A mute display pleads for peace
'Reaching for Peace' prompts discussion
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Ellen Jan Kleinerman, Plain Dealer Reporter
Students couldn't help but notice the 115
pairs of combat boots in the center of Cleveland State University's
Atrium this past week. The "Eyes Wide Open" traveling exhibit
drew a number of reactions.
One student pulled out his clarinet Wednesday
morning and played "Amazing Grace," said Kate Lassiter of
the Department of Student Life. "It was beautiful and wonderful
and very moving."
The display by American Friends Service
Committee featured pairs of boots for each Ohio soldier killed in the
Iraq war. It was part of Reaching for Peace week, the brainchild of
student organizers including Jennifer Maudsley, 33, a social work major.
"I felt it was my responsibility to
get the dialogue about peace going," she said, "and that dialogue
has started."
Political science major Eric Crawford,
35, objected to CSU aligning itself with Cleveland Peace Action to put
on an event that he perceived as unbalanced and against the war in Iraq.
"Students on campus are allowed to
do these things, but for CSU to sponsor such an event is illegal and
wrong," Crawford said. He complained to CSU officials but was dissatisfied
with the response, asking him to join the discussion.
"If students want to put on a pro-war
rally, I don't think the university would co-sponsor it without a peace
rally," said Crawford, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard.
The program noted that most participants
were groups against violence. Maudsley said she invited branches of
the military, veterans groups and others to participate, but they either
didn't respond or declined.
"You can't talk peace in America and
not talk about Iraq," said Maudsley, who has family members serving
in that country.
Crawford said that everyone knows military
groups cannot participate in political events and that Reaching for
Peace should have been canceled if organizers knew it was going to be
one-sided.
Lassiter said CSU works with a number of
organizations with specific viewpoints, such as adoption groups and
Planned Parenthood.
"The university is a marketplace for ideas," she said.
Maudsley said she never was approached
by Crawford, but she did talk to three other students upset about the
event. One, at her urging, put together a display supporting the war
in Iraq, and it was placed with the exhibit.
Lassiter said the week of lectures, panels and movies was not centered
on just Iraq. Also included were Buddhist peace practices, the plight
of Ugandan children forced into war and the experience of two women
in Bosnia.
Students in the Rhodes Tower Atrium on
Friday said the boot display made them aware of the weeklong event.
"The first couple of days I walked
by and didn't stop," said Jamal Abuhamdeh, 21, a junior business
major, "until I saw a kid standing by them and crying, and then
I noticed the numbers going up. That made me very sad."
The display showed the number of veterans
killed in Iraq.
Marianne Krull, 21, a senior, said the
boots upset a sorority sister whose relative died in Iraq. Krull didn't
attend any of the lectures because "no speech is going to change
the way I feel." She said the United States should have pulled
out of Iraq after capturing Saddam Hussein.
Sam Jayber, 21, a chemistry major, said
he was moved by the boot display but "once they take them out,
I wonder if people will just forget about it."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
ekleiner@plaind.com, 216-999-4631
Eyes Wide Open at CSU
Student reaction to "Reaching For Peace" exhibit both positive
and negative
By: Amanda Richards
Issue date: 4/17/06 Section: News
CSU Cauldron (Cleveland State University Online Student Newspaper)
Last week, Cleveland State University in conjunction with Cleveland
Peace Action presented "Reaching for Peace," a week-long event
that included guest lectures, panel discussions, movie screenings and
workshops all focused on educating the student body about peace and
conflict.
The focal point of this event was the "Eyes
Wide Open" exhibit, housed in the University Center atrium. The
exhibit consisted of over 150 pairs of boots, each representing a deceased
soldier from the state of Ohio.
The full "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit,
which tours nationally and has been seen by more than 600,000 people
in 60 U.S. cities, displays over 2300 hundred pairs of boots, representing
the death count of all U.S. troops killed since the start of the occupation
in Iraq.
Jennifer Maudsley, Student Chair of the
Reaching for Peace Week Committee, coordinated this display, which also
showcases shoes to represent Iraqi civilians killed (one pair for every
1000 civilians) and a quilt adorned with handmade cloth poppies to represent
those injured in the war.
Maudsley, an undergraduate social work
major, said that the student response to this eye-catching display has
been divided.
"We've gotten a really interesting
mix of both positive and negative," she said. "What was interesting
to me was the positive reactions. They were very
forthcoming, specifically to come and talk to us."
Students who had negative reactions, she
explained, weren't so eager to speak with her.
"The negative reactions…well,
there was a place where you can write down comments. There were one
or two comments there that were negative," she said. "One
of them called us a 'coward…' but we actually see that as a positive
thing. Our whole purpose for this was to illicit discussion…to
create an environment where safe dialogue could take place, specifically
amongst students."
Maudsley described the tremendous effect
that planning this event had on her, calling it "humbling."
She also was somewhat taken aback by her fellow students that came down
to the UC to see the exhibit.
"I'm not a typical student, and because
I'm a little bit older, I tend to see the students around me as kids,"
she said. "But to see the reverence, the humility, the absolute
genuine show of emotion I've seen upstairs, I will never again allow
anyone to tell me that [college students] are part of an apathetic generation."
One specific instances, Maudsley explained,
when CSU students showed their true colors, came in the form of one
student who was sitting at a table in the UC in the morning. As Maudsley
and her fellow volunteer Kate Lassiter set up the boots, the student
took out his clarinet and began to pay "Amazing Grace."
"A part of me was like, go over there
and thank him," Maudsley said. "But then, I was like, no!
He wanted to do that. That was his little testimony to what he saw."
Another memorable part of the "Eyes
Wide Open" exhibit experience for Maudsley was when one CSU student,
who had lost a relative in the war, came down to the display to find
the boots that belonged to her deceased family member.
"That was the hardest part of the
entire week, for me," she explained. "No sleep, no food, running
around like crazy, I can deal with that, but seeing the actual family
members…they've paid the ultimate price. We say it's those who
died, but in reality it's the friends and family they left behind."
Except for five, most of the boots displayed
in the exhibit are tagged with a photo of the deceased, their name,
age and Ohio hometown. Maudsley explained that some families who have
lost loved ones do not want the information disclosed. American Friends
Service Committee, the organization that began the "Eyes Wide Open"
exhibit in March of 2004, respects those families wishes, but still
displays the unmarked boots, because as Maudsley explains, "The
number is still the number. Those soldiers are gone."
Maudsley also expressed her deep gratitude
for CSU faculty, especially the faculty members who turned out for the
exhibit. During one point, when Maudsley was presenting the names of
the deceased soldiers, she described holding back tears while standing
amidst students and faculty alike at the memorial.
" I happened to glance up and saw
that all of the people from the side of the UC come out, and they were
standing outside listening," she said. "That's what we were
hoping for…. To have people take a minute out of their day and
just remember."
Cleveland State University and Cleveland
Peace Action were given special recognition by Congressman Dennis Kucinich
for holding this event.
