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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 28, 1999)
til 5 Battalion O PINION Page 5 • Monday, June 28, 1999 ^Tunnel vision Qiampus network of underground tunnels would eliminate pedestrian, safety problems ity f ro ,, pittas A&M Uni- '<j th e illversity has be- ^■come, in recent list bar lrs ’ a somewhat tied t friendly place for iihel lestrians. reman Aside from mania- Johnn bicyclists silently came iking, there are stu- ican 1 nt drivers who will rs ma parently go to any rm to get in their kill for the day, de le rou ery drivers who manage to block both iwet," ce ijanes and sidewalks, maintenance • id Ro: ‘ws in their souped-up golf carts. Old l int g„ s With their maroon Cadillacs and fail- Robit ; eyesight and finally, the yearly rains le last it flood campus and leave students wet O'Brii d cold in their classrooms. In addition, A&M has begun gaining a troph mtation as an unsafe place late at wa jht, especially for women. Despite the une orts of the University Police Depart- ?nt (UPD) and especially of the Corps ivake: cort Service, A&M is just not safe at . "I; : ght for pedestrians. There is too much ie i : aunil for UPD to cover, and there are ii over a many bushes and corners around Ant lich the bad guys can hide. And while joy i: e Corps’ service is without fault, many noth idents simply do not make use of it, chant: d suffer the consequences of this over- cknr ;ht. ; an However, there is a solution to these oblems that has the added benefit of -rid, entually paying for itself — the build- Gai g of a series of underground pedestrian e Iv nnels around the campus, nos The idea was already floated in re- ig t iect to linking Main Campus and West it pr ampus and is in the process of final ugh anning. Buoyed by this success, the old niversity should continue linking cam- usar js buildings with tunnels. These tun- :s on: els would benefit students in terms of d’ur- anvenience, comfort and safety. mo Aside from the fact that students will am. no longer be forced to dodge unpre dictable train schedules to get to and from West Campus, tunnels would be much more convenient for students. A dedicated tunnel system would provide clean, clear directions for students searching out spe cific buildings, as well as a fairly idiot- proof method to get them there. In addition to convenience, tunnels would allow students to walk to their classes even if a monsoon is raining down on the ground above — in com fort. These tunnels would be climate- controlled, meaning students would stay warm or cold all day, instead of walking in and out of the heat and cold. This maintenance of temperature is how the tunnels would pay for them selves. Every year, A&M Ipses an untold number of dollars heating, and especially cooling, air that is blown out into the world as doors are opened to the outside. Standing in the breezeway of the MSC during Open House is a guaranteed way to stay cool, since frigid air is gusting out at you on an almost continual basis. By keeping the majority of the stu dents from opening doors to outside every 50 minutes, A&M could save all that heating and cooling money. But, most importantly, the tunnels would be safer.Aside from the fact that access to pedestrian tunnels could be very easily regulated via ID cards, tun nels have the benefit of being covered by video surveillance. Not a purse could be snatched or a student be harassed without the incident being seen, recorded and if necessary, prosecuted. Guaranteed accountability like that has been proven to deter crime. This drop in crime, especially violent crime against women, should be the only justification necessary. The idea, admittedly, sounds a bit loony. Who really wants to build a bunch of tunnels — drafty, damp things that don’t even let the sun in? Drafty? Well, that’s just the air conditioning. Damp, perhaps a bit, but that’s why there is air conditioning. And while these tunnels may be underground, skylights, indirect lighting or even murals can easily cure that defect. Other cities and universities have adopted this plan to ease above-ground traffic and congestion. The cities of Shanghai and London, the University of Waterloo and the University of Illinois- Chicago, are only a few examples. In each of these cases, tunnels have been created to keep pedestrians out of the weather and out of traffic. Thnnels sound crazy, but they may be the sanest way to make A&M safe for pedestrians. Such safety cannot be achieved above the ground. Chris Huffines is a senior speech communication major. Chris HUFFINES leroic villains glorify crime Aaron* MEIER ty’s ne i a retG Friday n 1991, the country sinus iwas introduced to a j to mice