Pitzer Hosts Teach-in on Iraq Issues
By Justin duRivage
Staff Writer

They clapped for all the countries of the world with weapons of mass destruction to disarm. They clapped for the charge that big oil is what the Bush Administration is all about. And they clapped for the government to stop telling lies. Last Tuesday, in what signaled the possibility of a growing anti-war movement at the Claremont Colleges and around the world, students, faculty, and community activists met at Pitzer College’s Broad Performance Space for a teach-in on the Conflict in Iraq.

That teach-in brought together left-wing activists from throughout Southern California and approximately 60 Claremont College students who overwhelmingly opposed US military intervention in Iraq. For over two hours, students and activists filled the Broad Center’s performance space to capacity, with crowd thinning only late in the evening after several speeches had already been delivered.

Jose Calderon, a Pitzer sociology professor, Ali Siddiqi of the Claremont Peace and Justice Committee, Sonali Kolhatka of Pacifica Radio a leftist radio station, and Majorie Musser Mikels an independent candidate for the US House of Representatives, all spoke against the Bush administration’s plan for military action in Iraq. The speakers delivered speeches with differing and often dissonant emphases, but there was no question that they were both opposed to the war and part of leftmost reaches of American politics.

Professor Calderon, a disciple of labor leader Cesar Chavez, spoke as much about stopping the Bush administration’s push for war as he did about furthering economic justice in the fields of California. Majorie Mikels was interested both in arguing against military intervention as well as in calling upon students to help her defeat US Representative David Drier (R, CA-26). Ali Siddiqi spoke not only about the suffering of the Iraqi people, but also of a Muslim World under siege. If the teach-in fostered a variety of different messages, there was question that the speeches were delivered to a supportive audience that was in no need of convincing that a war in Iraq would be wrong.

In what was as often a remonstration against US foreign policy in general rather than a specific argument against military action against Iraq, the speakers echoed many of the same themes used to oppose America’s intervention in Afghanistan. The speeches, however, clearly struck a chord with the audience, and sharp criticisms of the Bush administration often met with spontaneous applause.

While the speakers were overwhelmingly opposed to the war, the program’s organizers lamented the lack of dissenting opinions in what was supposed to be both an open forum and an educational experienced. Mina Manchester, a Pitzer College Freshman who introduced the teach-in’s speakers and helped organize the event, said that she “tried to get speakers who had opposing opinions but couldn’t find any.” She attributed the evening overwhelmingly anti-war tone to the fact that “the people most willing to donate time and materials were very anti-war.”

Manchester articulated that she did not wish to become “a poster girl for or against the war,” but that she was personally opposed to a US invasion of Iraq. In the interest of furthering campus discussions about the impending conflict, Ms. Manchester said she hoped to organize future teach-ins that made opposing points of view available to Claremont College students.

Despite the programs intention of informing students about the complexities of global politics in the Middle East, the speakers focused primarily on criticizing American domestic and foreign policy. Kolhatka, saying that, “the majority of Americans are opposed to a war with Iraq,” went a step further and provided students with advice on how they could best protest the President’s plans for war. She implored students to be “be creative” and to “do something, do something, do something,” in order to protest a US invasion of Iraq.