Walking around campus after President George W. Bush’s speech on Monday night, I could hear people whispering and talking to each other. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to class tomorrow in protest.” “I blame Congress for giving him a carte blanche.” “We can’t let France dictate our national policy.” These ideas should not be whispered, but rather trumpeted from this campus. To carry on “business as usual” as if nothing has changed in our world makes a mockery of university education. We cannot just reap the benefits of a good education without accepting the responsibility that accompanies such a privilege. All of us at Georgetown have been blessed with intelligence, and thanks to the resources the school provides us with, we have the capability to transform these ideas into print, speech, art and music. We each have different gifts that must now be fused so that we act like the leaders and scholars we are, rather than the pampered little kids that we were. If we come together as a university community, the discussion will be rich, vibrant and charged with disagreement, passion, anger, frustration, emotion and excitement. Silence is the worst enemy of this campus, and it is a far greater threat to our security than color-coded alerts.
Contrary to the opinion of many senators, military officers and commentators in the hours and days following the president’s declaration of war on Iraq, the time for debate is not over. It is only beginning, and nobody is better prepared to lead this debate than the Georgetown faculty. Dean Gallucci-you have written that “now more than ever, I believe we need to prepare our students for a world in which change is constant.” You can do that now by leading the student body in a response to the war. Professor Albright-your contribution to campus debate would be invaluable, especially now that the President claims that diplomacy has failed. Professor Arend-I’d love to hear an international law expert with as much dynamism as you lead this campus in a rousing debate in the ICC Auditorium. I guarantee there would be a high turn out. Professor Pirtle-I know you must have an opinion about this war and its implication for the future of power relations between nations. We want to know what it is. The only e-mail I received from the University on Monday detailed the procedures for emergency preparedness on this campus. I applaud this effort, but it is not enough to address only the physical needs of students in this time of war. I am not alone in my anger and frustration about the course the United Sates government is carving out for future generations. This University and its students have an obligation to invigorate this campus with debate and to make ourselves stand as a model of higher education. When the president makes a decision to use force on our behalf, we lose the right to have no opinion.
Students of history-use what you know and are learning to act on your opinion. Do you feel uneasy about this war? I do too. Philosophy students-you are more prepared than perhaps any other students on this campus to apply the compiled wisdom of great thinkers to this current crisis. School of Foreign Service students-we have a unique responsibility to heed the words of the founder of our school, Edmund A. Walsh, who said, “The time has come to devote more attention to the production of leaders.” I specifically call upon students, faculty and deans to give us their opinion without fear of appearing unpatriotic, fear of jeopardizing our grades, fear of falling behind in our classes or fear of appearing to be bleeding-heart liberals or foolish idealists. GUSA-the student body no longer needs you to dedicate time to securing chicken fingers in the cafeteria, more student space or more comfortable benches to sit on. More importantly, we need your leadership to find a meaningful way to react to the unfolding war.
Professors—the president has told us that the time has come for war. Likewise, the time has come to deviate from your syllabi in order to give your students a real education in the increasingly dangerous world that is our real classroom. As Mark Twain said, we can’t let “our schooling get in the way of our education.”
President Bush explained his decision on Monday by saying, “We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater.” We need to heed this same principle and apply it to our lives. To do nothing is to do everything. Just as diplomacy has supposedly died, so too must neutrality, apathy and indifference. This is not an indifferent campus. Instead, it is full of bright, articulate, thoughtful, opinionated and clear-headed people. We should not carry on as if nothing has changed in this world after Bush’s declaration of preemptive war. The president insists that he acts on our behalf. He insists that doing nothing is more dangerous that initiating war. He insists that the United States has no choice but to act right now. We must do the same. To do nothing is to endorse him. I don’t know how much we can change, but I know we have to do something. Because in one year or in five years, it will be too late.
Helen O’Reilly is a senior in the School of Foreign Service. She’s grooving to the tunes of Peter, Paul and Mary.
