Since the inception of the War on Terror, deadly missile strikes have become happenstance headlines. We see it on TV everyday – children dying and people crying – and it seems so far away.
But in reality, much of the fuel for the fatal fire is devised right here at home.
The Raytheon Company, a Waltham-based American defense contractor, is the world’s largest missile maker. It provided much of the weaponry needed by the United States to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime resulting in a million dead Iraqis. Northeastern is a breeding ground for these merchants of death.
Since 2002, 304 co-op placements at Raytheon came from Northeastern, according to records released by the university. This year, 62 students had co-ops there. More than a thousand Northeastern alumni are working for the $21 billion company and Raytheon is a stalwart participant in the spring and fall career fairs where they shop for smarts.
The university is also a recipient of large corporate donations from Raytheon. According to the Office of University Advancement, Raytheon gifts to the university were more than $5 million total during the years. Raytheon is listed as on of the top donating corporation on Northeastern’s Leadership Campaign website. In fall 1996, Raytheon had donated $2 million to the building of the Egan Research Center, which houses Northeastern’s Raytheon Amphitheatre.
“In general, we’re proud of our relationship with Raytheon,” Jim Chiavelli, interim university spokesperson said earlier this month. “… We certainly don’t seek, and would not form relationships with unsavory persons or corporations.”
While the school views the collaborative as innocuous, some student activists see it as part of a self-fulfilling prophecy leading to perpetual death and destruction.
“We have grown our entire society off profiteering off war,” said Liam Madden, president of Northeastern Students for Peace. “How do I feel that companies like Raytheon are on campus? It bothers me that Northeastern students don’t see it as a problem at all for their school to have partners with the symptom. The Veterans Memorial is right across from Raytheon Amphitheatre. People have no idea.”
“They basically perpetuate the monster,” he said. “You can’t blame the wolf for doing its thing and hunting sheep and terrorizing the flock. You can’t blame a predator like that. They’re trying to get their talent. They’re trying to get the young minds for fulfilling their research. You can blame the citizenry, the farmers, for not protecting their flock … a society that doesn’t inform them.”
I know I’m probably going to have a bunch of people question my patriotism for writing this column. Nonetheless I can’t stay quiet when my school gives tacit approval to a business that is morally condemnable.
Raytheon’s brand name appears in the community along with local charity and on the college campus. In this way it earns authority. Otherwise, public opinion could backfire and affect business like in Derry, Northern Ireland, where citizens stormed a Raytheon office in August 2006, because of their rage about “bunker-buster” bombs that were sold to the Israeli government and used in a bombing in Lebanon that scalded, crushed and choked 28 innocent people, half of who were children. Or, closer at Boston College, a Jesuit school, where students have organized “pray-ins” to protest when Raytheon arrived for a job fair, the students claiming that Raytheon’s values are an antithesis to that of Jesus.
Northeastern needs to relinquish its financial backing from Raytheon in the same way they divested from business interests in Sudan. I call you to join me in abstaining from donating to Northeastern as alumni until they stand up against United States and Israeli Imperialism, missile, and death.
– Marc Larocque can be reached at comments@huntington-news.com
