Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
Archives
The Daily Gazette
Swarthmore College
Thursday, May 2, 2002
Volume 6, Number 128
See an extensive slideshow of yesterday’s May Day Rally/Fascist
Counterrevolution at
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/daily/specials/commune/.
Our new email address:
daily@swarthmore.edu
Photo of the day:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/daily/photo.html
Today’s issue:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/daily/
NEWS IN BRIEF
1) Previous victim of sexual assault speaks about experience, college’s policy
2) May day rally interrupted by Fascist “counterrevolution”
SPORTS IN BRIEF
WEATHER FORECAST
Today: Cloudy with a good chance of rain and hail. High near 80.
Socialists: living together on Parrish Beach, proclaiming their cause
Tonight: Cloudy. Low near 55.
Fascists: attempting to assert authoritative dictatorship over the
protesting Socialists
Tomorrow: Partly cloudy. Highs in the mid 60s.
Capitalists: sitting in McCabe working towards their first million
TODAY’S SHARPLES MENU
Lunch: chicken and dumplings, buttered noodles, baked tofu, pierogies,
broccoli, cauliflower, Asian bar
Dinner: meat lasagna, garlic breadsticks, vegetable lasagna, sieten
stroganoff, vegetable blend, cut green beans, Caesar bar, ice cream
NEWS REPORT
1) Previous victim of sexual assault speaks about experience, college’s
policy
By Alexis Reedy
Gazette News Reporter
In the light of the December rape of a student on campus recently being
reported to authorities
(http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/daily/archive/spring_2002/20020419.html#n1),
the Gazette conducted this anonymous interview with another student
rape victim to better understand what issues sexual misconduct survivors
face. The Gazette would like to thank Dean of Gender Education Karen Henry
for her aid in setting up the interview.
“When I was a freshman, I went to a party. I was intoxicated and left the
party with someone I had known,” the student told the Gazette. “I left with
him because I trusted him. He said he wanted to show me his dorm room. We
just hung out for a while when all of a sudden, he was all over me. I tried
to fight him, but I gave up and completely froze. I must have passed out.”
Afterwards, the student “talked to my RA and went to Worth and saw Linda
Echols. Linda called Karen Henry. Linda and my RA took me to the hospital,
and Karen met us there.”
“When the hospital was informed of what happened, they told me that they
would have to report it to the police. I didn’t want to report it so we
left. I was checked by Linda in Worth and scheduled an appointment to talk
to Karen. Karen has been extremely supportive”
When asked why she chose not to report the incident, the student said, “I
had a previous experience where I decided to report it. I had to tell my
parents what happened and they had a hard time with it. I wasn’t sure of
what to think. I didn’t know how I felt about it. I just didn’t want to go
through the whole reporting process.”
She added, “People just don’t understand. Female survivors are torn apart in
court. You are asked if you were wearing makeup or tight clothes. They want
to make the advances seem less like rape. It is an empowering experience,
but it is also an extremely difficult and painful experience.”
When asked about the school’s sexual assault policy, which has been under
attack recently
(http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/daily/archive/spring_2002/20020424.html#n2),
the student said, “I think that changing the policy would take away
from the right of the victim to own their experience. I think that the
survivor should have a choice in how they are going to handle their
experience. Victims can shut down, become man haters or learn from the
experience, work to educate those around them, make people aware that it
happens more often than they would think.”
“Even though the administration is getting a lot of heat from this,” she
added, “I think the student body is in more denial than the administration.
People here take it very lightly. I mean, this story has been pretty widely
reported but there are still people that don’t even know what happened.”
“As far as support goes, the administration has the right idea. They provide
a lot of helpful tools for victims, like Survivors of Sexual Misconduct.”
Her advice to the recent victim is, “the most important thing to remember is
that no matter what anyone else says, this is her experience. She has every
right to fight back. She should also realize that no matter what the outcome
of the trial, the assaulter has been changed, scarred because of this. She
should already feel empowered.”
*****
2) May Day rally interrupted by fascist “counterrevolution”
by Jeremy Schifeling
Gazette Section Editor
To those who thought the commune on Parrish Beach marked the absolute
pinnacle of Swat weirdness: you were wrong. On Wednesday afternoon, it got
weirder.
