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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 1993)
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Jo*»r, wmat\ VACTl-Y OC> Vcu T>o1 ^ J Oo V>.ee f>LAY Ak»y V — ' r ^\ ‘ THE MOSHER INSTITUTE FOR . • \ INTERNATIONAL POLICY STUDIES '/* — p D D U D 5 5 5 L CvJ LO CD O) ■D CO N/Thc Batlalm ,000 students ng communi' ill percentage debt," Secre- a degree are j could bene ng last weel rg 85 percent :o everyone, re the bill, The Battalion Editorial Board Jason Loughman, editor in chief Mark Evans, managing editor Stephanie Pattillo, city editor Dave Thomas, night news editor Mack Harrison, opinion editor Kyle Burnett, sports editor Susan Owen, sports editor Anas Ben-Musa, Aggielife editor Billy Moran, photo editor Editorial Border order Immigration policy ensures safety Last week. President Clinton un veiled a new immigration policy that should go far in helping the United States regain control of its borders and curb the number of ter- wrist incidents here at home. The plan calls for providing addi tional funcling to border patrols, making it harder for people who may pose a security threat to enter the country undetected. In addition, it would speed the process of denying asylum to those people whose requests are found unmerited. "The simple fact is that we must not, and we will not, surrender our borders to those who wish to ex ploit our history of compassion and justice," Clinton said. The State Department would re ceive $45 million to upgrade its database that lists the names of sus pected terrorists and international criminals, people who should not be allowed in the country. Perhaps if this had been done several years ago the World Trade Center bombing could have been prevented. The man who authori ties believe is behind the bombing, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, entered the United States in 1990 and was granted a "green card," or perma nent resident alien status. When the Immigration and Natu ralization Service discovered Rah man's revolutionary background, it tried to deport him. However, the current deportation process is so bogged down that the case is still being tossed around in the courts. Even if the courts do find Rahman deportable, they have yet to consider his request for politi cal asylum, a procedure that cur rently takes at least one year before action is taken. Administration officials contend that under Clinton's proposal Rah man and his followers would have been denied visas and not allowed into the United States to begin with. And if Rahman had come request ing political asylum, the process in volved would be cut to five days. More than half the money needed to fund these proposals would come not from tax increases but from a surcharge on visas and an increase in the immigration inspection fees international travelers pay when they arrive in the United States. In the past year, the United States has seen terrorists bomb its build ings and kill and injure its citizens. It has stood idly by and watched as immigrants continued to flood across its borders unchecked. Clinton's plan offers a viable so lution to regain control over these borders and takes needed steps to ensure the safety of the United States and its people. Songs open windows into the past Slave spirituals carry messages that still apply today S ongs and stories are handed down from generation to genera tion because they tell of a partic ular history. They display the beauty and sufferings of the heritage their ancestors were a part of. This is char acteristic of every group — but par ticularly African-Americans. These songs were of an open, spiri tual nature that spoke of survival and the long enduring hope for freedom. The slave spirituals of old carried hidden messages of dignity and faith that told of a new world they would someday inherit. For instance, the song "Steal Away" states: Steal away, steal away to Jesus! Steal away home, I ain't got long to stay here! My Lord calls me, He calls me by thunder, The trumpet sounds within a my soul, I ain't got long to stay here. Steal away home to Jesus .... In certain ways, the old spirituals were the slaves' efforts to communicate with one another honestly and without fear of being reprimanded by the slave masters. Slaves talked among themselves about a world where justice reined and good people were not punished or kept in chains. They spoke among themselves about the retribution re ceived on judgement day : How all slaves would be grant ed their rewards for the hard, dehumanizing years they spent in bondage while the white master would receive his just punishment for the chains he'd wrapped around their ankles. A perfect example of this belief can be found in "Go Down, Moses When Israel was in Egypt's land Let my people go Oppressed so hard they could not stand, Let my people go Go down, Moses, 'way down in Egyp Hand, Tell ole Pharoah, let my people go. No more shall they in bondage toil Let them come out with Egypt's soil The Lord told Moses what to do Afire by night, a shade by day ... We need not always weep and moan And wear these slavery chains forlorn .... And then, some spirituals were created to praise God for the strength he'd given them to go on. They did not believe that it was the inherent power of their bodies alone that sustained them through 12 to!6 hours each day in the hot sun and the occasional times they were caught without enough food to eat. This back-breaking labor was their cross to bear because if Jesus could bear hardship, so should they: ... He never said a mumbalin word. They nailed him to the tree, And they pierced his side, And the blood came streamin down, He never said a mumbalin word, As he hung his head and died — Be still and know, For he nev>er said a mumbalin word .... The African-American gospel culture is so very rich be cause of the open, real pain and agony displayed by those who created them as a tangible source of hope. The feeling of being a dignified, unjustly punished peo ple in the eyes of their God is deeply enmeshed in the spiri tuals and myths of our ancestors. In spite of the ugliness and debasement the slaves suf fered, they were still able to create a world about them that contained beauty and long lasting hope. These songs and stories were passed on to us as teachers of ourselves and how we came to be. They imparted the ideas that beauty was to be found inside the self, no matter how much ugliness existed in the world. They also taught a wisdom that doesn't come from books, but only from liv ing. And these two things — inner beauty and wisdom — can never be taken away. These spirituals even speak of our lives today, acting as a window through which we look back to see the heritage from where we were borne. They still speak of our hope for freedom and justice centuries later. They still tell us of the beauty within ourselves and give us a spiritual hand we can hold on to in trying times; and the same hand that impels us to reach our aspirations. Only through understanding this aspect of our past can we better understand where we are headed. Jones is a senior psychology major starting spot in unassisted s third on the Closing Mosher Institute means Aggies lose opportunities ke Moulton, iff and most ots. ?g Evans led en but, play- cM's Patrick Pech's Tracy am. yal West has the trenches. t they must iddle of for another Patton," he mge will be cers to show ggest dial- ill be their off against on Bowl on t Wisconsin town to face GUEST COLUMN J. MAURICE BELL T he Mosher In stitute for In ternational Policy Studies is scheduled to close at the end of Au gust. Its loss would be to the detriment of Texas A&M, its students, faculty, former stu dents and the state, of Texas. Ed Mosher established it to give the states of the Southwest a voice in the forma tion of American foreign policy. Its closing would signal the end of this opportunity. The Mosher Institute has affected the policy making process in countless Ways during its short life. Before scheduled arms control negotiations ac tually began, it organized an interna tional symposium on arms control in January 1990 that "saved at least two years of negotiating over false issues" according to Oleg Grinevsky, the Soviet Ambassador to the Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. This past winter it sponsored a con ference in San Antonio on the military's role in the war on drugs in the United States and South America. Government officials from the Pentagon and the Drug Enforcement Agency marveled at the quality and usefulness of the confer ence. Considering that both of these symposiums were held immediately af ter the hectic Christmas-New Year's holiday, the turnouts demonstrated the significance of both conferences. Now the Mosher Institute is plan ning a conference on international and industrial terrorism to be held later this year, provided it is still open. It already has lined up a number of speakers in cluding William Colby, former Director of Central Intelligence, William Ses sions, the former FBI Director, and Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense under President Bush. The conference has taken on added relevance after the April bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and the arrests in June of Muslim militants who allegedly plotted to bomb the United Nations building in New York and assassinate a U.S. Senator. The institute helps the students and faculty of A&M as well. It has worked with the student leaders of Memorial Student Center organizations. The for mer director of the institute. Dr. Ronald Hatchett, especially gave freely of his time and was instrumental in helping bring to A&M distinguished speakers such as Dr. Pavel Palazchenko, personal advisor to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Also, the institute's doors are open to A&M students for research of their choice on military policy, foreign policy, and international trade policy issues. This research is the kind of outside-the- classroom work that is as important a component of a college education as any group of classes a student takes. On a more personal note, the Mosher Institute also serves the former students of A&M. As a Texas Aggie, Class of '89,1 worked in Angola, Zaire, Cabinda and Nigeria and spent time in the Mid dle East and Central America. I have been working as a research as sociate at the Mosher Institute doing po litical analysis on Latin America since November. However, I will leave in Sep tember to begin the Latin American Studies Program at Georgetown Univer sity in Washington. I will pursue an honors certificate in International Busi ness Diplomacy from the Foreign Service School at Georgetown in addition to a Masters Degree in Area Studies. I am very adamant when I say my work at the Mosher Institute was in strumental in Georgetown offering me a slot in their international affairs pro gram. It is one of four schools consid ered to be the best in the world in inter national affairs; the others are Oxford, Cambridge and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The overseas work I did obviously helped, but the work experience under Dr. Hatchett and Dr. Frank Vandiver probably carried the most weight. For this I will be indebted forever to these two gentlemen and the Mosher Institute. Other students and former students will be cut off from the same opportuni ties that were open to me if the institute closes. While it is true that a top busi ness school brings acclaim to a universi ty, it is also true that former students in positions of power in the State Depart ment, the National Security Agency, and the World Bank would benefit Texas A&M. Consider, if you will, that Fred McClure, '72, was on President Bush's staff at the White House and played a key role in bringing the Bush Presidential Library to Texas A&M. Since I began undergraduate school here in 1985, Texas A&M has been turn ing itself into a "world class universi ty." With the Bush Library due to arrive, the school's administration would be re miss in allowing the only international policy institute in the southwest to sink. But it will be the students and former students of Texas A&M who would real ly lose out on the chance they presently have to make their voices heard in the foreign policy of our country. J. Maurice Bell is a research associate with the Mosher Institute for International Policy Studies Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of the editorial board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other Battalion staff members, the Texas A&M student body, regents, administration, faculty or staff. Columns guest columns, and Mail Call items express the opinions of the authors. The Battalion encourages letters to the editor and will print as many as space allows in the Mai! Call section letters must be 300 words or less and include the author's name, class, and phone number. Contact the editor or managing editor for information on submitting guest columns. We reserve the right to edit letters and guest columns for length, style, and accuracy. Letters should be addressed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald /Mail stop 1111 Texas A&M University
