Inform yourselves about the Kosovo conflict

This Sunday, the College will be sponsoring a Teach-In on the War in Yugoslavia. With such a glaring lack of serious student discourse concerning the conflict, it becomes imperative that this event be well attended. If one thing is clear, it is that students must become more knowledgeable about the current war in the Balkans.

There is a diverse collection of experts assembled to explain the history of the Balkans as well as present an overview of the conflict and its repercussions for the United States, Yugoslavia and NATO. More importantly, faculty and students will be on hand to answer questions and tell how to get involved. But why bother getting involved?

For one simple reason: as you are reading this the United States is dropping bombs on another country. No matter what your personal beliefs may be on the conflict, either supporting NATO actions or calling for an end to the bombing, such aggression necessitates involvement and education, pure and simple.

For many students and faculty members this conflict is far more personal than some distant event seen only on CNN. For many of us, we have friends and family members fighting under the flags of the NATO coalition. For some of us, it is our homeland that is being bombed, our families that are assailed around the clock by air-strikes. Think we can remain detached much longer? Maybe we don't need to worry about cruise missiles flying through our dorm windows any minute; but does this mean that we can turn a blind eye to a situation which commands attention?

Take the opportunity this weekend to become educated. Skip the VH1 "Before They Were Stars" marathon and understand why we are spending massive amounts of money on a war that so few of us even understand. It is your responsibility.

Inform yourselves about the Kosovo conflict

The Student Labor Action Coalition worked for over a year to de-sweatshop Oberlin College. While the school was blindly buying products that may have employed child or third-world labor, these students were organizing to build the framework which would allow the college to systematically and intelligently determine which manufacturers produced products while minimally and/or illegally compensating their laborers.

This is a good thing, right? It certainly seems that Oberlin's much-ballyhooed "liberal tradition" would demand that we not reward companies that take advantage of people in poverty. Our actions have caught up with our politics, and we have pledged not to support companies with questionable labor practices.

The new sweatshop policy is certainly an example of students taking a stand on an issue and presenting their points in an intelligent and practical fashion. SLAC provided a clear outline of the criteria the College should follow to determine whether a company should be regarded as employing sweatshop labor.

It's important that the College both be consistent and flexible in the application of these new guidelines. Obviously, if we avow that we won't support big bad companies like Nike, we should do all we can not to outfit the soccer team with swoosh-ed cleats. But, there most likely will be circumstances that may make adherence to the principles of the anti-sweatshop pledge difficult. The College must do all that it can to buy from domestic manufacturers.

One exciting and important point about the new anti-sweatshop pledge is that, while the administration gave its official "stamp of approval" to send it into action, students were really the vehicles that got the movement going. We have the potential to fix the things that we see wrong with college practices, at least in this case. And the administration did listen to student wishes: people from the athletic department, purchasing, an the faculty all came together to listen to what the students were requesting. Finding their claims reasonable and well-thought-out, the great and mysterious OC machine passed the proposal through.

We should take this as an example of how the College staff and the students they supposedly "administrate" can work together to make a plan that's viable and rewarding for both. Hopefully the anti-sweatshop decision will be adhered to and won't lead to insurmountable problems for the various departments.