Nazi label should not be used on campus
This Sunday will mark the 61st anniversary of the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising against Nazi oppression, now known as Yom HaShoah,
Holocaust Memorial Day. Yom HaShoah provides an opportunity to
remember the Holocaust, to mourn for the millions ruthlessly
murdered and to praise the righteous men and women who in the face
of evil risked everything to save the lives of innocent victims of
Nazi persecution.
My grandmother survived by escaping Nazi Germany on a
kinder-transport. My cousins perished in gas chambers and suffered
enslavement and mutilation in concentration camps. My family was
only one of many to suffer at the hands of the Nazis.
Nazism manifests fascist depravity. Neither MEChA nor Bruin
Republicans resembles Nazis, and mislabeling individuals as Nazis
only belittles the suffering of Holocaust victims and desecrates
their memory.
Andy Green, President, Jewish Student Union Second-year,
mathematics/economics
Student groups out of control
Thank you for the thoughtful editorial “Displays provoke
disgust, not discussion” (April 13) about the increasingly
hostile and offensive demonstrations and activities from a number
of politically charged student groups here at UCLA.
As a UCLA staff member, I thankfully feel on the outside of the
conflict raging between students, but I agree with the Daily
Bruin’s concerns about the real purpose and results of these
activities, which now include calling white students
“crackers” and labeling ““ or should I say
illustrating ““ the Bruin Republicans as Nazis.
As a white UCLA staff member I find being labeled a
“cracker” offensive and demeaning, but that’s the
tip of the iceberg of the extent to which these student groups have
debased themselves.
From what I’ve seen, this whole mess originated with the
Bruin Republicans’ ridiculous, pointless and
counterproductive campaign to smear MEChA by labeling it as racist
based on a decades-old document, under the guise of inviting
““ or should I say pressuring ““ it to participate in a
one-sided debate hosted by a fringe right-wing radio station.
If I were a MEChA member, I wouldn’t have bothered with it
either. The back-and-forth mudslinging and name calling took off
from there. Now members of MEChA, the African Student Union and
their cohorts are out on Bruin Walk behaving in an at least equally
reprehensible manner with their pictures of Nazi Bruin
Republicans.
Shame on them.
Now we have pro-Palestinian students setting up a military check
points with other students shouting “boom” in the
background. What’s next in store for us bystanders ““ a
re-enactment of a suicide bomb on a Campus Express bus?
I was an undergraduate at Ohio State University a decade ago,
and I recall countless religious, political, environmental and
you-name-it groups at The Oval (our version of Bruin Walk) on a
daily basis handing out flyers and staging protests, but I never
saw anything the likes of what’s going here at UCLA.
What about some peaceful student group forums where issues can
be discussed without the name-calling, scare tactics, demagoguery
and racial slurs? Or maybe I should just lower my standards, pick
up a box of Saltines and join in.
Rachel Lathy Campus human resources