“It’s not my thing,” the soft-spoken man said yesterday from behind a cluster of microphones and TV cameras.
“I like to hide myself away in my office with my mathematical formulas. But the situation demands that I be here and speak out against this upcoming war.”
Dilcher joined faculty from other metro universities at a news conference at Saint Mary’s University in urging Ottawa to reject U.S President George W. Bush’s call to arms.
The group compiled a petition, signed by 3,500 professors, students and university staff, demanding the Canadian government oppose military action against Iraq, and continue to seek peaceful means of resolving the conflict.
Dilcher said he felt compelled to speak out because his main goals in teaching and research are to impart to students a sense of integrity and clear, critical thinking, and to work toward the betterment of the human condition.
“Everything we’re hearing out of Washington goes completely against all that,” he said.
NDP MLA Maureen MacDonald accepted the petition on behalf of Halifax MP Alexa McDonough, who will take it to the federal government.
It’s a crucial time for the intellectual community to offer its insights and analysis, MacDonald said.
“I wish George Bush had been in your class,” she quipped to Dilcher. “The calibre of critical thinking is lacking when the American president talks like a four-year-old most of the time.”
The growing anti-war movement is well-informed and analytical, thanks to the Internet and a wide range of alternative media unavailable to war protesters of the past, said Saint Mary’s English professor Gillian Thomas.
People may feel powerless, but “we can still stop it,” said Saint Mary’s sociology professor Wilma van der Veen, who is heartened to see “now, finally … the media is allowing space for voices of peace to be heard.”
Not all local university professors back the lobby effort, van der Veen acknowledged, but a “clear majority” do.
Many will take part in an international “teaching moratorium” on March 5, by holding a one-day walkout in protest, or hosting “teach-ins” which debate war issues instead of a regular class.
The public can show resistance by lowering its daily gas and oil consumption, and attending a community vigil outside Spring Garden Road’s library on the day war is declared, the group said.
mcranston@hfxnews.ca
What academics are doing
Other university faculty peace efforts:
‰ Professors from 87 U.S. law schools have protested Bush’s “illegal” war plans, stating such a move would violate U.S. and international law.
‰ 1,000 historians from 250 U.S. colleges and universities recently urged a halt to war plans.
‰ British academics condemned the idea of war against Iraq, taking out a full-page ad in The Guardian last month.
‰ In November, the Canadian Association of University Teachers issued a position statement on its commitment to “resolving disputes through reason, knowledge and understanding, not violence.”