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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 19, 2005
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| September 9, 2004 |
International Student Report – Tyler Hall
The Iraq-Japan Connection: When Leaders Lead Us the Wrong Way |
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| Tyler Hall plays his trumpet on Peace Boat's front deck |
When Tyler Hall started working as a media relations intern for the Sierra Club in 2003, activism was still a vague label seemingly far away from his life as a University of Minnesota student. But as Hall helped the group pressure car manufacturers to follow up on promises to produce more efficient conventional engines, his experience gave him a real-life look at abstract issues such as environmentalism. What Hall, now a Communications Studies major, took away from this encounter was the degree to which people can change things. "It really showed me how attainable results can be," Hall said. Now 22 years old, Hall was selected as the United States representative in Peace Boat's International Student programme sailing on the 46th voyage. Since his stint as an intern, he has felt the need to speak out "about what makes a true functioning democracy, what are some aspects that are missing from some democracies like the US or Japan." |
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| Global University students Jun Kikuchi (L) and Hall (R) giving a presentation at the United Nations |
Like many US citizens around the world, Hall sees himself and his nationality being increasingly defined recently by the Iraq war. He worries about the self-destructive atmosphere of fear that has been created in the wake of September 11th. "The attack on people who are against the war - that being associated with the anti-war movement as being un-patriotic. That to speak out against the war is to be against your own country," he lamented. By creating a coalition of only the willing in Iraq, Hall thinks the US has set a bad precedent that will have long term negative results. "I think if we decide it's necessary to change another country's government or system, then we have to consult with other countries that have comparable values as us, such as Scandinavian and European countries. And if they all say it's wrong, then it's not the time and place to act alone." Hall believes the war has served not only to distance the US from its friends, but has also delivered a huge blow to the United Nations as a positive moderating force. |
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| Presentation on the United States and the Iraq War |
Attempting to balance out the world's increasing disgust with his country's unilateral and militaristic solutions, Hall focused his Peace Boat presentation on contrasting war promises from the Bush Administration to war realties. Some of the priorities Hall would like to see in Iraq are creating jobs and getting discontented youth back into the more than 200 schools destroyed by war and looters. "Of the 2300 reconstruction projects that my government promised Iraq's people, only 140 have happened. This doesn't only mean aid [un-delivered], but [also] jobs for tens of thousands of Iraqis." |
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| Four of the six International students |
Immediately prior to control of Iraq being handed over to Iraqis, the United State's interim administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer issued 97 edicts that cannot be changed. Hall presented a few of the edicts and analysed their effect on Iraqis. According to Edict 12, there are no customs, taxes or tariffs on goods that come into Iraq. "This means that countries like the US can import cheap goods and sell them below what local merchants can pay - putting them out of business." This edict also deprives the people of benefiting from the revenue generated by taxes. Edict 17 spells out that private contractors working in Iraq have full immunity from Iraqi courts for violations of law - even for dumping toxic chemical or accidentally killing Iraqi civilians. Edict 39 serves to privatize Iraq's industries, opening them up to foreign investors, who can legally own 100 percent of Iraq's utilities and oil infrastructure. "These investors don't need to reinvest in the Iraqi economy or hire Iraqis. They can just outsource employees and send all the money out the country if they want to." Given the state of the Iraqi economy, few Iraqis will be able to purchase these companies until long after the edict runs out, giving foreigners a 40-year license to run their country's most lucrative industry. |
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| Hall looking at notes left behind at the 2.28 Memorial Museum in Taipei, Taiwan |
The cumulative effect of these edicts, coupled with a chronic lack of basic services such as electricity and water, have made the majority of Iraqis cynical. "For hungry, unemployed, poverty-stricken people living under an occupation, resistance is a likelihood." From the evidence he presented, Hall argued "...it's hard not to think we're in Iraq more for oil and money than to liberate the Iraqi people." Despite the Iraq war dominating news in the United States, coverage of international news in general has been decreasing steadily. The war has worsened this situation by pushing out other views and issues of global consequence - with the three largest American networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) spending only 15 minutes in 2003 dedicated to global warming. Research has found that 80 percent of Americans get their news from these networks. "And that's pretty much they're only contact with the outside world. The willingness of corporate media outlets, however, to give legitimacy to the Bush administration's accusations against Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda, has had a big impact. A positive side to all this is that Americans have started looking to other places for information." |
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| Conducting an open session with Peace Boat participants |
This emerging backlash has also taken another outlet, through powerful new civil society and political movements, joined especially by people who are not usually vocal or critical of government. Especially significant is the growing number of soldiers and families of soldiers speaking out against the Bush administration's conduct. "I really respect them because they are writing letters to the president, issuing press releases and getting a lot of heat for it." Hall said that despite the his government's rhetoric, the US doesn't always keep the best interests of everyone in mind when making decisions. "I think people in the US put themselves first too often." Studying the Palestine-Israel conflict alongside students from both sides made him realize the extent to which the US is pro-Israeli, making it a biased mediator for peace in the Middle East. |
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| IS coordinator Yuko Tokuhisa (L) and Hall (R) looking out from Chang Kai-Shek's mausoleum |
Although many in the US complain that people, especially youth, are politically apathetic, Hall doesn't buy into this. He cites recent polls that show 65 percent of young people, a large voting block, want Bush out. The main issue is prodding those strong opinions into action. "The problem is that not enough people my age vote." There is also an ocean change happening among the large aging baby boomer population. "They're not changing their mentality, but they are changing parties, because the war is going badly and they feel Bush in particular has made many bad decisions." Asked by a member of the audience what kind of democracy he considered the United States, Hall replied "I classify American democracy as a damaged democracy, because to have a properly functioning democracy you have to have a properly informed public and we suffered a breakdown a year and a half ago." |
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Resources
MoveOn – www.moveon.org
What I've Learned About US Foreign Policy (Frank Dorrel) – www.addictedtowar.com/dorrel.html
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