In response to David Hanan’s letter likening UF’s tolerance of the Dove World Outreach Center on campus to tolerance of genocide, I’d like to make a few points.
The members of Dove World Outreach Center spoke in a free-speech zone. If you have a message of intolerance to push, feel free to have a shouting match with some crazies. The rest of us would rather get to class on time than argue with idealogues, but we don’t condone hate.
Genocide still happens and proud citizens of the free United States know it. Despite this, atrocities continue and the death and displacement of millions of people as a result of political violence in Africa is unchecked. Maybe if our government stopped trying to push sanctions on Iran and tried pushing some on the Democratic Republic of Congo, something could be done for these people. As it is however, the West continues to buy coltan (used to make all your cellphones and iPods) from violent warlords and support governments that turn a blind eye to genocide. Lastly I would like to request that UF students stop equating everything to the Holocaust. Neither the Student Alliance Party nor members of the Dove World Outreach Center are Nazis, and we cheapen lessons taught by a dark page in history when we take the Holocaust out of context.
