Don't insult our intelligence By Kamal Sanjakdar --- The Board of Deans' latest decision to censor Outlook is far beyond being an attempt on freedom of speech: it is an insult to the country as a whole. This decision reminded us of the way AUB handled the Kevlin issue: a medley of disrespect and offense to the Lebanese people. We cannot but relate this decision to the University policy of forbidding political activities on campus. Although the University administration distributes clubs among the various student political parties of AUB, it does not recognize those parties as legal entities on campus. This schizophrenic policy manifested itself in 1994 when various political parties formed a follow-up committee to protest against the tuition increase. When the confrontation between the administration and the various political parties reached a critical state, one of the University vice presidents called for the leaders of two political parties to offer them a deal: in exchange for stopping their participation in the movement, they were offered a certain budget that would be given as financial aid to their supporters. I don't want to keep dwelling on our "recent past"; all I am saying is that when the University administration needed political parties, it recognized them de-facto by offering them deals. The same applies to the Faculty Association, which was a necessity for the administration during the war years and which is now an unrecognized institution on campus. The decision to forbid Outlook to identify the affiliations of students to political parties is simply an attempt to stop political activity on campus. It is an attempt to brainwash the AUB students by teaching them to hide behind their fingers and by teaching them to run away from activism and political involvement. They are trying to take away our basic right of association, our right to lobby for the improvement of our University and our country. They are treating us as clients of a corporation. To the administration we are only an ID number or, in other words, a source of income. The Board of Deans doesn't want us to contribute to the reconstruction of Lebanon. They are teaching us the best ways to emigrate, to buy and sell, but not to be patriotic and to feel concerned about all that is going on around us. It is just a colonial decision, that of taking away our right of independence, of freedom of thinking and maturity of action. Just as US foreign policy is based on taking away the rights of people to fight and to lobby for the development of their countries, the latest Board of Deans' decision is aimed at taking away student rights of political action. However one interprets it, this decision is an insult to the Lebanese people. On the other hand, the Outlook bylaws state clearly that the Board of Deans has no authority whatsoever to censor the publication; it has gone beyond its prerogatives in that respect. Furthermore, a year ago, Outlook published a special supplement about student political parties in AUB. It also covers political party debates in nearly every issue, especially during student election periods. Who put the censorship item of Outlook on the agenda of the Board of Deans' meeting of April 26, 2001? Why did the Board debate this old issue about which no student complained? Does any member of the Board have anything personal against our student publication or against any member of its staff? Are all members of the board politically neutral? They might think they can insult the intelligence of the Outlook staff, but the Outlook staff will not, in any case, contribute to insulting the intelligence of 6000 students, 600 faculty members and thousands of alumni. We, the students, are the first affected if the reputation of our University is harmed. We are those whose diplomas are filled out and signed by University officials. We are the ones relying on the University's reputation to build a career. We want to learn how to become citizens and how to lobby for the interests of our country. We want AUB graduates to be citizens and not airheads. We want to stay in this country and build it rather than abandoning it and making it a desert. We won't contribute to the administration's manipulations. We will face every decision we think goes against the interest of the student body and of the Lebanese citizens as a whole. We have the pride to be aware citizens who lobby for the improvement of life in Lebanon. This is the way we want things to be around here.