With the commune’s residents (students in the “Socialism in Europe”
political science course) poised to stage a noontime rally on Parrish steps
in support of International Workers’ Day, a fascist militia, clad in black
and armed with water weaponry, broke onto the scene and challenged the
student socialists on both physical and ideological grounds.
The day began peaceably enough however, as the commune-dwellers stood before
the red-bedecked front entrance of Parrish and called upon the gathering of
students and administrators to join them in their class struggle.
“Workers of the world, unite!,” proclaimed Comrade Peter Mohanty ’05.
After the ceremonial playing of “The Internationale,” Prof. Jeffrey Murer,
who teaches the socialism course, gave a short speech, describing the
commune “as a wonderful coming together of theory and practice.”
He also discussed the history of May Day and told the sizeable audience that
though the US is one of the few countries that does not honor its workers on
May 1st, the day’s history is rooted in the Philadelphia area. “Born out of
the struggle for an eight-hour workday,” May Day can be traced back to the
labor strife of Philadelphia carpenters in the early decades of the 19th
Century.
After Murer completed his remarks, the students began to explain their
10-point manifesto to the crowd (you can read the document online at
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/daily/specials/commune/manifesto.html).
As they took turns at the microphone, a mysterious figure burst out of
Parrish, spraying the socialists with a water gun.
Seconds later, a trumpet-blast was heard from the east-side of Parrish,
where a group of students were marching in lock-step towards the rally.
Equipped with Super Soakers and water balloons, the group turned out to be a
contingent of fascist counterrevolutionaries, composed of students from
History 125: Fascist Europe.
The socialists, who had heard rumors of an attack the night before, rushed
out to challenge their ideological adversaries, and a brief aquatic skirmish
ensued.
Once the supply of water balloons had been extinguished however, the
fascists proceeded to invade the commune and create havoc in the camp.
Stealing food and replacing the commune’s red flag with their own fascist
pennant, the militia endured the taunts of their socialist peers.
“That’s alright, the movement is beyond location,” Phil Hoefs ’02 told the
assembled crowd. “They can take our commune, but they can’t take our
movement.”
But the fascists were not finished: as they once again moved towards the
rally, Danny Fink ’03 challenged the commune’s principles. “If you’re
talking about an equal distribution of wealth, why are all the lawn chairs
on your side? Why do you have all the beer?,” exclaimed Fink.
With crowd support growing for the militia, the socialists turned the
microphone over to Matt Rubin ’03, who spoke for the fascists.
“The dirty proletariat has polluted our idyllic arboretum by constructing
urban compounds where there was scenic beach,” hollered Rubin while waving
his trumpet in the air.
“The college is more than the materialistic concerns of individual students
that these Bolsheviks are demanding, and we will not stand for the
deterioration of the purity of gorgeous Swarthmore just to satisfy
unorganized. Our socialism is a Swarthmore socialism, a Fascist socialism,
grounded in the traditions of pastoral beauty and the glorification of the
institution.”
Once Rubin’s fiery oration concluded, his statements were challenged by
Mohanty as promoting violence, racism, and xenophobia. However, as the
fascists once again reassembled to march past the rally, the audience
questioned the disparity between the two groups.
“What makes you different from the fascists?,” asked Allan Friedman ’02. To
which Sharif Bennett ’03 replied, “Intelligence.”
With the fascists out of the picture, the socialists finished their
explanation of the remaining manifesto points. They then concluded the
rally by focusing on their solidarity with student opposition to the rise of
right-wing politics in France and across the world. And as the gathering
came to a close, copies of “The Internationale” were handed out and the
students and Murer led the crowd in a socialist sing-along.
Murer, for his part, was not disappointed by the turn of events. “I think
it was very funny. I am very proud of my students in that they continued
their rally and read their manifesto on which they worked so hard,” said
Murer. “It was in good fun, and my students were forced to respond to the
thesis of fascism… In this sense it was an excellent exercise for the
students. They synthesized the material they learned and engaged it in a
living setting, even if it was in jest. So for all the apparent chaos it
was an excellent pedagogial experience that was not planned, at least on my
part”
Murer’s counterpart, history professor Pieter Judson, who teaches the
fascism course, also denied responsibility for the counterrevolution. But
like Murer, he also saw the demonstration as valuable experiment in praxis,
in that it “gave the students a chance to put into practice some important
points they have studied this semester about the power of mass politics and
the theatrical ways in which fascist movements used crowds.”
