On a lawn, war comes center stage

By Michelle Kunz

Forty five students feigned death in the hope of saving lives Wednesday.

Sprawled on the wet grass between Kenna Hall and the Benson fountain, some withstood cynicism, stares and the rain to raise awareness of mounting casualties in Iraq.

The "die-in," organized by Santa Clarans Involved in Socially Responsible Solutions, sought to give students a visual representation of often-overlooked statistics.

SCISRS is non-partisan club that was formed over the summer to counter the level of political apathy in the Santa Clara community, said founder James Hooper.

"The die-in was an attempt to represent those who have lost their lives" in the conflict, said SCISRS member and participant Josh Sbicca. "The goal is to strike people's minds as well as their hearts."

Paul Fitzgerald, S.J., the group's faculty advisor, stood next to the grass supporting them for over an hour.

"I think on a college campus, and especially at this campus, you have a lot of very intelligent people who are really overwhelmed with information and have very active lives," he said.

"But if we don't do things like this, people tend to put the war further back and not think too much about it. It's really just a way of making it actual again."

Each participant wore a red, black, or white shirt and represented approximately 550 people who have died in Iraq. Three people in red represented American and coalition troops, 10 people in black represented Iraqi security forces, and 32 people in white represented Iraqi civilians.

There have been up to 6,000 Iraqi security fatalities and anywhere from 15,000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilian fatalities. The Associated Press reports that 1,416 members of the U.S. military have also died.

" I feel that the media has done a great job showing American deaths and coalition deaths, and to some degree Iraqi security forces," said Sbicca. "But when it comes to Iraqi civilians there's just no media coverage."

SCISRS is hoping to change that, at least, on the Santa Clara campus.

"I think it's particularly important to remind people what's going on because the election's on Sunday and people aren't going to stop dying once the election happens," Hooper said.

Though some students laughed or made sarcastic comments when seeing die-in participants lying on the ground, others stopped to read the statistics and information posted around the grass or take flyers.

After an hour and a half, junior Heather Campion felt the die-in was a success.

"We didn't say we're for the war or against the war," she said. People were left open to interpret it in the way they wanted to."

Bill Pardee, a visitor to the Santa Clara campus and Vietnam veteran was drawn to the spectacle. He read the posters while his wife, Lyn, took pictures of the students.

"You think if we stop [shooting] then they'll stop?" Pardee said. "It's much better to have people dying over there than to have people dying on your streets."

The point of the die-in, sophomore Tessa Weston said, was not to push a particular agenda, but to show solidarity for the world and to be more connected to the people who have suffered or died.

"We can't let these things happen and not realize the weight of it," Weston said. "There's so much tragedy, so many people are dying in Sudan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine. I think it's heartbreaking. How is this OK?"

"Certainly there are causes worth dying for," Fitzgerald said. "There are causes that the United States or any country needs to commit military forces to, to protect themselves and to promote fundamental values. But there's always a human cost, even in a just war."

Senior Gordon Lai observed the die-in when his class was canceled.

"I wish I were down there too," he said, looking towards the grass. "It's a nice thing to do. It's the right thing to do."