Posted on 05/07/2004 5:23:16 AM PDT by O.C. - Old Cracker
Who says that the modern American campus is not committed to flying the flag these days? At Cal State's Fullerton campus, so strong is this commitment that it has now sparked a protest from students.
Only one hitch: The flag at the center of this flap belongs to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Perhaps only at a modern California university could plans to include a flag as a symbol of diversity end up being protested by the very students it is meant to represent.
The 80 flags that are supposed to be flown at this month's commencement are meant to represent the homelands from which the school's student body is drawn. Given its proximity to Orange County's Little Saigon--which helps make this campus home to the largest number of students of Vietnamese descent in the nation--such a celebration would be incomplete without a flag from Vietnam.
The only question is: Which Vietnam? The members of the Vietnamese Students Association, reports the Los Angeles Times, argue that the flag at issue does not represent their homeland; it represents the regime their families were forced to flee. And they are threatening to walk out on the graduation ceremonies if the flag from the old Republic of Vietnam--three red bars on a field of yellow (see nearby)--is not flown.
It's not just Cal State. Right now the two municipalities that straddle Little Saigon--Westminster and Garden Grove--are mounting the kind of protest traditionally associated with the left. But instead of declaring themselves nuclear free or unwilling to enforce the Patriot Act, these cities are considering legislation that would make them no-Communist zones. The frank intention is to discourage any outreach to Hanoi, and already the controversy has led the State Department to cancel plans to take one Vietnamese delegation to the area for a goodwill visit. As hawkish as this paper has always been toward both Vietnam and communism, we support trade--largely because we think it among the most effective ways to undermine a totalitarian system. And so we have some sympathy for the Cal State and California municipal officials caught between a U.S. policy and the strong local feelings against it.
We're not for giving Little Saigon a veto over U.S. foreign policy. But surely universities that would be the first to understand African-American students legitimately offended by the flying of a Confederate flag should have no trouble understanding Vietnamese-Americans who hold equally strong sentiments about a Communist flag. And by accommodating those sentiments, we might give any visiting Vietnamese delegations something they are unlikely to see back home: a taste of how we do things in democracies, where authorities are accountable to the people.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Food improved however.
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