Nichols Arboretum yesterday.
CRIME NOTES
Bad driving No moving
WHERE: 100 Block of Zina Violation
Pitcher Place
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
WHEN: Sunday at about WHERE: 1900 block of
11:35 p.m. Fuller Road
WHAT: A driver was WHEN: Monday at about
stopped and arrested for 6:40 p.m.
drivingwith a suspended WHAT: Two vehicles
license, University Police collided inlot M-75,
reported. Marijuana University Police reported.
posession was also There were no injuries and
suspected. The driver was damage to the vehicles is
released pending a warrant. unknown at this time.
Don't leave Taking care of
WHERE: Alice Lloyd yourself
Predicting flu
WHAT: Jeffrey Shaman
will lead a discussion on his
methods of forecasting sea-
sonsal flu outbreaks, similar
to predicting weather.
WHO: The Robert Wood
Johnson Health and Society
Scholars Program
WHEN: Today at 4 p.m.
WHERE: School of Public
Health's Lane Auditorium
Democratic
development
WHAT: Kharis Templeman
will lead a talk on the tran-
sition to democracy, election
processes and leaders elec-
tions can produce.
WHO: Weiser Center for
Emerging Democracies
WHEN: Today at4 p.m.
WHERE: School of Social
Work
1-RETHINGS YOU
Skeletal remains found
in England have been
confirmed as King Rich-
ard III's, CNN reported. The
DNA extracted from the
bones were matched with
the DNA of Michael Ibsen, a
direct descendant of the line.
Op-ed columnist Paul
Sherman revists the
debate over cap-and-
trade to fight enviornmental
pollution from industry.
FOR MORE, SEE OPINION, PAGE 4
In 2012, the record
for suicide within the
army was broken, with
around 325 attempted or
successful suicide attempts,
CNN reported. The number
consists of active and
nonactive duty members. The
armyisworkingto controlthe
problem.
EDITORIAL STAFF
MatthewSlovin ManagingEditor mjslovin@michigandaily.com
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K..Wssmn,Tayor izsss
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Adrienne Roberts EditorialtPagtditos
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SENIOR SPORTS EDITORS: Steven Braid, Michael Laurila, Stephen Nesbitt, Colleen
Thomas,LizVukelich,DanielWasserman
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Jeremy Summitt
Kayla Upadhyaya Managing Arts Editor kaylau@michigandaily.com
SENIOR ARTS EDITORS: Elliot Alpern, Brianne Johnson, John Lynch,uAnna Sadovskaya
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BUSINESS STAFF
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QUy VO Circulation Manage
The Michigan Dailye(ISSN t745-967)is pulished Mondayssthrough Fiay duringthe fall and
wineermsbystdets atthe UeiutyeofMchganu "eopy is auailalefree ochrge
to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily's office for $2. Subscriptions for
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0
Depression African art
Residence Iall
WHEN: Monday at about
5:05 a.m.
WHAT: An evacuation sign
was taken down from the
wall it was mounted on,
University Police reported.
The wall incurred some
damage, but no suspects
or timeframe of incident is
WHERE: Bursley
Residence Hall
WHEN: Sunday at about
8:30 p.m.
WHAT: A resident was
injured, University Police
reported. The subject
sought medical attention
without outside help.
session
WHAT: Amanda Byrnes
leads a session giving stu-
dents information on what
it means to be depressed
and techniques to cope with
everyday life and feel vmore
energized. Counselors will
share additional resources.
WHO: Counseling and Psy-
chological Services
WHEN: Today at 4:15 p.m.
WHERE: Michigan Union,
Annex room
perceptions
WHAT: Art scholars will
lead a roundtable discus-
sion on the facts and myths
that surround African art.
The talk will focus on how
perceptions of African art
affect perceptions of the
artists themselves and the
rest of the art world.
WHO: University Museum
of Art
WHEN: Today at 4 p.m.
WHERE: UMMA
Attention Student Groups!
This is a great opportunity for you to fund raise and
expand your reach on campus.
Encourage your members and friends
to buy a CUPID GRAM from
h he firidi an D&il 4 b
and mention your student group
at the time of purchase.
Purchase 50 Cupid Grams and your student group will
receive a $75 cash donation and $175 in advertising credit*
with The Michigan Daily
Purchase 25 Cupid Grams and your student group will
receive a $35 cash donation and $100 in advertising credit*
with The Michigan Daily
Purchase 10 Cupid Grams and your student group will
receive a $100 advertising credit* with The Michigan Daily
In-person Purchase Deadline: 3:00pm, Friday, February 8th
The Michigan Daily Office - 420 Maynard (behind the LSA building)
Cost: $5, payable in cash only
Publication Date: Thursday, February 14th
Mj i If you wish to pay by credit card, simply
scan the QR code and you will be taken to
The Michigan Daily's online store
to place your order.
