Last Sunday night in the Moon Room, a Teach-In entitled ”Why do they hate us so much?” brought together Guilford students, faculty, and guests to share possible reasons for Tuesday’s attack. History professor Ken Gilmore prepared a few words five minutes before the gathering; students spontaneously took the floor and cried out their perspectives; and guests expressed their amazement at the voltage of the Teach-In and the diversity of subjects into which we plunged. Following are various wise words from first part of the Teach-In. This segment gave way to students and guests expressing their knowledge and opinion. If in the course of reading the quotes you feel the urge to start a Teach-In of your own with your roommate, your lab partner, and your neighbor across the way, we can hardly keep you from doing so.

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“I want to caution us not to try to blame the victim for this.” —Gilmore continued to emphasize that the crashes were a tragedy regardless of anger aroused by America. He referred to families with children that lost mother or father in the Towers.

“If these people are Palestinians, they could be considered freedom fighters…There are freedom fighters and all too often they are labeled as terrorists…There is a distinction between the Palestinian cause and Osama bin Laden’s cause.”—Gilmore.

“It used to be that we feared the Syrias and the Libyas…Globalization is a wonderful thing—now we have a thing called transnational terrorism.” —Gilmore

“The sanctions on Iraq are vile and unnecessary and certainly are hurting innocent children.”—Alex Stoesen, previously a Guilford professor, listed atrocities America has committed against various peoples in the last half century.

“The Bush Administration threw up its hands and said, ‘It’s your problem; go fight it out.’”—Stoesen referred to Bush’s call to the military in response to the attacks.

“We created the jihad that now we are fighting…”—Stoesen.
“We supported the Taliban—anti-Soviet, anti-Iran, anti-heroin.”—Stoesen.

“It’s the lack of presence of God in our society that causes these people (the “they” in the title of the Teach In) to hate us…(They ) are not part of any mainstream ideology.” —Stoesen.