Lately it has been a frightening experience for me to open this paper to the opinion pages and read the comments and thoughts of my peers at Iowa State.

While it is encouraging to see such a large outpouring of opinions from the campus community, it is unfortunate that so many of the opinions about the hot topics on campus contain misinformed and narrow-minded thoughts.

The most frightening, for me, have been some of the letters to the editor and editorial columns that refer to the hunger strike of Allan Nosworthy, member of The September 29th Movement.

Let me make it known up front that I do not think hunger strikes are the most effective form of protest. However, if a student chooses to use this method, it is certainly his right to do so.

The point at which we crossed the line from educated opinion to foolish ravings was when several letters compared the hunger strike to an act of terrorism.

Let’s start with something simple, say, a definition.

Terrorism is, according to me, an act of extreme violence and force in which people are injured or killed so a certain group can gain attention for its cause.

I’m not making this up. If you don’t believe me, let’s take a look at how the FBI defines terrorism: “Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

In fact, let us put Nosworthy’s terrorist act in perspective with other terrorists by looking at the following dates:

April 19, 1995 — a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. The bomb killed 168 people.

January 31, 1996 — the separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam loaded a truck with explosives and rammed it into the Central Bank in downtown Colombo. The explosion killed 90 people and injured 1,400 others.

February 25, 1996 — a suicide bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem. There were 26 people killed and 80 wounded.

March 3, 1996 — a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device on a bus in Jerusalem. This attack left 19 people dead and six injured.

March 4, 1996 — a suicide bomber detonated an explosive outside a large shopping mall in Tel Aviv. The bomb killed 20 people and injured 75 others.

June 25, 1996 — a large fuel truck exploded outside the U.S. military’s Khubar Towers housing facility near Dharan, Saudi Arabia. The explosion killed 19 people and injured 500.

September 22, 1997 — Allan Nosworthy, member of the September 29th Movement, began a hunger strike to protest what he saw as a lack of commitment to diversity issues by the ISU administration. The hunger strike killed 0 people and hospitalized one.

Hey, do you remember that part of Sesame Street when the Muppets would show you a bunch of objects and sing “One of these things is not like the others” and you had to decide which one did not belong?

Well, most of the above dates are examples of acts of terrorism, but one of them is not. On all but one of these dates extreme, violent acts to gain attention for a cause occurred.

And on one of the above dates an act of nonviolent protesting occurred.

An act of one student questioning authority and expressing his opinion in the form of a hunger strike is not an act of terrorism. It is an act of passion, of protest, but not one of violence.

I believe very much in the right of each person to have an opinion.

I am glad people in this community are getting involved in the events taking place on our campus, but I am ashamed that we are unable to come up with better arguments to disagree with a student on a hunger strike than by resorting to cheap shots such as calling it an act of terrorism or childish play.

All it takes is a gun or a bomb to be a terrorist.

But it takes a great deal of courage to put yourself in the public eye and participate in a nonviolent act of protest.

You have every right in the world to disagree with the Movement, with Nosworthy, with anything you want.

In fact, I encourage disagreement and the expression of differing viewpoints; it lets us see another side of each argument.

Be vocal, be opinionated, but be informed.

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Keesia Wirt is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Panora.

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Information in the article was found on the Terrorism Research Center website.