LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The Michigan Daily - Monday, June .14, 2004 - 5
Confessions of a Republican
BONNIE KELLMAN A BiLNT EDGE
should not be
absolved of blame
TO THE DAILY:
The falling application rates
recently released by the University
indicate a disturbing trend that must
be recognized and acted upon now to
ensure that a diverse campus com-
unity remains intact.
The 25 percent drop in African
American, 22 percent drop in Asian
Pacific American, 13 percent drop in
Latino and 8 percent drop in Native
American applications are not simply
an idication that these students have
less interest or are less committed to
attending the Univemsity. Nor does it
indicate that these students come
from poor families who cannot
afford to pay tuition. The Daily's
assertion (Dwindling Diversity, 6/7/04)
at economics is the main reason
stadents of color are choosing not to
attend the University makes a gross
generalization by assuming that all
people of color "are more likely to
come from socio-economically dis-
advantaged families" who cannot
afford a "University education.' It is
also detrimental to stereotype minori-
ties by saying that they would sacri-
e a more comprehensive education
attending a community college in
order to save money. Not only is the
implication that the majority of stu-
dents of color are poor and thus
choosing not to attend the University
offensive in itself, it also removes
blame from the school.
Further, it is harmful, while sup-
posedly talking about diversity and
minorities on campus, to exclude the
Asian Pacific American population
from the discussion. The most prob-
natic part of the editorial was that,
nowhere in the text, was the Universi-
ty itself held accountable for the drop
in minority applications. The Univer-
sity administration, press and national
community use a number of factors
to rationalize the drop in student of
color admittance but leave out other
crucial ones. The burden of such a
drop does not rest on the shoulders of
jority high school students, as the
versity has tried to portray. Look-
ing beyond such rationalizations, one
can see that more pressing systematic
issues are at hand.
What is really at the heart of the
problem is a serious lack of high
school outreach and an unsupportive
campus climate. The University is
not doing enough to attract minority
students. The Office of Multi-Ethnic
Student Affairs, one of the few spe-
cialized resources available to stu-
dents of color, consistently lacks the
funding necessary to maintain a full
staff and comprehensive program-
ming. The Trotter House multicultur-
al center is rapidly deteriorating and
has been consistently neglected.
The gravity of hate crimes and inci-
dents has been historically ignored
and inadequately addressed. Further,
the University continues to deny its
involvement with the racist secret
society Michigamua and refuses to
remove it as an "honor" society from
transcripts.
The University showcases its
diverse student body, yet fails to pro-
vide adequate support for it. The
abovementioned problems are linked
to the drop in student of color appli-
cations, which directly relates to the
drops in admissions. These problems
create a campus climate which is not
safe, supportive or welcoming for
potential applicants and students.
Assuring racial diversity at the Uni-
versity is pertinent. Minority students
are part of our diverse democracy
and the services developed for and
discussion on inclusion that address
the needs of these students should
never take a back seat to administra-
tion misadventures in the name of
color blindness. What happens aththe
University is a microcosm of how
much better the global picture may
function if we plan for the future. The
causes of the "dwindling diversity"
in applications are not just because
people of color are too poor to pay
tuition or too confused about the
recent court ruling - it is a direct
result of the University's inaction on
major issues that are key to attracting
all students.
STEPHANIE CHANG
ANDY CADOTTE
HARLYN PACHECO
LSA seniors
LISA BAKALE-WISE
MATr STEHNEY
ROcIO VALERIO
LSAjuniors
s you've prob-
ably guessed
from the title
of this column, I am a
Republican. In the
eyes of many Univer-
sity students, this
makes me the enemy.
Well, to be hon-
est, I'm not actually
a Republican anymore. Two years of
living in East Quad and working at
The Daily finally rubbed off on me,
and now I'm nothing more than a
good, moderate Independent. (Nobody
can object to an Independent.) But
nevertheless, I was a conservative for
the first 18 years of my life.
Somehow, I have the sneaking suspi-
cion that my early Republican loyalties are
more a result of my upbringing than my
actual ideology. They probably have some-
thing to do with the red, white and blue
stuffed elephant lying on my brother's bed,
the picture of George and Laura hanging
on our refrigerator or any one of the small
American flags hidden in strategic loca-
tions throughout our house. But whatever
the reason, I became a Republican.
Ironically, I've always lived in liberal
communities. I grew up near San Francis-
co and then moved to Ann Arbor, where I
was surprised to find even more liberals
than in the Bay Area. I'll never forget the
way the workers in East Quad's Halfway
Inn changed the name ofAmerican cheese
to "Racist, War-monger cheese" in retalia-
tion for the Freedom Fries incident in the
White House last year. Somehow, I had
managed to find an area even more liberal
than California.
I wanted to save myself unnecessary
grief, so I kept my political views quiet.
Not secret, but beneath the surface, only to
be brought into the light when directly
asked. As a Republican moving silently
among liberals, I've witnessed firsthand
what both sides of the political spectrum
think of each other. And it's not pretty.
According to most Republicans, liber-
als are evil. Conservatives think they will
destroy the country with their dangerous,
radical ideas. First, Democrats will corrupt
America's youth by slowly disintegrating
their morals. Then, they will abolish per-
sonal property and establish communism.
But Democrats, I discovered, are no
better. Despite priding themselves on
open-mindedness and acceptance, liberals
are just as intolerant (if not more) of the
rival political party. They think Republi-
cans are all money-hungry capitalist war-
lords who will happily tread on the little
people in their efforts to make a dollar. A
fellow student put it best: Republicans kill
kittens.
