I
The Battalion
OPINION
Tuesday, October 3,1989
VJuat Should Be Dons lb PeoFte Who Think Those
r N0 FATCHICHS - Bomferstickers Are Fumy...
Let’s count the votei 1
The East Germans are voting.
In the last few weeks, thousands of
East German people, most of them
quite young, have left East Germany
for the west. They have come through
Czechoslovakia and Hungary, mainly
because Hungary has dismantled the
fences along its border with Austria
and told the border guards not to
shoot anyone who tries to pass. So
thousands of East Germans on vaca
tion in Hungary just didn’t go home.
And this week they have been joined
by others. These people are voting
with their feet.
Jeff Farmer
Guest Columnist
Honecker’s people are tired o[ inip 0
tening to his b.s. They have a
leave and they are taking it. A pop IT,',
tion that has dwindled fromovelMc
million in 1949 to less than 17mi
today will be further depleted
who leave are disproportionan
young — East Germany is believe
have the highest proportion ofoliJ
in Europe. These young peop
skilled and educated; they are [
the GDR can ill-afford to lose.
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It is estimated that perhaps 100,000
people will leave East Germany this
year, and perhaps many more. In a
few years, the total could reach half a
million. This is no insignificant drain
on a country with a population of 16.8
million.
There are several lessons for
this. We are reminded to appn
how precious indeed freedom is.
parable of history: you can’t keep; ic |u(
Mail Call
So tired, tired of waiting
EDITOR:
BATCH SUBMITTED, WAITING FOR REPLY. And
waiting, and waiting...
After standing in line for two hours to get football
tickets, I noticed these words flashing on the computer
screen after my ID card was inserted. Then the employee
sat there, waiting for an answer, and this process lasted
about thirty seconds, whereupon I was given my tickets.
Thirty seconds may not seem long, until one considers that
200 people, each with about 10 IDs, had been ahead of me.
Although I’m sure A&M will improve the system in the
next few years, why must we be subjected to a procedure
that is currently not efficiently operable? I thought the
university had learned its lesson a few years ago, when they
forced the students to use a very poor phone registration
system. I might add that the phone process is fine now, but a
few years ago it was ridiculously inept.
The point is, technological progress is great, but it
shouldn’t be utilized until it functions properly. We are
waiting for common sense at A&M. And waiting, and wait
ing...
Pat Fitzpatrick
Graduate student
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff re
serves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to main
tain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include the classifica
tion, address and telephone number of the writer.
The situation of the Germanys is
unique. After WWII, Germany was di
vided between the victors, and the
Russian Zone became the (communist)
German Democratic Republic (GDR),
while the three western zones (those of
Britian, France and the USA) became
the (democratic) Federal Republic of
Germany. For over 40 years East Ger
many has followed Marx, Lenin and
the Soviet brand of communism while
West Germany has followed Britain
and the U.S. into a modern system of
democracy with a mixed economy. It’s
probably the closest thing to a con
trolled experiment in political econ
omy that we will ever see on such a
large scale.
pie down forever. Deny blacks ti
rights, and they will march to
courthouse. Mahatma Ghandi;
Martin Luther King, Jr. are dead
their legacy is the struggle for civil
human rights that today is takingp!
all over the world.
In the final analysis, theonlywa
keep people from being free is tosl
them. “Give me liberty or give
death” is not so much a battlecn
is a statement of political reality. If
don’t let people vote with their hat
they will vote with their money,
mouths, their feet and eventually
their lives.
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The.
Lack of respect for opinion
may cause death of country
There has been a great deal of talk
about the unity at Texas A&M over the
last week. Parts of it have been rea
sonable, while others parts have been
highly colored by prejudice and intol
erance. This is a tired subject that
doesn’t merit any more discussion.
The underlying feature of much dis
cussion actually is the terrible arro
gance and resulting lack of tolerance
for differing outlooks and alternative
solutions.
Adam
Mathieu
Columnist
We can see this attitude in many
areas of our lives. Our government ex
hibits it all the time. Government rhe
toric has created some myths from
which destructive attitudes have re
sulted.
know you have a terrible drinking
problem. But I love you, so I’m going
to let you die without criticizing you.”
process of becoming a second-class
economic power because we are out-
competed in virtually every world mar
ket. We have a nationwide addiction to
drugs and the violence that these
drugs engender, although I must say
that I don’t feel comfortable criticizing
the drug industry too strongly because
it provides some of the only jobs in our
abandoned inner cities. In short, we
have been so mired in talking about
how great we are that we have let that
greatness disappear.
