Taking a stand
By Rachana Dixit, news editor
Posted on September 25, 2006

Instead of crowding into a dining hall for his lunch break, senior Greg Pollock spent two hours of the Thursday afternoon lunch rush walking around, sporting a neon-yellow sandwich board, that said “Burn their effigies in effigy.”

Pollock also held up a small effigy with the word “effigy” written on it in black marker. An effigy, a representation of a specific person, is often burned in protest to another person’s actions.

But Pollock’s effigy, instead of targeting a specific person, was a self-representation.“It stands for itself,” Pollock said.

Recently, Muslims in Pakistan burned an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI in response to the Pope’s speech, in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who had made negative remarks about Islam. Several effigies of President Bush and Osama bin Laden have also been burned since Sept. 11.

Pollock, however, wants people to avoid that way of thinking. “This is my attempt to raise the issue,” he said. 

He said the burning of effigies is centered around the idea of philosophical idealism, in which violence is incited in the name of an idea. But, rituals like these may incite violence between people in the name of an abstract ideal.

“That ritual of violence just perpetuates violence,” Pollock said. “We do that to create a social sense of who we are.”

Instead, Pollock advocated to “look at real people instead of ideas of violence.”

He said he hopes to stage more political interventions like this one before he graduates. Afterward, he said, “I told people I want to be a revolutionary. Either that, or I have to go to grad school.”