To the Editor:

When asked to respond to concerns that McGill's budgetary process is not sufficiently open or inclusive, Principal Shapiro made the following comments, which were quoted in the McGill Daily of January 26 and 29: "The business of students at university is to study. The business of faculty is to teach and do research. I don't think that under the name of democracy, you can usefully meet and sensibly say that the business of students is to create the budget."

While this may seem to be an extremely efficient division of labour from Principal Shapiro's perspective, it doesn't ring quite true. If I understand his meaning correctly, he is saying to us, as students, that it is our business to study. The cost of our study, how that cost is to be paid, whether it is wise or fair to lumber us with punishing burdens of debt to pay for our study -- that is not our business. The issue of whether our fields of study are judged more or less "excellent" or worthy of funding than others, and on what grounds -- that is not our business.

Neither is the issue of whether it is wise to make our study dependent on corporate funding as a substitute for public funding. And the issue of what sort of contribution our study should be making to our society, and whether public good or private profit should be the primary judge of those contributions -- that is most definitely not our business.

They used to say that a good education would help people become thinking, questioning, participating citizens of a democracy. But I suppose that that is not our business here. It most definitely does not appear to be the business of our University.

Paul Beaulieu
Library and Information Studies

To the Editor:

We are writing regarding Daniel McCabe's article in the last issue of the McGill Reporter, "Vanessa Sasson: Peaceful pugilist." The author stated that "in particular, Sasson is fascinated by the ways in which Jews and Tibetans have responded to the horror of their respective genocidal experiences -- the Nazi Holocaust and the mass executions carried out in Tibet by the Chinese invaders." We are shocked that this kind of article was published in the McGill Reporter.

First, to compare the situation of Tibetans in China with the Nazi Holocaust toward Jews is absolutely wrong and extremely ridiculous.

In fact, Tibetans have always kept their language, religion and unique culture. The majority of Chinese and Tibetans have lived in harmony throughout history. Mr. McCabe's comparison is completely inappropriate and could be likened to saying the English Canadians have performed "genocide" on the Québécois in Quebec, which is obviously not the situation.

Tibet has been part of China for more than 500 years. The United Nations and other international organizations recognize this fact. Obviously, the writer of this article lacks basic historical knowledge about China. It is surprising that Ms. Sasson and the author of the article feel that they are suitably qualified to make these statements when they have never even been to Tibet, China and experienced the multicultural society there.

Finally, we strongly suggest that the editor of the McGill Reporter should be more rational in analyzing such sensitive issues before putting them into such a powerful medium.

Yi Yu
Yue-Jin Huang
Ming Xu
Institute of Parasitology, Macdonald Campus

Ed. note: Certainly the term genocide is not one to be used lightly, but it was the word used by Ms. Sasson. She is not the first to use it to describe the treatment of Tibetans by the Chinese government. In 1960, the International Committee of Jurists, a Geneva-based group of eminent judges and lawyers from different countries, accused China of committing genocide in Tibet. The Tibetan government in exile claims that 1.2 million Tibetans died between 1949 and 1979 as a result of Chinese occupation.

The U.S. State Department, the British and German governments and human rights organizations like Asia Watch and Amnesty International have criticized China for torture and repression of Tibetans.