INSIDE
Season 52 opens at NorthPark
PAGE 2
‘Skyfall’ is best Bond to date
What GOP must change to win
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PAGE 3
Mustangs prepare for battle
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FRIDAY
NOVEMBER 9, 2012 FRIDAY High 81, Low 61 SATURDAY High 77, Low 64
VOLUME 98 ISSUE 37 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
POLITICS
Courtesy of AP
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushed through reforms in Japan. He was the most popular prime minister in Japanese history.
Koizumi’s reforms
Tower Center hosts conference on Japan
SIDNEY HOLLINGSWORTH/TheDailyCampus
Author Edwin Black spoke about the link between IBM and Hitler’s Germany during World War II Wednesday.
Author links IBM, Holocaust BRETT DAVIS Contributing Writer bdavis@smu.edu Award-winning author Edwin Black spoke on Wednesday about the aid that the Nazis received from International Business Machines (IBM) during the Holocaust. Black spoke to a packed room of over 100 audience members in the Hughes-Trigg ballroom. The smile on his face sharply changed after his introduction as he shed light on a story that IBM would rather not tell. Black’s book, “IBM and the Holocaust,” tells the story of IBM’s direct involvement in six aspects of the Holocaust: identification, expulsion, confiscation of assets, ghettoization, deportation and extermination of the Jewish people in Europe. “IBM did not want this coming up decades later,” Black said.
According to Black, IBM provided Hitler and the Nazis with punch card technology that helped them categorize everything about the Jews, including their occupations, concentration camp sentencing and even their method of death. IBM’s association and business transactions with the Nazis took place from 1933 to 1945, despite the fact that the United States joined World War II late in 1941. The American business was apparently aware of what it was doing and sent workers to service the company’s machines in concentration camps every two weeks. Black had the documents and research to prove it, although not from IBM. “[IBM] made all of their business orally and kept nothing written,” Black said. “Thankfully, the Nazis didn’t trust IBM and
they documented everything.” Black showed many posters that had copies of documents pasted to them. He invited many members of the audience to read highlighted sections and stressed the dates on them. “When it comes to IBM, it was never about anti-Semitism,” Black said. “It was about business.” Rick Halperin, director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program, saw Black’s lecture and topic as a bridge between the past and the present. “It’s easy when you’re in the U.S. to think of World War II and that era as behind us and long gone, but the effects of that tragedy linger on and in many ways. It’s not over,” Halperin said. Black agreed. He fears that another incident like IBM during the Holocaust is not far away.
He believes that there will be another similar event that will take place in the next few years or decades. “I think that IBM should stand up and admit what they did and move on with it,” SMU senior Edward Gray said. But as far as Black is concerned, they never have and never will. Black said that IBM does not have any records or comments on the situation, but the company has also never challenged the allegations that Black has made against them. IBM and the Holocaust can be purchased in paperback for $14. The newest edition contains 32 extra pages that are documents and pictures of signed invoices, meetings with Hitler and letters between IBM and the Nazis.
MILITARY
JONATHAN MACHEMEHL Contributing Writer jmachemehl@smu.edu The John Goodwin Tower Center held the SMU Sun and Star Symposium on Thursday discussing whether reforms in Japan are dead. The symposium featured three panel sessions with a special keynote speaker during lunch. The two-day symposium had about 50 to 60 people in attendance with about 100 people attending the lunch and about 200 attending the kickoff dinner on Wednesday night. The lunch featured former United States Ambassador to Japan John Thomas Schieffer. He reflected on his time as ambassador, under President George W. Bush, working with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as he implemented a number of reforms. The symposium dinner brought in Heizo Takenaka, director of global security research institute and professor of policy management at Keio University. Takenaka is considered the architect for
the Koizumi reform and is a controversial figure in Japan. He spoke about the previous work and current work he is doing with politicians in Japan. The symposium was attended by academics, professionals in the Dallas area and students. “It gave me an interesting perspective Japan on the past six years,” Kevin Matejka, international studies major and director of research committee of Middle Eastern studies, said. The Sun and Star Symposium is held every two years with the last symposium called the China-Japan-U.S. Triangle: Economic and Security Dimensions. The Sun and Star Fund funds the symposiums. The endowment came from a 1996 Sun and Star Festival that raised enough money to fund three donations, one of which came to SMU where SMU matched the donation. M. Diana H. Newton, senior fellow at the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies, was one of the lead planners of the event.