little man named t er day'i Hannibal Lecter and L ] riglit hankering for “fava i tl ’ppy Kins and a nice chi- i. ” The Silence of the 0 f stinbs scared the collec- , ms ijiit? bejesus out of the whole i lr Py with Lecter’s vvas juinibalistic quirks and ’chopathic idiocyncracies. However, an unexpected thing happened, tead of Lecter being seen by the public as . tan who is evil, audiences began to glorify nf/li. He became a cult figure. During the 5 IE’s closing scenes, people cheered for the - as he sauntered away to have “dinner ;gres;h an old friend.” King But Anthony Hopkins, who won an Oscar ies Ik his portrayal of Lecter, was quoted in En- team ainment Weekly as not wanting to reprise e in L role due to the fact audiences misunder- iweep od Lecter’s evil nature. He did not want to ” mote the glorification of a monster, ne tt If Hopkins is true to his word, then do not r-ganifp your breath for Robert Harris’ sequel ie fir^elj Hannibal to reach multiplexes across the country. ■,j s laJn Hannibal, Lecter is the hero of the hefliki He’s not a helpful man of evil trapped at ysly behind bars as in Silence. He quite sim- is the character that saves the day, the ma j 0 i| the reader is rooting for. It is a sad day 1 !(! erj the hero of a book walks off into the ’■'r iset and there is a genuine concern he will the people he just saved. But this isn’t some rare example in our !l ture. Violent criminals have been glorified ^ qughout this country’s history, cd- Think of the name Jesse James and peo- r° ad conjure up images of Robin Hood, when kto 1 act, he killed people and robbed banks In fact Robin Hood, A1 Capone and Bonnie and Clyde were all criminals who have been ele vated to an almost mythical stature. When people think of the Untouchables, which character leaps to mind first? The smooth-as-silk Capone, not the stuffy Elliott Ness. Even though the show was about Ness’ attempts to nab the legendary gangster, Capone captured the audience’s imagination. Pop culture makes bad guys look cooler. They get away with stuff normal people only dream about. They ride around in fancy cars, have goons at their beck and call, but most importantly, they literally get away with mur der. But whereas once upon a time, the focus of movies and television shows was getting the bad guy, now bad guys have become the focus of the story. What would a good action movie be without a cool bad guy? Ever since Jack Nicholson took make-up tips from Bozo for Batman, bad guys have been cool. Who cares who’s currently wear ing the Batman cowl? Everyone wants to know who will be the next villain. Try and think of the last cool good guy that appeared in a movie. Even in this spring’s Payback, the trailers encouraged au diences to “cheer for the bad guy. ” And the MTV movie awards have a cate gory for Best Villain, but who cares about Best Good Guy? Is it any wonder that kids are trying to be the bad guys in real life? From Columbine to the elementary school bully who steals the kick ball, kids may be getting the message that being bad is a lot more fun. Rue the day when kids playing cops and robbers would rather be the latter. Next thing you know, they will pretend to be cannibals. Aaron Meier is a senior political science major. Slaves to good intentions Practice of slave redemption in Sudan should stop I n the United States, it was a civil war which broke the iron grip of slavery once and for all. But across the At lantic in Sudan, civil war has instead been responsible for a modern-day out break of slavery. Although its extent is difficult to cal culate, slavery has become widespread in this desperately impoverished coun try. Slave raiders from the north of the sprawling east African country, encour aged by the Islamic government, have taken thousands of villagers into cap tivity from the underdeveloped south ern part of Sudan. Sectional strife has ripped the coun try apart, but on this continent where the pernicious Middle Passage once be gan, the peculiar institution belongs to the north. Aroused by moral outrage. Western ers have mounted impressive cam paigns to combat Sudanese slavery. Unfortunately, these noble efforts have given birth to a new and ignoble prac tice. Organizations like Christian Solidari ty International have spearheaded a movement for “slave redemption.” Slave redeemers have set up exten sive operations to buy slaves from raiders in order to free them. Numerous charities have jumped on the redemption bandwagon, and even some classes of Houston schoolchild ren have organized efforts to raise money to buy slaves. These methods are surely born of good intentions. But good intentions, after all, are sometimes pavement for the road to you-know-where. In the