Students commemorate lives lost

As students traveled up Locust Walk in front of Van Pelt Library yesterday, they were confronted by an eerie and powerful scene -- 90 flower-adorned headstones.

The mock graves were set up by Penn for Peace, a group of undergraduate and graduate students. Yesterday's event, which began at 7 a.m. and lasted well into the night, served to commemorate the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as well as the Afghan civilians who have lost their lives in the U.S. military efforts overseas.

"It's a very striking visual reminder of the real costs of war and the costs of revenge," College junior Anna Roberts said. "The gravestones of the World Trade Center victims are here and we now have that many dead Afghanis, if not more, so we have that many more suffering families in the world."

Many members of the activist group said they originally expected criticism and negative feedback from students and other passers-by.

"I was nervous that people would come up to me and [say], 'You guys are terrorists. How much did bin Laden pay you?' or something like that, which people have definitely done in the past," College senior Reshma Mehta said. "But today, people have given us the warmest responses, telling us how this visual presentation is so powerful and so moving and really makes people stop and think."

Other participants in the event said that some students would not want to be confronted with painful reminders of the events of the past seven months.

"We were afraid that people would feel offended, or that they wouldn't want to be reminded of what's going on," Roberts said.

Instead, members of the group found that the unexpected positive feedback greatly outweighed the negative.

"An overwhelming majority of the response has been positive," said soon-to-be Penn Medical School employee Ben Bressman. "There are a few people that have disagreed with us but they've really been in the minority."

Penn for Peace members said they feel that there aren't nearly enough people speaking out against war and violence. Using College Green as a public forum, members of the group voiced their own opinions in an effort to raise awareness of the perils of terrorism and war.

"I think there are a lot of people who feel like there just aren't a lot of voices in the media right now, voices of people speaking out against war and against violence as a means of solving problems," Roberts said.

The activist group hopes voices will be heard by U.S. legislators this Saturday at a protest to be held in Washington, D.C. While raising awareness for their cause yesterday, Penn for Peace members also heavily promoted this weekend's event.

"We've gotten a lot of people who hadn't signed up who are now going," Roberts said.

The events of the day culminated in a candlelight vigil at 9:30 p.m. on College Green.

"It serves as a solemn memorial to the people who were killed as a result of war," Bressman said.

Since Sept. 11, Penn for Peace has held several events to promote peaceful alternatives to violence and war. Educational "teach-ins" have been held in which professors spoke about topics ranging from alternatives to war to what President Bush has called the "axis of evil."

In November, the group set up a tent city on College Green to raise awareness of the consequences of the U.S. retaliation on Afghan civilians and the plight of American workers who were laid off as a result of the economic recession. About 30 students camped out in the tents for several days to promote their cause.

At each Penn for Peace event, the message remains the same.

"I think a lot of people have the notion in their mind that war is a default solution to all of our foreign policy problems," Mehta said. "In fact, it's usually the opposite.... Violence brings terror and more violence and will eventually lead back to political instability and insecurity in the U.S."

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