Students react to tensions in Europe
By SHEILA FLYNN
News Writer
TOLEDO, Spain
As Notre Dame students in study abroad programs traveled across Europe Feb. 15, they encountered massive demonstrations protesting the possibility of U.S. military action in Iraq throughout major cities on the continent.
Students said the protests they encountered were not violent, but were massively attended and vehemently anti-Bush.
"It was packed," said junior Kathryn O'Brien, who witnessed the protests in Toledo, Spain, where she is studying for the year. "I couldn't even walk. I had to push my way through everybody."
Many other Toledo students were in Seville, Spain for protests, where police placed the number of demonstrators at 60,000 and organizers claimed at least twice that amount were in attendance. Sporting "No a la Guerra" stickers and waving a variety of banners either ridiculing or denouncing Bush, the protesters flooded the streets and chanted wildly as the Notre Dame students and many other Americans looked on.
"There were a lot of Americans watching," said sophomore Joe Guintu, who is also spending the year in Toledo. "I didn't feel in danger or anything."
Junior Ali Grobe witnessed the march of over one million people in Rome, where she is studying for the year, and she echoed the same sentiments.
"We've already had a few protests in the months that we have been here," Grobe said. "The marches aren't necessarily anti-American, they are just pro-peace or, at the very most, anti-Bush administration. I mean, we don't run around screaming in English, but I don't feel like I am in a dangerous position when I walk around the city."
Most Notre Dame students studying on the continent agreed that the European feeling was, indeed, anti-war and anti-Bush rather than anti-American. Many students said that while the majority of European residents are strongly against military action, they are still interested in the opinions of the average American.
"People in Germany and Austria always ask me what I think about it," said junior Greg Ruehlmann, who is studying in Innsbruck, Austria. "It has always been a polite and a good exchange."
Other Notre Dame students, however, attributed this good-natured exchange to the non-committal or concurrently anti-war opinions expressed by Americans during conversation.
"Every waiter that we had asked us if we're for the war and if we liked Bush," Toledo student David Yeager said. "I felt like as long as I said I'm against the war, no one would mess with me, but if I would've said anything such as `Well, there are two sides to be considered,' or anything that wasn't extremely anti-war, I would've felt very threatened."
Students in France said anti-war sentiment has extended to anti-American sentiment at times.
"I had a scary experience in a cab the other day with a taxi driver who hates Americans and America," said junior Lisa Bonkowski, who is studying in Paris for the year. "He gave me a 20-minute political lecture and said I should go home tomorrow because otherwise people will harass me, as they should, according to this guy."
All News Stories for Monday, February 24, 2003