latest issue of Atlantic Month ly, an eyewitness investigation by Richard Miniter explores two practical reasons for opposing slave redemption. When combined with one knock-down philosophical reason for abandoning the movement, these insightful cri tiques should deter well-intentioned Westerners from trying their hands at slave redemption. First, Miniter persuasively proves that slave redemption actually encour ages the spread of slavery. Once slave raiders realize they can turn a substantial profit by selling to naive Westerners, they only try to ac quire more slaves to shuttle off to wealthy redeemers. Already, per capita income in the Sudan is woefully low. According to es timates by the Sudanese embassy, the average is around $500 a year. Because of their utter destitution, slave raiders are desperate to ply their trade. Slave redeemers are happy to oblige. “Selling slaves back to their families for $50 to $100 each — with the finan cial assistance of Westerners — is far more profitable than selling them for about $15 in northern slave markets,” Miniter said. This problem is built into the entire theory of slave redemption. In order to give raiders a financial incentive to re turn from the north to sell slaves into freedom, redeemers must offer a premi um price for those in bondage. “WeVe ma de slavery more profitable than narcotics” — James Jacobson Former slave redeemer But because the prices must be per suasive, they will unfortunately per suade raiders to capture more hapless victims. Slave redemption actually makes slavery more profitable. That realization caused James Ja cobson, one of the earliest and most vocal supporters of slave redemption, to recant his beliefs on the subject. “We’ve made slavery more prof itable than narcotics,” Jacobson said. The second problem with slave re demption is the opportunity for abuse. Northern raiders are not the only par ties in Sudan who have seen the poten tial profit in dealing with Western inter ventionists. Some leaders in southern villages have pulled the wool over the eyes of slave redeemers in order to turn profits of their own. Shady incidents have prompted sus picions about whether slave redemp tion actually works as an incentive for hoaxes. Miniter describes one such scam. Although the majority of rebel officials in the south are honest, some of them have paid their villagers to masquerade as slaves and slave raiders. The officials can then capitalize on the eagerness of humanitarians by selling the “slaves” to unsuspecting re deemers. Because of charades like these, slave redeemers enlarges the po tential for the exploitation of their good intentions. But aside from these two practical pitfalls of slave redemption, one point should be enough to discourage West erners from continuing the practice. Slavery is wrong because it is moral ly reprehensible to buy and sell human beings at a price. Yet this is precisely what slave redeemers are doing. Although they intend to ultimately free their purchases, redeemers are tac itly condoning a commerce in human chattel by doing business with the slave raiders. The only morally consistent stance to take with regard to slavery is an un equivocal rejection of all it stands for. Instead, slave redeemers hope to walk on hot coals without burning their feet. This paradoxical position is not un known to the United States. In the earliest days of the antislavery movement in America, reformers were unevenly split into two camps. On the one hand, abolitionists called for the universal and immediate emancipation of slaves. But an opposing majority wanted slaveholders to have the personal choice to free their slaves, so that emancipation would be achieved by a gradual process rather than by an im mediate abolition. Many proponents of this view authored dramatic manumis sions to free their own slaves, but they did not unconditionally insist that oth ers must follow their lead. Modern-day slave redeemers are much like these half-hearted advocates of personal manumission. But a call for absolute abolition is more morally con sistent. Rather than freeing the Sudan “one slave at a time,” true humanitari ans should lobby international govern ments, including the one in Sudan, to completely wipe away the institution. Without question, American hu manitarians should be actively in volved in the emancipation of Su danese slaves. But they should not be actively in volved in the market for Sudanese slaves. Charitable advocates for Sudan must find another way to break the stranglehold of northern raiders on ter rorized southern villages. For redemp tion ultimately forges more manacles instead of freeing more slaves. Caleb McDaniel is a junior history major. Caleb MCDANIEL
