TCOWI to shift focus after Iraq war

The war on Iraq may have officially ended, but a group of Tufts students and professors is still fighting to oppose the ideals the war represented and broadening its focus to rebuild its presence on campus.

While the Tufts Coalition to Oppose the War on Iraq (TCOWI) continues to draw the support of some members, the organization's visibility has declined since its peak last spring. Today TCOWI -- which is not officially recognized by the University -- has 20 members.

To survive, the group is trying to combat the perception that TCOWI is no longer necessary now that combat has ended in Iraq.

"Part of what we see as our job is to convince people that the war is not over," said physics professor and TCOWI founder Gary Goldstein. "US designs on the Middle East are not over. Nothing has changed."

Declining media, political, and University attention to issues in Iraq, however, have forced TCOWI to adjust its focus to continue making an impact.

"Unless we can enlarge this circle, we're just talking to ourselves," Goldstein said.

Many TCOWI members agree that the organization should expand its current focus on Iraq to a more general protest of American foreign policy.

"I don't think I can remember a time when US foreign policy has been so disastrous," Goldstein said. "Our foreign policy is being controlled by people who want to control all of the Middle East. I find that quite frightening."

Changing the focus would require changing the group's name, and according to Goldstein, the organization hopes to create a name that sounds more approachable and that will generate interest among all types of people. "We want people to come to our events [so we can] explain why we need to get out of Iraq," he said. "We want people who are unsure."

TCOWI hopes to spread its new message and generate student interest by presenting forums in which people can talk about events in Iraq and the world.

"We have multiple motivations [for organizing these events]," chemical engineering professor and TCOWI member Jerry Meldon said. "We want to get interested people involved [in the group], and as educators we want to expose students to these talks and get them to think."

TCOWI began pursuing these goals on Monday, when it presented a lecture by Omar al-Issawi, a co-founder of the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera.

Al-Issawi, described by Meldon as a "guru for international journalists," delivered a lecture on Middle Eastern affairs personal experiences interspersed with his stories from his experience as a member of the Middle Eastern media.

TCOWI organizers said that the lecture's audience would see that Iraq is "part of a larger issue."

More than 200 people attended the lecture, although few members seemed interested in TCOWI.

Marcin Szajda, a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said he knew little about TCOWI. He attended the event because he was "looking for a perspective on the situation in Iraq from an al-Jazeera journalist."

Szadja, like many other attendees, did not sign up to join TCOWI.

TCOWI will continue to push its message by holding several more events this year. On Veterans' Day, veterans of Vietnam and the Iraq wars are scheduled to address students -- which TCOWI hopes will reveal the personal side of conflicts.

"There is a lot of grumbling among soldiers and within the families of soldiers who have returned [from Iraq]," Goldstein said. "There is a lot of discontent among groups."

TCOWI gained publicity and followers last year by holding numerous protests and demonstrations. Following the US declaration of war on Iraq, TCOWI declared a day-long teach-in on March 24.

When former President George H.W. Bush delivered the Fares lecture last spring, the group gained further notoriety. It played a central role in planning an anti-Bush rally and march that culminated in participant arrests after some of the over 200 participants broke through police lines in an attempt to get closer to the lecture venue.