" Student group must be mentioned at the time of purchase
. Multiple awards may be given
- Must be a registered Student Organization
*Advertising credit to be used by 4/23/13
People of Timbuktu save
manuscripts during violence
Islamists set fire to
one of world's most
precious library of
ancient scripts
TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) - For
eight days after the Islamists set
fire to one of the world's most
precious collections of ancient
manuscripts, the alarm inside
the building blared. It was an
eerie, repetitive beeping, a cry
from the innards of the injured
library that echoed around the
world.
The al-Qaida-linked extrem-
ists who ransacked the insti-
tute wanted to deal a final blow
to Mali, whose northern half
they had held for 10 months
before retreating in =the face of
a French-led military advance.
They also wanted to deal a blow
to the world, especially France,
whose capital houses the head-
quarters of UNESCO, the orga-
nization which recognized and
elevated Timbuktu's monu-
ments to its list of World Heri-
tage sites.
So as they left, they torched
the Ahmed Baba Institute of
Higher Learning and Islamic
Research, aiming to destroy a
heritage of 30,000 manuscripts
that date back to the 13th cen-
tury.
"These manuscripts are our
identity," said Abdoulaye Cisse,
the library's acting director.
"It's through these manuscripts
that we have been able to recon-
struct our own history, the his-
tory of Africa. People think that
our history is only oral, not writ-
ten. What proves that we had a
written history are these docu-
ments."
The first people who spotted
the column of black smoke on
Jan.23 were the residents whose
homes surround the library,
and they ran to tell the center's
employees. The bookbinders,
manuscript restorers and secu-
rity guards who work for the
institute broke down and cried.
Just about the only person
who didn't was.Cisse, the act-
ing director, who for months
had harbored a secret. Starting
last year, he and a handful of
associates had conspired to save
the documents so crucial to this
1,000-year-old town.
In April, when the rebels
preaching a radical version of
Islam first rolled into this city
swirling with sand, the insti-
tute was in the process of mov-
ing its collection into a new,
state-of-the-art building. The
fighters commandeered the new
center, turning it into a dormi-
tory for one of their units of for-
eign fighters, Cisse said. They
didn't realize only about 2,000
manuscripts had been moved
there, the bulk of the collection
remaining at the old library, he
said.
The Islamists came in, as
they did in Afghanistan, with
their own, severe interpretation
of Islam, intent on rooting out
what they saw as the venera-
tion of idols instead of the pure
worship of Allah. During their
10-month-rule, they eviscerated
much of the identity of this sto-
ried city, starting with the mau-
soleums of their saints, which
were reduced to rubble.
The turbaned fighters made
women hide their faces and
blotted out their images on bill-
boards. They closed hair salons,
banned makeup and forbade the
music for which Mali is known.
Their final act before leaving
was to go through the exhibi-
tion room in the institute, as
well as the whitewashed labora-
tory used to restore the age-old
parchments. They'grabbed the
books they found and burned
them.
However, they didn't both-
er searching the old building,
where an elderly man named
Abba Alhadi has spent 40 of his
72 years on earth taking care of
rare manuscripts. The illiterate
old man, who walks with a cane
and looks like a character from
the Bible, was the perfect foil
for the Islamists. They wrongly
assumed that the city's Europe-
an-educated elite would be the
ones trying to save the manu-
scripts, he said.
So last August, Alhadi began
stuffing the thousands of books
into empty rice and millet sacks.
At night, he loaded the mil-
let sacks onto the type of trolley
used to cart boxes of vegetables
to the market He pushed them
across town and piled them into
a lorry and onto the backs of
motorcycles, which drove them
to the banks of the Niger River.
From there, they floated
down to the central Malian
town of Mopti in a pinasse, a
narrow, canoe-like boat. Then
cars drove them from Mopti,
the first government-controlled
town, to Mali's capital, Bamako,
over 600 miles (1,000 kilome-
ters) from here.
"I have spent my life protect-
ing these manuscripts. This has
been my life's work. And I had
to come to terms with the fact
that I could no longer protect
them here," said Alhadi. "It hurt
me deeply to see them go, but I
took strength knowing that they
were being sent to a safe place."
It took two weeks in all to
spirit out the bulk of the col-
lection, around 28,000 texts
housed in the old building cov-
ering the subjects of theology,
astronomy, geography and more.
There was nothing they could
do, however, for the 2,000 docu-
ments that had already been
transferred to the new library,
to its exhibition and restora-
tion rooms, and to a basement
vault. Cisse took solace knowing
that most of the texts in the new
library had been digitized.
Even so, when his staff came
to tell him about the fire, he felt
a constriction in his chest.
The new library is housed
inside a modern building, whose
sheer walls are made to resem-
ble the mud-walled homes of
Timbuktu. Cisse braved his fear
to slip through the back gate on
the morning of Jan. 24.
The alarm was still scream-
ing. The empty manuscript
boxes were , strewn on the
ground outside in the brick
courtyard.
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