As many students, faculty and staff walked out into yesterday's rain to protest the war against Iraq, Duke's Arab community grappled with a different sort of outrage.
Whereas most of the Duke community has the luxury of analyzing the Iraqi conflict from a distance, these students will see the war as it impacts their homes, families and cultures.
"I think the fact that [I've] lived in the region - and I lived through the first Gulf War - that does bring perspective, to some degree," said first-year engineering graduate student and Arab Students Association President Nader Al Ansari. "I think that oftentimes people don't identify war directly with casualties or fear. Here, it's an academic term, a political term."
Al-Ansari, whose shoulders were draped in a traditional Arab koofeya headdress during the walk-out, spent much of his early youth in Bahrain before immigrating to the United States. He said many members of the Arab and Arab-American communities are distrustful of the United States' motives in the Middle East.
Junior Yousuf Al-Bulushi said the United States' diplomacy failures demonstrated the Bush administration's pre-determination to attack and occupy Iraq.
"I believe, and I think a lot of other people believe, that we're not going to war to save the Iraqis. I don't think that has anything to do with it," he said. "I'm 100 percent in support of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, but that needs to come about through a democratic movement within the country."
Al-Bulushi said 12 years of United States-supported sanctions on Iraq have left the nation's middle class economically incapable of deposing Saddam Hussein through popular revolution. Ironically, he said, sanctions against Iraq have helped to maintain the Hussein regime, while causing massive civilian famine and disease.
Among other objections to the Iraqi campaign, Al-Bulushi cited the dangerous precedent of "pre-emptive action" the United States is setting by attacking and removing the leader of a sovereign nation.
"This is setting the precedent that it's okay to attack someone before they attack you," he said. "In the long run, this gives the United States, and anyone who wants to tag along, free reign to put in their own puppet regimes without using diplomatic ties."
Several Arab students also expressed skepticism about the United States' intended post-war efforts to instill democracy in Iraq and restore it to economic stability. Al-Ansari, for example, said he expects American oil interests to conflict with the U.S. promise of implementing democracy in Iraq.
But while some might expect the Arab community to be Duke's loudest anti-war voice, they were hardly unequivocal in their opinions. Indeed, some said American efforts to depose Saddam Hussein while implementing democracy might justify a U.S. military invasion.
"My uncle is from Iraq, and he said that he would be willing to have any kind of process take place for the liberation of the people," said sophomore Mustafa Ben-Halim. "I'm not pro-war, but I'm 'pro-' liberating a country."
Ben-Halim added that he would not be surprised to see American soldiers greeted by Iraqi civilians waving American flags.
"If everything goes to plan and they liberate successfully, the sanctions can be removed," he said, noting that a well-planned American humanitarian effort in Iraq will be a drastic improvement over Hussein's despotic reign.
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