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MIDDLE E AST
Arab Spring needs student voices JANAN BRUSIER Contributing Writer jbrusier@smu.edu
Courtesy of Maguire Center
SMU student military veterans hosted a Toys for Tots drive Wednesday. The group also collected supplies and funds for care packages to send to troops stationed abroad.
SMU honors student veterans DAKOTA TAYLOR Contributing Writer dtaylor@smu.edu Southern Methodist University honored 150 student veterans with a complimentary luncheon and Toys for Tots toy drive on Wednesday in Umphrey Lee’s Martha Proctor Mack Grand Ballroom. The 90-minute luncheon included speakers from both SMU and several branches of the military. Adm. Patrick Walsh of the United States Navy was
the keynote speaker for the luncheon. Walsh, a graduate of Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas and subsequently the U.S. Naval Academy, was commander of the United States Pacific Fleet and the Joint Support Force that responded to the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake that devastated Japan in 2011. “It was a big deal getting Adm. Walsh to speak for our veterans,” Rita Kirk, director of the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics & Public Responsibility,
said. “We really wanted to honor our student veterans and thank them for their service and huge sacrifices.” Kirk explained that the event has been in the planning phase for months and that SMU was extremely excited to finally be honoring its student veterans with the luncheon and celebration. Ken Larson, president of U.S. Military Veterans of SMU, spoke right before the admiral’s
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SMU students are expressing their voices and attempting to increase their knowledge about the Arab Spring. “I’m assuming I don’t know much about it because of the elections, because it’s taking up most of the news coverage,” SMU sophomore Addison Bollin said. Bollin believes that the U.S. is somehow involved in the current events in Egypt, and said that it is important for students to know about whatever America is involved in globally. Bollin believes there are many ways that SMU can educate students about current events in other countries. Bollin said that by having a current events section in the school’s newspaper, creating a university website solely for current events or sending out a daily email blasts, SMU can get students to know about the Middle East. The university teamed up with the Egyptian-American Rule of Law Association, The American Constitution Society and the International Law Students Association to bring Egyptian journalist and scholar Mirette Mabrouk to SMU. Mabrouk spoke to about 25
students on Wednesday, Oct. 31 in Florence Hall. “I’m hopeful, and I remain hopeful [things will change],” Mabrouk said, explaining the situation in her country. Mabrouk said Egypt is still in the process of establishing itself after living in a dictatorship for centuries. After former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was deposed, different people and organizations, like the Liberals, Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, wanted power. Mabrouk explained that many of the religious groups, such as Salafis, pick and choose what they would like to impose on people. She believes that the government should help bring an end to many cultural practices that hold families back. Mabrouk gave an example of families marrying off their teenage daughters to rich men in the Gulf so they can ensure a better life for them. Individuals can’t bring an end to such practices, she said, but the law can. “That [the law] is one of the things the country is currently struggling with,” she said. Mabrouk said many Egyptian families partake in cultural practices that need to be demolished by the government. Laws against unjust cultural practices could provide an opportunity to help enlighten the basic Egyptian man and woman. She sees legal intervention as a way of re-establishing the government
and a fair way of life in the country. Texas Wesleyan School of Law professor Sahar F. Aziz, a member of the Egyptian-American Rule of Law organization, believes that it is important to host such events at universities to help students stay upto-date with news in Egypt and other Arab countries. Arab countries face many issues after the revolution. Aziz said that there are many complexities in the post-revolution phase in Egypt. She believes that Mabrouk has a very sophisticated understanding of the political, economic and social circumstances in Egypt that students should know in order to better interpret the news emerging from the region. “Things are not as black and white as they appear in the media,” Aziz said. The Arab revolts began in Dec. 2010 in Tunisia, followed by Egypt in January and Libya in February. All three countries successfully overthrew their rulers, but still struggle in building democracy. The Syrian revolution began in March 2011, and civilians continue to fight every day in hopes of demolishing the Syrian President Bashar AlAssad’s regime. SMU recently established an SMU Gone Global blog to help educate students about international events, such as the revolts in the Middle East. Visit SMUinternational.wordpress. com to learn more.