While Judson was touched by the playing of “The Internationale” and the
conspicuous display of May Day red, he ultimately came down on the side of
his students, whose political theater was aided by a “focused rhetoric of
unity and a “strong agrarian program that challenged the right of the
commune to expropriate the Adirondack chairs.”
As for the actual culprits behind the fascist takeover, Rubin confessed to
conceiving the idea with David Berger ’04. He approached the fascism course
about carrying out the “putsch” and a counterrevolution was born.
Rubin saw the group’s plan, “coordinated violence directed at Leftists with
the goals of intimidation and shock value” as classic fascism and felt that
his co-conspirators ultimately “won over the masses with our superior
organization and rhetoric,” leading to “a feeling of mass involvement.”
In response to allegations that the fascists appeared similar to their
socialist brethren, William Tran ’03 named a number of uniquely fascist
goals that his group espoused, “including increasing the Swarthmore
birthrate, prioritizing the state over the individual, a focus on
rearmament, and more Wagner.”
“I don’t believe the other party was endorsing any of this,” said Tran.
“Thus, we are different.”
And finally, the socialists had mixed reactions to the fascist invasion of
their rally.
While most had anticipated that the attack would come during the morning,
some actually found the eventual timing to be generally conducive to the
rally.
“Perhaps it went on a little too long, but for the most it was amusing,
attracted attention, and let us denounce the
reactionaries,” said Mohanty.
“We loved it,” said fellow socialist Emiliano Rodriguez ’05. “The fascist
takeover definitely added to the excitement of
the event making it more than
just another Parrish rally. We spent a fair
deal of time studying fascism in
our class and were excited to have a
meeting of ideologies.”
However, Phil Hoefs ’02 was critical of the coinciding of the two events.
“I understand that they wanted to have some fun, but I would have prefered
that they attack us outside the rally,” said Hoefs. “Part of the rally was
to do something for May Day and show solidarity with the causes of
international workers. I would have rather been able to hold our rally
without any drama, [although] it would have been fine if they had attacked
us at night or something like that because it only affects us.”
Still, despite the surprise and the antics of the fascists, the socialists
felt that they ultimately won over the crowd.
“I think we did [win the crowd], we just had more preparation
ideologically,” said Rodriguez. “Besides, red is a better color than
black.”
—————
See the Gazette’s slideshow of the rally:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/daily/specials/commune/index.html
*****
* Israel agreed to end the siege on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s
compound in Ramallah yesterday in exchange for Palestinian, U.S., and
British officials escorting six Palestinians, whom Israel has accused of
assassinating an Israeli minister, from the compound to detention in
Jericho, where they will be supervised by another team of U.S. and British
officials. Giving his first public remarks in a month, Arafat was quick to
condemn the violence that has broken out around the Church of the Nativity
in Bethlehem, the latest wave of which involved flares being set around the
church. “It is not important what happened to me here,” Arafat said. “What
is important is what is happening in the Church of the Nativity. This is a
crime.” Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called off the
mission to investigate the alleged massacre by Israeli forces at the Jenin
refugee camp, citing a failure to meet Israel’s list of conditions.
* In response to Iraq’s anti-aircraft fire, the U.S. bombed air defense
targets in a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, reported U.S. military officials
yesterday. The move prompted further speculation that the U.S. is planning a
military invasion of Iraq to remove president Saddam Husein from power.
Military officials have reported that Husein is actively attempting to build
chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and has begun a large-scale
transfer of anti-aircraft missiles into northern and southern no-fly zones.
Air Force General Richard Myers, however, denied that yesterday’s fire was
indicative of a mounting conflict, explaining that the U.S. and British
warplanes were simply part of “episodic” patrolling of the areas.
* Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, took off
from Long Island yesterday to begin a retracing of his grandfather’s
historic solo non-stop crossing of the Atlantic that took place 75 years
ago. The younger Lindbergh’s single-engine plane, the New Spirit of St.
