UCI students demonstrate against hate

Marisa O’Neil

Students and administrators gathered on campus Thursday to denounce

acts of hate and the destruction of a symbolic wall built by Arab

students.

Members of UC Irvine’s Society of Arab Students used cardboard

boxes last week to build a 6-by-8-foot replica of Israel’s

controversial security barrier. The wall had caution tape,

photographs of the actual wall and quotes from speakers like Malcolm

X on it.

Early May 21, someone torched the wall in what university police

have classified as a hate crime.

“We want to show whoever did this crime -- this hate crime -- that

it won’t silence us,” said Vanessa Zuabi, vice president of the

Society of Arab Students. “Arabs, students, the community, we all

stand united against hate.”

Students with strips of caution tape tied around their arms

chanted “obliterate the hate” and carried signs with anti-hate

slogans like “We are not the enemy, hate is.” Speakers from campus

and Arab and Islamic groups spoke at the peaceful rally.

“The flame that burned the wall has invigorated us to realize we

can never stop fighting for our rights, said Viken Jermakian,

cultural director of the Armenian Student Assn.

That organization felt sympathy for the Arab students’ loss, he

said, because some of their own posters on campus have been ripped

down.

The wall was built in the campus’ Free Speech Zone on Monday and

torched, along with a sign put up by the group, in the early-morning

hours on May 21. Students had university permission to keep it up for

one week.

“It’s hard for someone to put themselves in our shoes,” said

biomedical engineering major Kareem Elsayed, who helped construct the

display. “A lot of us built the wall and it took us a whole day to do

it. It’s just an attempt at intimidation.”

Osama Abuljebain, president of the Society of Arab Students, said

they will work closely with university administrators to find ways to

investigate hate crimes and prevent future ones.

His father, a Palestinian who lived in Kuwait with his family

before moving to the United States, said the hatred behind the

symbolic wall’s destruction made him worry about his son’s safety on

campus.

“I consider it a criminal, hateful act, something I didn’t expect

in America,” said his father, Nader Abuljebain, former president of

the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Orange County

chapter. “That is why we came here, so we could express ourselves.”

Manuel Gomez, vice chancellor for student affairs, said the

university supports free speech and students’ rights to protest, but

not acts of hate or discrimination.

“I hope whoever is responsible for burning the peace wall is not

one of our students and I hope it was not a hate crime,” he said.

The Society of Arab Students is planning to rebuild a “symbolic

statement” but not necessarily a wall, Osama Abuljebain said.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.