Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1996)
^xhewpoints^^ Former coach teaches lesson before leaving ■ OUR OPINION Charlie Waters puts hts family first in moving to Texas When lacing our own mortality, even materialistic Americans don't usually look back and wish they had made more money or owned a nicer car. We usually wish we had reconciled the relationship with (hat dose relative, had spent more time with the family, or had trealed our friends better Cody Waters. 17-yeor-old son of former Oregon defen sive coordinator Charlie Waters, might not have had the chance to reflect hack on his life for two reasons: He was probably too young to reminisce, and he died sud denlv and mysteriously in his sleep. And his family fa left with aching hearts and many unanswered questions (loach Water* fa leaving the University because hi* family needs him more than our football program doe* Of course we would haver liked him to stay, but the man ha* a bigger job and a higher responsibility In tend to right now. Water*' priorities can be a lesson for all ol us It's terribly bard to lose a loved one. The great irony is that death t«#« he* us so much about the things that are really important in life: Friends and family President gears up to battle timber measure ■ OUR OPINION: Clinton will have lo fight Congress over logging law Every now and then, the government surprise* us all by actually trying to do something right Last .Saturday in Seattle, President Clinton hugged a lot of trees by calling for a retinal of the law he signed last year that allowed thou sands of acres of old growth timber to he cut in our national forest* Clinton signed the provi sion reluctantly, believing that old growth forests would not he harmed by indiscriminate togging Wishful thinking? Thanks to some nasty court decisions that expand provisional law, old growth trews did indeed get ... .. mi timber companies across the nation carle blanche to cut anything and everything they wanted to. We've expe rienced this very phenoroe Iloilo ill ( forests. > h* mmm» M>«il | MW. • M4M I i_JUST MM k I &****•■« -■ _.__j_i_ A _Hj * j Northern Ireland defaced by violence they hove hft u* our fentan dmd and while Ireland holds these grave* Ireland unftee shall never he at peace ~ Wall mural tn the iMthahc district of Belfast. Northern Ireland Fall* Road it the tpine of the moat fat vanity Catholic neighborhood in Belfast The strict Georgian building* that line it road like proclamation* of war “Free Ire land? No More Ulster!” Murals exhort passer*-by to never forget ihe Irish who died on the Easier of 191B Tiled*) in 1U72 when British troops killed 13 Irish ctemonstrator* in Derry is memo rial i rod on the side of a house "Bloody Sun day “ A mile up the road is Mdliown Cemetery, where circular Catholic crosses mark the grave* of tM mm K^puhiii Ari Army's hmistt desd In another culture, there mural* would be considered graffiti In Ireland, they're a public diary Fall* Road, with it* dingy street* and thronx unemployment. 1* the Irish equivalent of an American inner city Violence l* a way of life and if the IRA * refusal to — i . * **> 1 Ml , . ‘ t'Humwi uw won-wp-'icns j* inly ‘htng to go by. violence has taken on a life of its own. Northern Ireland's schism t* a remnant of English imperialism, fed by ethnic difference* between the native Catholic imputation and the colonial Protestant*, and made explosive by cl*** inequality. It has ripened, through decade* of socio-economic friction, into the formula for a gang society The resident* of Fall* Road are mainly work ing class Catholics with large families and small incomes Welfare is a more common source of income than employment Even though job dis crimination ha* been discouraged since the Fair Employment Acts of '76 and 89, and while con flhis are generally avoided in the workplace, a !W statistical analysis makes it dear that the Catholic population still ha* fewer job opportu nities than the Protestant* ("Inequality in Northern Ireland," Smith and Chambers ) A physical wall, called a "peat* line." was erected in 1969 to separate the Catholic and Protestant neighborhood* where the worst of the ethnic attacks occur Northern Ireland ha* one of the lowest crime rate* in the world, yet resi dent* of these districts are reluctant to leave their houses after dark Car-lacking* are tom mon Protestants and Catholics have separate pub* grocery store* and graveyard* (Her the past 26 years of the "Trouble*." they've devel ■ ■ Northern Ireland's schism is a remnant of English imperialism, fed by ethnic differences between the native Catholic population and the colonial Protestants, and made explosive by class inequality. -99 oped separate paramilitary forces with separate agendas In their free time, they shoot, bomb and bum each other's homes, cars and businesses People on both sides have lost friends and family members in the feud More than 2.600 people have been killed over the past 28 years, including more than 1.600 civilians A look at who's doing the killing Is revealing Catholic nationalists within the IRA are routine ly blamed for the violence, especially by the American press But any time it begins to look as though Britain might let Northern Ireland rule itself, nervous Protestant Loyalists start playing the crying game with just as much seal Last year's statistic* from Northern Ireland s constabulary show that the Loyalists account for a majority of the murders in '63 According to the same report, the number of Protestants arrested for terrorist offenses in '93 was 210. versus 122 IRA arrests. When it comes to killing innocent Catholic*, however, no one doe* a better job of it than the Catholics themselves (atholic leader John Hume, writing in 1969. observed that during the recent years at the "Troubles.” 89 percent of the civilians lulled in the name of nationalism were members of the (atholic community. The IRA and Us fellow paramilitary Republicans were responsible for 62 percent of Catholic death* Terrorism without representation is the norm The clearest indication that the violence has gotten out of hand came last Sunday, when tens of thousands of demonstrator* turned out all over the Irish isle to urge the IRA to stop Us killing Even in the extremist atmosphere of Falls Road, signs that read “No more IRA" are just as common as those that read “Down with the crown." That sounds hopeful, but sectarian sentiments are more likely to splinter into new faction* than to disperse Violence treats the grievance, hut it doesn't solve the problem Systemic violence is a symptom of social inequality Northern Ireland ha* analogies all ovm the world The same war is being fought in Bosnia. Algeria. South Africa and Los Angeles These things don't go awsv, and they're never really suppressed Ask any fool Son fa Sherwood, a senior majoring in foumal ism and English, is a columnist for the Emerald Her e-mail it cheen&gladttone uoregon edu
