Experts Advise Us: "Stay Calm"

by Abbi Holtom

Early this morning American soil was attacked. Images of fire, smoke and suffering filled TV screens and words of patriotism and anger came over the radio waves. What has happened here and what will be the response?

In the past attacks on the United States have prompted people to lose sight of their rationality, target ethnic groups as a whole and blame individuals for actions over which they had no control.

Dr. Viktoria Hertling, director of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Peace Studies, is confident that students at Nevada will remain calm and act rationally.

"I have confidence in the wisdom of students to act rationally," Hertling said "Countries cannot be held collectively responsible and we must remember not to condemn people based on ethnic background."

When attacks like this happen people tend to blame people from a certain geographic location, according to Hertling.

"People assume that certain terrorist groups are responsible for these acts, when that is not always true," Hertling said.

Dr. Leonard Weinberg, professor of political science and expert on tearooms hopes people will think before they act.

"I hope there is no reaction against Arabs," Weinberg said. "There is no evidence that the Arabs did this and the whole population should not be held responsible. The best that U.S. citizens can do is to remain calm and don't play Chicken Little like the world is ending."

He said that the people who did this do not pose a threat to our nation in the same way that the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor.

An attack of this magnitude on American soil calls for increased military action, yet Hertling hopes that this will not push us into a more military society.

"My hope is that this will not move us into a more military society," Hertling said. "We need to remain calm and work toward a peaceful solution. There will be a huge push to re-direct our military. I don't believe that military solutions are the best ones."

Hertling believes that a more peaceful approach to this disaster will yield positive results.
"We cannot respond to this disregard of human life by offering to shed more blood," Hertling said. "We need to re-direct our whole way of thinking and not think so confrontational."

Hertling believes that we need to allocate more resources to early detection of problems like this and that when countries have grievances we need to listen to them.

"This is a watershed in the way we look at the world," Hertling said. "We need to make more resources available when something is amiss and prevent it. We need to find more ways to address these threats."