Obviously, we need a difference of
opinion for democracy to function. We
need to fight and argue, or the public will
become meek and complacent. And to be
honest, sometimes a little political scape-
goating can be fun. Former President Clin-
ton's affairs and President Bush's bad
grammar provide great entertainment,
come Saturday night.
The problem is that the relationship
between Democrats and Republicans is so
hostile that the parties are more concerned
with destroying each other than achieving
social goals. They're so focused on work-
ing against one another, they fail to see
how they could work together. At times,
their relationship seems even more con-
tentious than relations between racesor
sexes. Perhaps this is because political par-
ties are the only groups left that are social-
ly acceptable to hate. But whatever the
reason, their mutual abhorrence is nothing
less than ridiculous. Often, members of
the minority group aren't given a fair hear-
ing. They are automatically ridiculed and
dismissed as wrong simply because of
their political label. This undermines the
most basic values of democracy.
In reality, Democrats and Republicans
aren't nearly as different as they would like
to believe. Not only are the two parties
close to the center of the political spec-
trum, but underneath it all, they both want
the same thing: for the United States to be
the best country possible. They just go
about achieving it in different ways,
according to their differing ideologies.
And really, both parties are necessary for
our country to function. Democrats chal-
lenge the status quo and move the country
forward; Republicans rein the liberals in,
making sure they don't go too far, too
quickly. Democrats dream while Republi-
cans keep the country grounded in reality.
Both are important; both are necessary.
Kellman can be reached at
bankell@umich.edus.
Whose strategic alliance?
SAM SINGER TAKE Two
SAM BUTLER THim SOAPBOX
INTE LLIGENC
B y the middle
of the 1980s,
Afghanistan
had become a critical
theater in the ongoing
proxy war between the
United States and
U.S.S.R. During this
time, in a calculated
effort to frustrate
Soviet expansionism, the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, with assistance from Pak-
istani intelligence, funded and armed
Afghani rebel groups who were resisting
Khalq militants and their Soviet benefac-
tors. Much thanks to their Western spon-
sors, these Mujahideen freedom fighters
emerged victorious, eradicating the threat
of communism and splintering the nation
into a multitude of disjointed, warlord-con-
trolled territories. The subsequent power
struggle was as foreseeable as it was
vicious - affording victory to the most
well-trained and preponderant Mujahideen
bloc: the Taliban. After almost a decade of
despotism, religious fanaticism and reck-
less state-sponsored terrorism, it took the
heinous brutality of Sept. 11 for the United
States to recognize the consequences of
abetting radical and vehemently anti-West-
ern organizations in order to address short-
term geopolitical threats. In the late 1980s,
a Central Asian policy expert with even the
slightest sense of foresight could have told
you that funneling weapons to fervent
Islamic extremists with ties to international
terrorist networks wasn't in the U.S's high-
est security interests.
Yet despite having been severely scald-
ed for our reckless foreign policy of the
'80s, the Bush administration continues to
flout the value of historical hindsight. Even
in the face of historical red flags and a
wary State Department, the Pentagon has
grown increasingly cozy with some of
Afghanistan's most ruthless outlaws. In
order to compensate for an overstretched
military and virtual geographic illiteracy,
the U.S. has relied upon the Northern
Alliance, a coalition of formerly repressed
ethnic warlords and their private militias, to
assist in cleansing the embattled nation of
al-Qaida cells and their Taliban supporters.
Unfortunately, minus any direct assaults on
U.S. soil, members of the Northern
Alliance share a similar violent and malev-
olent notoriety with their Taliban counter-
parts. Taliban fighters were not the only
combatants who indiscriminately murdered
masses of innocent civilians in the 1994
clash between rivaling clans in Kabul. Tal-
iban headmen are not the only leaders who
subdue and torture political opponents in
their private penitentiaries. And Taliban
clerics are not the only figureheads who
spout anti-Western venom to crowds of
submissive fundamentalists.
Still, in spite of their bloodstained his-
tories, the U.S. continues to finance and
equip these warlords - often offering
them political elevation in exchange for
tactical military support. Abdul Rashid
Dostum, the Afghan President's special
envoy for Northern Afghanistan, Muham-
mad Fahim, the current Defense Minister
and Burhanuddin Rabbani, an influential
power broker, each infamous for their col-
lusion with the widespread brutality of the
early '90s, have all managed to navigate
themselves into authoritative roles within
the new government. As the U.S. had
hoped, the warlords of the Northern
Alliance have generated the strength to
demolish the Taliban infrastructure. They
have aided U.S. troops in peacekeeping
and security operations and have provided
invaluable tactical support. Regrettably our
new bedfellows have grown increasingly
recalcitrant.
It is now abundantly clear that the U.S.
and the Northern Alliance view their rela-
tionship ina very similar light: a temporary
strategic partnership to further ambitions of
control over the war-torn Afghani state.
Regional headmen have grown progres-
sively unresponsive to U.S. Central Com-
mand as scores of clandestine militias
begin to wield more muscle. Despite the
Bonn Agreement's prohibition of private or
mercenary forces from remaining in the
capital city, Muhammad Fahim refuses to
withdraw his army from Kabul. As the
warlords stride towards financial and polit-
ical independence, the U.S's footing as a
legitimate and conciliatory occupying force
continues to slip. It is almost certain that
once again, the U.S. will suffer from its
shortsighted foreign policy. Milton Bear-
den, former CIA liaison to the Mujahideen
fighters, best explains the diminishing rela-
tionship: "At what point, with all of this
money coming in, do they look at us ...
and say 'Thank you very much, we are
quite happy with the way itis?"'
Singer can be reached at
singers@umich.edu.