USD Magazine, Winter 2002

In the Middle, continuedfrom page 12 stronger ties with Russia, China and India to make sure some stability can be created." Aside from dealing with official Middle Eastern governments, the United States also has vowed to combat the ghost-like terrorists, who have infiltrated the world and quietly slip from one country to the next. To combat terrorism, Stoessinger says the United States military must prepare to fight both types of potential enemies. After the war in Afghanistan, Nasr suggests the United States undertake an effort in the Middle East similar to what · it did in Europe after World War II. The Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, was instrumental in rebuilding the war-torn continent. The United States spent billions restoring European agricultural and industrial pro– ductivity, helping prevent famine and political chaos. "It's not just bricks and mortar or food and medicine," Nasr says. "If the United States can work with other nations of the world to bring the many ethnic groups in Afghanistan together, create a new consti– tution and restore some political stability, it would go a long way toward relieving some of the anti-American sentiment. "If, however, the U.S. reverts to its for– mer, more heavy-handed ways, not much will change," Nasr adds. "The American government has a great challenge that is also a great opportunity to change the way it is perceived in the Middle East. " +

Students, continuedfrompage 16

American Shares Her Love for Afghanistan ·– ~ - . .. ,~ .... \~~~. "-, While traveling around the world for various defense companies in the 1970s, Bonita "Bonni" Chamberlin began working in if~ ",. - ff i'.t~~,f;y Afghanistan and fell in love with the country and its people. Since Sept. 11, Chamberlin, a 1965 graduate of Sacred Heart High - a school run by the order of nuns who founded USD - has been visiting churches and other organizations to discuss her insights into Afghanistan. She will speak from 2 to 3:30 p.m. , May 7, in the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice during a free Invisible University event. "I want Americans to know that people in Afghanistan aren't the bad guys in this situation," Chamberlin says. "I want people to know more about its history, geography, culture, land and people." She also wants Americans to understand that Afghanistan is 150,000 years older than the Uni ted States. T he country was situated at the crossroads of silk routes, and exported cotton seed oil throughout Asia and parts of Europe. Chamberlin's job for companies like Boeing and McDonnel Douglas, which brought her to Afghanistan from 1976 to 1978, was to generate economic develop– ment by cultivating their natural resources. From 1983 to 2000 she returned regularly to assist local tribesmen in Afghanistan with the mining, marketing and sales of gemstones. "When I first went to Afghanistan (in 1976), it was a prosperous, self-sufficient, democratic country," says Chamberlin, whose last trip was in the summer of 2000. "Women had the right to vote and there was equality in education." She said the atmosphere changed when the Soviet Union invaded the country in 1979. Chamberlin, who communicates with friends in Afghanistan via computer si nce the Sept. 11 attack on the United States, says she's anxious to return. "As bombing continues communication is getting more and more difficult," she says. "I just want to make sure my friends are OK."

home in the wake of the bombings. The typical 40 international applications Fontaine receives each winter from stu– dents hoping to transfer to USD for the spring semester have not appeared. Those students already here are worried about traveling home for fear they won't be allowed ro return to the United States. Stanford is among the universities telling its international students to remain here, and Fontaine has been handing out her business card to traveling students in case they are detained by immigration. Students whose visas expire while they are in the United States must have them renewed by the U.S. embassy in their native country. But Fontaine says that process can now take up to five months - the American consulate in Paris, for example, no longer renews visas at the embassy for safety concerns. "My advice to some of them is, don't go home, because now there is no guarantee you will be let in the country, even with a green card," says Fontaine, who says in her 16 years as director of the International Resources Office she has never seen such intensive efforts by the INS. "There are schools whose whole income depends on international students, and they may have to close if they continue to lose students," she says. "Everything is dif– ferent now, and the incredible changes we are expecting are going to have significant impacts."'+'

with a sunburst, similar in shape to a compass, inscribed with the words nonviolence, solidarity, equality and world. "This garden will have meaning to people in many different ways," says Jen Neill, a member of The Environmental Action Group, which leads beach cleanups and recy– cling efforts throughout San Diego. "It's going to be a place for meditation, reflection and conversation. It overlooks the canyon, and when you go there, you can't help but see the beauty and feel the connection to everything. It's going to be a healing place." The garden is funded in part with a donation from A. Steven and Nancy C. Crown, Chicago-area residents whose daughter is a student at USD. Their son worked on the 78th floor of one of the World Trade Center towers and was able to escape from the building unharmed. Next semester, students will remove the non-native ice plant and Argentinean pampas grass that has overrun the area and plant new native vegetation, which will be labeled and used for study by science classes. "We can't all hand deliver care packages to Afghanistan or help clean up at the World Trade Center site," Neill says, "but the physical labor of digging in the dirt and planting new life will be our way to help work toward peace in the future ." - Krystn Shrieve

2S

WI NT ER 2 002