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Monday, November 29, 1982
Daily Nebraskan
Ediforia
Unruly spectators
shame coach, team
The football field was covered with oranges and those
standing .on the sidelines were pelted with them each time
the Nebraska Cornhuskers scored last Friday.
The goal posts were mounted and dismantled by
unruly fans before the game was completed.
A UNL police officer, nailed with a frozen orange, was
required to wear a neck brace for torn ligaments.
A smoke bomb thrown from the southwest corner
of the field after the game burned a hole in the artificial
turf.
Lincoln and Omaha newspapers printed a picture of an
unidentified man lying unconscious on the field, victim
of the "celebration."
The opposing team's coach was trampled by fans,
unable to meet NU Coach Tom Osborne for a traditional
after-the-game handshake.
And Osborne - the man who should have been
enjoying his finest hour after beating the Oklahoma
Sooners 28-24 - was annoyed and embarrassed.
He had every right to be. The fan reaction following
the game was excessive. The obnoxious fans - unfor
tunately, mostly UNL students are being named as cul
. prits - deserve all the critical adjectives being pinned on
them: unsportsmanlike, rude and classless.
The fans deserved the 15-yard penalty imposed by a
game official for unsportsmanlike conduct.
And they deserve the stereotype that' is sure to be
reignited across the nation (thanks to network television)
that Nebraskans are nothing but a bunch of red-clad, football-crazed
hicks.
But Osborne and his Big Eight championship team
don't deserve any of the above. They didn't earn and
shouldn't have had to suffer from the penalty. They
didn't act like country hicks. Their hard-fought win
against the Sooners was anything but classless. And they
certainly didn't deserve to have their victory-of-the-year
overshadowed by a mob of stupid, drunken fans.
Athletic officials are now in the awkward position of
devising a way to protect their players from the fans
during futuret NU-OU showdowns.
The Daily Nebraskan further suggests ihat fans who
pull down and cart away goal posts (i or a loss of S5,000)
be fined, arrested or both, and that those who pelt law
enforcement -officers with oranges - or anything else -be
treated similarly.
This student newspaper would like to take the lead in
apologizing to Osborne and his fine team for Friday's
Big Red bedlam. We optimistically hope that those stu
dents responsible for the melee will come forward with
their own apologies. And, more realistically, we hope our
criticism falls on the right ears and that Friday's after
game show is not repeated.
Editorial policy
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of
the fall 1982 Daily Nebraskan. They are written
by this semester's editor in chief, Patti Gallagher.
Other staff editors write one editorial in her
place each week. Those will carry the author's
name after the final sentence.
Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views
of the university, its employees or the NU Board
of Regents.
The Daily Nebraskan 's publishers are the re
gents, who established the UNL Publications Board
to supervise the daily production of the newspaper.
According to policy set by the regents, the con
tent of the student newspaper lies solely in the
hands of its student editors.
YWfiOTANIBHOVR&lr'IS
F eminism vanes wor
idwide
They sat across the table from me, their dark, friendly
eyes peering at me with disarming frankness. Three
women, students like myself, one studying chemistry,
one computer science, the other biology. The biology
student handed me a photograph.
( f Julia O'Gara
"This is a picture of a friend of mine," she said. "It
was taken while we were in high school, a couple of
years before she was executed."
The woman in the photograph, an Iranian, had come
to the United States shortly before the revolution in
1979. While attending college in Kansas, she became
active in an Iranian student group that opposed the
repressive Iranian government then in power. Concerned
for the safety of her family, the young student went back
home. Shortly after her return, she was arrested in front
of her house and taken away by military guards; her
family was unable to discover her whereabouts for more
than eight months.
They found her, finally, in a prison in Tehran. But
the daughter they remembered bore little resemblance
to the emaciated creature they found at the prison,
weakened by nearly five months of torture and "in
terrogation" and two months of hospitalization.
A short time later, the woman's family was informed
that she had been executed. When her father made in
quiries, he was told his daughter had been "suspected"
of anti-government activities. Apparently, that had been
enough to warrant her arrest and execution.
No charges had ever been filed.
When the father went to the mortuary to pick up
his daughter's body, he saw the bodies of 40 other
young women and men, many of them classmates of his
daughter and her friend, the one who had shown me
the picture.
"She was 24 when she was killed," the young biology
student said, her voice edged with bitterness. She didn't
tell me how her friend died, and I didn't ask. I handed
back the photograph.
