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USF peace rally a tough sell
By BABITA PERSAUD
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- While there were two students with orange and green hair, most of the others at Wednesday night's peace forum at the University of South Florida looked more like they were going to the mall. There was pizza and bagels, "because that's how you get students to come to your event," said Katie Templin, an organizer. Your '60s peace rally this was not. Turnout was thin at the student-organized Unity, Peace & Awareness Open Forum; only about 100 came to the Special Events Center, which has a capacity of 2,000. Nobody raised their voice. Among those attending was journalism major Chris Cochran, who wore a Monty Python T-shirt and said, "I'm against any kind of killing, terrorism and war." Lance Burnette, a French major, said he didn't know what to think of the U.S. military response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "I personally feel very confused," he said. "That's why I'm here, for education." Eamon Loingsigh, a junior and founder of the alternative campus newspaper, The Shanachie, read from his spiral notebook: "Government and big business have an agenda to put a pipeline through Afghanistan. George Bush is all about oil." "So often we are painted as slackers," said Sara Newton, the first at the lectern. "We aren't. We are here for a purpose." The forum had been scheduled for Oct. 11, but was postponed for security concerns, and recast as an open forum to educate people about the conflict, rather than to speak out against the military response. But that didn't stop Stacy Tessier, a science major, from venting when she took the microphone for the two minutes each speaker was allotted. "I'm all about peace," she said. "I don't think violence should be countered with violence. Freeze bank accounts. Boycott. Treat this as a criminal investigation. Not a military action." Then, she read her haiku: Aircraft drops a bomb On a desolate nation And for what reason? What happened at USF Wednesday night is typical of what is taking place at universities nationwide. At SUNY Stony Brook in New York, 200 students staged a peace rally, and a speaker told the audience, "This is a climate where activists are being demonized." At the University of Colorado, 100 students walked out of classes chanting "wage peace now." Other protests have been smaller, and many have met with opposition. Even at the University of California at Berkeley, the campus at the heart of the '60s peace movement, protests against the miliary action are a tough sell. A rally there attracted a small band of students chanting: "One, two, three, four, we don't want this racist war." About 20 USF police officers worked the event Wednesday night, double what they normally staff on a Wednesday night, Sgt. Michael Klingebiel said. No disturbances were reported. Three ROTC students sat up front, including Pace Brown, 22, a political science major. His father, a financial administrator, was on the eighth floor of Tower One at the World Trade Center and felt the shake of the first plane crash. He managed to get out, Brown said. "A piece of concrete just missed him and he saw five people jump." "I feel a lot of people don't have a sense of really what's going on," Brown said. -- Times Researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Staff writer Babita Persaud can be reached at 226-3322 or persaud@sptimes.com.
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