Louis, took off just after noon on Wednesday and should take about 16 hours
to reach Paris, cruising at about 184 mph, about 80 miles faster than the
original Spirit of St. Louis. Charles Lindbergh’s crossing in 1927 took 33
hours and 29 minutes.
*****
Chemistry Colloquium
Trotter 303, 4:00 p.m.
Music 12 Concert
Lang Concert Hall, 4:00 p.m.
Environmental Studies in Ghana Program: Information Session
Kirby Lecture Hall, 4:00 p.m.
Arboretum Lecture: “Bold Visions for the Garden”
by Richard Hartlage, Director/Curator of the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical
Gardens in Seattle
LPAC Cinema, 7:30 p.m.
Hong Kong Movie Night
SCCS Lounge, 7:30 p.m.
———-
Non-violent Resistance in Palestine: Voices from the International
Solidarity Movement
Friends Meeting House, 7:30 p.m.
The International Solidarity Movement is a group of people from around the
world working to support non-violent resistance to the Occupation of
Palestine. Local ISM activists Josina Manu (Jewish) and Ribhi Mustafa
(Palestinian American) will discuss their experiences working in Bethlehem
in April during the attack by the Israeli military. Sponsored by Forum
for Free Speech, Swarthmore Progressive Action Committee, Why-War?, Muslim
Students’ Association and Jews Against the Occupation.
*****
SPORTS UPDATE
* Allen Iverson again came up huge for the Sixers when they needed him most,
scoring 28 points last night to lead Philly over Boston, 83-81. Despite
making only 9 of 26 shots, Iverson scored the Sixers’ last eight points,
sending their first round playoff series to a decisive Game 5 on Friday. In
the West, Seattle crushed San Antonio, 91-79, to ensure a fifth and final
game in their series. The Spurs were missing both Tim Duncan, who was
attending his father’s funeral, and David Robinson, who was out with a bad
back, while Seattle’s Gary Payton posted his second career playoff
triple-double with 26 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds.
* The NHL conference semifinals kicked off last night with a 6-3 San Jose
victory over Colorado. Teemu Selanne led all scorers with two goals for the
Sharks, who now have a 1-0 lead in the series. The Detroit-St. Louis and
Toronto-Ottawa series begin this evening. Also in the NHL yesterday: Jarome
Iginla (Calgary), Jose Theodore (Montreal), and Patrick Roy (Colorado) were
named finalists for the Hart Trophy – the league’s MVP award.
* 7-foot-5 Yao Ming, reputed by many to be China’s best basketball player
ever, worked out before dozens of NBA scouts and execs in Chicago yesterday.
Ming, who currently plays for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball
Association, is being heavily courted by the league and will likely be
selected in the top 3 in June’s draft after wowing the scouts Wednesday. If
Ming goes first in the draft, he will become the first player with previous
overseas experience to do so.
*****
Today:
There are no contests scheduled for today.
Tomorrow:
Track and field at CC Championships at Ursinus, 2:00 p.m.
*****
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“My shoes aren’t fashion, really. They are just little fleeting moments.”
— Manolo Blahnik
*****
.
Interested in reporting or writing for the Gazette?
Got a news or sports tip for us?
Just want to tell us what you think?
Contact the Editorial Board at
daily@swarthmore.edu
Editorial Board
Section Editors: Karla Gilbride
Pei Pei Liu
Jeremy Schifeling
Online Editor: David Bing
News Reporters: Mary Harrison
Evelyn Khoo
Sanggee Kim
Natacha Pascal
Kent Qian
Alexis Reedy
Chiara Ricciardone
Sportswriters: Muhsin Abdur-Rahman
Shavaugn Lewis
Pat Quinn
Photographer: Casey Reed
World News: Pei Pei Liu
Campus and
World Sports: Jeremy Schifeling
The Daily Gazette is published Monday through Friday by an independent group
of Swarthmore College students. The Daily Gazette Web Site is updated
regularly, as news happens. Technical support from the Swarthmore College
Computer Society is gratefully acknowledged.
Our world news roundup is compiled daily, using a variety of sources, most
notably the Associated Press (www.ap.org),
Reuters (www.reuters.com), CNN
(www.cnn.com), and The New York Times (www.nytimes.com).
Our world sports
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This concludes today’s report.