What started out as a relatively straightforward column
comparing American feminists and Third World women
had turned suddenly into something quite different.
There is no comparison.
Important concerns for women of the Western world -things
like job discrimination and pay disparity - seem
insignificant compared with the daily murder of political
protesters. Sexual harassment and pornography mean
nothing in a society where 11- and 12-year-old female
political prisoners routinely are raped before being killed
because it is "unlawful" to execute virgins.
The concept of feminism is much different in places
like Iran than in the highly industrialized West. Feminism
goes beyond social concerns, beyond discriminatory
legal practices; it even goes beyond the unequal status
of women and men.
For the Iranian woman, -feminism means something
much more basic than it does for the rest of us: It means
the ability to take part in political and social activities
without fearing for life.
"I think there shouldn't be any difference between
political, social and economic rights for men and women,"
the biology student continued. "But I think equality
comes only from participation in the society. I think
we have proven through our efforts during the Revolut
ion that we can be effective, that we can change the
direction of society."
The changes we American women hope to make in
the direction of our own society are no less important,
but we cannot afford to ignore the struggles of our
Third World sisters. When they hurt, we hurt. We cannot
afford to sit comfortably by while hundreds of thou
sands of women and men are being denied the most
fundamental of human rights: the right to exist without
fear.
The personal is, indeed, the political. If feminism
means nothing else, it should mean this.
Driver drinks, cars collide, lives change forever
This is how it happens.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, a
brother and sister named Robert and
Wendy Muchman drove out to Flossmoor,
111., a suburb of Chicago, to visit their
parents. Robert Muchman, 24, was a law
student at DePaul University; Wendy,
Bob Greene
two years older, was an attorney in
Chicago.
Their parents, Irwin and Beatrice
Muchman, had just returned from a vacat
ion trip to Italy. So the children welcomed
them home. Because their parents were
jired from the trip, Robert and Wendy
left for the drive back downtown early,
around dinner time.
Robert was driving. They were on the
interstate, heading for the city in his
1980 Toyota. They talked easily; unlike
some brothers and sisters, they were
very close and comfortable in each other's
company. Robert worked full time at a
bank; Wendy was proud that he was
able to earn a living while completing law
school. Robert was engaged to be married
in January; the money he was earning
at the bank was being put away to start
his new life.
So Robert drove, and the two of them
talked. It was a normal Sunday dusk in
Chicago, and Robert said, "Oh, my Cod,"
and Wendy saw the other car jumping the
median from the other side of the highway.
Just before the car hit, Wendy could
see the driver. He appeared to be uncon
scious as he slumped over the wheel.
I lis car slammed into Robert's, and when
Wendy opened her eyes she saw that her
brother probably was dead.
He was bleeding from a severe head
wound, and blood was coming from his
mouth. Almost without thinking what
she was doing, Wendy reached inside her
brother's mouth to pull his tongue out;
if there was any chance he was still alive,'
she wanted to make sure he could breathe.
"Robbie," she called. She said his
name again and again. He did not answer.
A Chicago police officer arrived at
the scene of the accident and radioed
for an ambulance. Wendy ran up to a
nearby house and said, "We've been in
a car accident." The owner of the house
let her come inside to use his phone.
She called her parents. She couldn't
allow herself to tell them she thought
Robert was dead, so she said, "There's
been an accident. PL-ase meet us at Rose
land Hospital."
Down on the interstate, a nurse had
stopped to try to help. One of those
terrible city scenarios was taking place;
for some reason no ambulance had res
ponded to the officer's call, and he was
trying again to get some help.
An ambulance finally arrived. Wendy
said to the nurse who had been helping,
"Please . . . please ride with us to the
hospital." The police officer told the
nurse he would take care of her car if she
rode with' Robert, so she said she would.
At the hospital, Wendy saw her mother
waiting by the emergency entrance. She
hurried to move her mother out of the way
so she would not see Robert when he
was carried out of the ambulance. But
Wendy's father was right there when they
carried his son into the emergency room.
He saw his son's face and he slumped
down.
The hospital personnel carried Robert
into a treatment room. Wendy wandered
around the emergency area; she looked
into a room and saw the driver of the
other car. His name was Ronnell Rey
nolds; later, the police would charge him
with reckless homicide and driving under
the influence of alcohol.
Continued on Page 5