The two Germanys share a common
language, culture and history. Of the
many West German citizens I have met
over the years, there have been few
who do not have family or friends in
the East. West German television sta
tions are situated near the border so
that the East Germans can (illegaly, of
course) watch the broadcasts. East Ger
mans who come west receive resettle
ment aid and automatic citizenship in
the Federal Republic.
The ever-decreasing populate
the GDR serves as a scientific dem
stration of the failure of an idea:
a government can order its citiit
lives better than they can. It’s:
whose time has gone. We shouldIj
that in mind whenever we are temp
to see our government as the sold
to social and economic problems.
A few years ago (in the B.G.da)
fore Gorbachev)^ German friencl
mine told me a joke that was mat |
the rounds over there. It goeslikei
of our lives
is the greatest
We have been told all
that the United States
nation on earth. This statement was al
ways “proved” by the fact that the
United States has saved the world
twice in this century, that we are the
greatest economic and military power
in the world, and we are the most pro
tective of personal freedoms. These
facts can only confirm the belief that
the United States was ordained by God
to run the world.
I realize this is not a perfect analogy,
but it does illustrate certain facts. The
people who supposedly love this coun
try are the ones who now instruct the
dissident “pinkos” to leave. This is
dangerously wrong. Many of the
founders to whom these people refer
were so oppposed to status quo that to
day we would ostracize them, labeling
them “commies.”
I have no problem with American
pride. However, I resent mindless
American bragging. We are no longer
the greatest nation on earth. We are
just another country in a world of
countries. We must begin to respect
different opinions from other coun
tries and from within our own. Other
wise we will all be able to witness how a
world power dies.
From the beginning the outcome
was clear. Only a decade or so after the
war the East German government put
up a fence between the two countries
(around West Berlin the fence is a
wall), and began the barbaric practice
of shooting to death any of their citi
zens who tried to leave. But people
have been leaving anyway: by boat, by
tunnel, by car, day and night, year af
ter year. The numbers were fairly
small, however, and the East German
“Fuehrer,” Erich Honecker (age 77, in
power since 1971) could continue to
exercise absolute control over people
who were forced at gunpoint to stay.
One morning Erich Honecker
up to go to work at his office ini
Berlin. As he drove through thee
he noticed that there were no can
the roads, and no people on the
walks. When he got to the govern®
buildings, they were deserted, too
began to wander around the city
found it to be completely empty
nally, he came to the wall, andsawi
there was a large hole blown
Tacked on a post beside the hole«|
note that said: “Erich — when
come through, please turn out
lights.”
Only recently have some people at
tempted to erode these myths with ac
tual fact and not with demagoguery.
However, when these people speak
they are instructed to leave, “that
Highway 6 runs both ways,” to use a
phrase we all know. -
Not all dissenting opinions are valu
able. However, they all deserve
enough respect that we should at least
listen to them. Many of the nations of
the world have confronted and solved
some of the problems that the United
States faces today, but our blind Amer
ican ignorance prohibits us from lis
tening to them. These solutions are
dismissed because they either come
from “socialist, freedom-hating coun
tries” or from “primitive backwaters.”
As a result, we have missed a great
number of great ideas.
Adam Mathieu is a senior chemis
try major and a columnist for The
Battalion.
Today perestroika is sweeping the
communist world, and Hungary has
dismantled its part of the Iron Cur
tain. But Honecker is of the old school
of communism, and vows not to
change. The wall will
down, he says.
That joke from several years af
becoming reality today. Theresa:
in the wall and the people are
through. Wake up and smell thecol
Erich. It’s way past time to retire.
Your people are voting.
never come
Jeff Farmer is a graduate studet
mathematics and a guest coin' '
for The Battalion.
<£>MEPf HCW9TCT* fWT
This represents the fundamental
problem. Loving something is not re
maining quiet while the loved one dies.
One does not say to one’s parent, “I
I do not even understand this
American arrogance. We are not the
best nation on earth any more for a
large number of reasons. We are in the
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