Editorial

Be Understanding

We seem to be living in one of the few places in the country which doesn’t automatically support war. Resist this belief. First, there is no black and white line between those who support ‘war’ and those who do not. Is war indiscriminate bombing? Few advocate that. But more support some sort of military action against those protecting the terrorists, be it a bombing of military targets or a ground invasion. Maybe no one supports a peace that leaves criminal parties completely alone, even though that seems to be a natural outgrowth of some of the ideas floating around.
The U.S. has yet to declare war on a country; the attacks were not carried out under a national flag. Some Americans seem to believe that since the Taliban is involved, the Afghan people as a whole are responsible. The average Afghan is as responsible as the average American, less so in the case of women not permitted to leave their homes. Be aware that on the memorial on College Street an anonymous citizen wrote “Kill Bin Laden and those Afghan bastards.” There is much potential for growth here, and already the black letters have been crossed out and are surrounded by messages of peace.
Just as we ask what is meant by war, though, we must ask what is meant by peace. Can there be peace without justice, another quote asks. If necessary, there has to be. We must accept the terrible realization that if whoever is behind the bombings is never brought to justice, we must take the first step toward peace without it. We must find a new way to build from our loss. We must revise our ideas of what it means to be just in favor of what it means to be, finally, at peace. To honor the memories of the dead, instead of creating more death we must reach forward with an open hand to the rest of the world and say “no more.” Not as an act of acquiesence but as an act of a new kind of justice. “If he asks for your shirt,” wonder why he needs to ask and “give him your coat also.”

Continue Learning

A sexual assault was reported on Friday night. These are never easy words to stomach, but this past Saturday morning was a particularly tough time to read and hear them here at Oberlin. Most students were just beginning to make sense of the world again and trying to recover as best they could from the shock of last Tuesday when they received this very real reminder of the possibility of human brutality.
The Review makes no presumption as to the guilt or innocence of the accused; these are judgments rightly left to the criminal justice system. And the Review will, of course, endeavor to provide the facts of the case in a sensitive manner and as they become available.
Even the report –– the very possibility –– of a sexual assault in the Oberlin community is a punch in the gut to an already confused, angry and sad campus. On the heels of such an unreal tragedy, the effect of other more immediate and direct violence is both magnified and diffused. It at once makes us lose a little more faith in good while also presenting yet another atrocity in a series of unfathomable and impossible to process atrocities.
In short, the whole situation makes you want to give up –– to give up on school, on humans, on this country, on this planet –– but only for a minute. We must not be callous, or without understanding, or without sorrow, but life must continue in something approaching normalcy. Life cannot become a constant contemplation of horror.
Make no mistake: it will not be easy. As difficult as this last week has been, the coming weeks and the struggle for routine and normalcy will be at times even harder. It is hard to concentrate on hydrogeology, or Weber, or impressionism when questions of the human capacity for evil are brought to the fore again and again. At times it will indeed prove impossible; but the effort must be made. We must all make the effort, in whatever ways we always have, to better understand the world through our studies. This last week has not made chemistry or history or dance irrelevant; if anything it makes everything more relevant.
At the end of the day, we are all humans, and must never lose sight of this fact. At Oberlin, we are also a special kind of humans: students. We are blessed with the opportunity, the privilege, of spending our lives learning. This past week we have learned some terrible things. We must continue learning –– as humans, as students, as Oberlin students –– so that those terrible lessons are not taught to our children and theirs after. We must continue learning, because that is what we do.