|
Teaching
a different lesson
The
aggressively incompetent South Orange County
Community College District has decided to
end the district's Spanish study-abroad
program.
Trustee
Tom Fuentes said he sees "no reason
to send students of our colleges to Spain
at this moment in history."
This
is a disgusting politicization of a unique
learning opportunity that should have students
and district residents in the streets with
pitchforks and torches in protest.
The
matter centers on Spain having withdrawn
its troops from Iraq. Fuentes said "Spain
has abandoned our fighting men and women,
withdrawing their support." This is
exactly the type of narrow-minded jingoistic
claptrap that has motivated America's destructive
impulse towards a bullheaded "us versus
them" mentality.
The
trustees seem to feel there is some connection
between Spain's opposition to the American
war against Iraq and the college learning
experience. Sending students to Spain has
nothing to do with that country's disapproval
of our military actions. But it does have
to do with a learning experience.
Were
the study-abroad students being short-changed
in their time on the other side of the Atlantic,
then the trustees would have a point.
The
idea of acting against a country opposing
the American war in Iraq should be offensive
to anyone who believes in the sanctity of
dissent. The subtext to program's termination
is that Spain, by not doing what certain
trustees feel is best, should be punished.
If
the trustees had voted to not support Spain
in their next war with Morocco, they could
argue that the punishment fits the crime.
Instead, American students will lose out.
The
district claims, to have seen another reason
to keep its students from studying abroad.
The
district seems to feel there is an imminent
risk of students losing various body parts
in an explosion. Al-Qaida's March 11, 2004,
bombing of several trains in Madrid, along
with the eternally present possibility of
attacks by Basque separatists, have aroused
the safety-loving sentiments of the board.
The
disingenuousness of such concerns is obvious.
Spain has been in a low-level civil war
since the late '60s. The Basque separatist
group ETA has been blowing up various people
and places ever since. It is a puzzlement
as to which is more absurd: the idea that
the trustees only recently learned about
this, or that they have taken this long
to decide that it is dangerous.
What
about the other terrorists? Yes, Al-Qaida
made a surprisingly aggressive move against
the European continent by killing nearly
200 commuters almost one year ago. But this,
like so many of Al-Qaida's attacks, was
a random event. If the trustees are going
to use that as a rationale for ending a
study-abroad program, they should warn students
against going to New York because the same
terrorist group attacked the Twin Towers.
At least they'll be consistent.
Note
that the Madrid bombings happened several
months before summer 2004. Despite the risk,
the district was still willing to let students
go overseas. No worries about safety were
bandied about. Fear of danger was not part
of the equation.
Fuentes
was asked why students were allowed to go
that summer. He replied, "I think the
terrorist situation is all the more prevalent
and obvious today." Little will he
admit, it most certainly is not.
The
State Department regularly issues warnings
about terrorism and other risks around the
world. The department is so cautious that
if somebody breaks a leg abroad, that country
will have an alert issued. Fuentes might
be surprised to learn that the State Department
is completely free of worries about Spain.
Even the Basque penchant for occasionally
killing government officials and unfortunate
passers-by is not enough of a risk to travelers
to warrant an announcement.
Fuentes
and the other trustees are being fatuous
in arguing that there is an actual danger
to students. They are being disturbingly
simple-minded by promoting the""us
versus them" mentality the Bush administration
brought out several years ago. The students
at Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges
need to tell the district to stop using
campus programs as political tools. Perhaps
they can even teach the trustees something
about what it means to serve students' needs.
|
