Military

DATE=9-18-01

TYPE=ENGLISH FEATURE

NUMBER=7-35296

TITLE=INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS REACT TO TERRORIST ATTACKS

BYLINE=NANCY BEARDSLEY

TELEPHONE=619-1107

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=VICKI SWANEY

CONTENT=

INTRO: On American college campuses, the terrorist attacks on the United States presented special challenges for international students. Some had difficulty imagining a disaster of such huge proportions. For others, the attacks reawakened fears they thought they'd left behind when they came to the United States. VOA's Nancy Beardsley prepared this report:

NARR: Sebastian is a native of Italy currently studying at Michigan State University in East Lansing. When he heard that hijackers had crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he says his response wasn't all that different from other young people on his campus:

TAPE CUT ONE: SEBASTIAN

"My first reaction was obviously one of sadness. I was especially sad for the victims and their families. I am also outraged. And also this must have been in the hearts of many Americans, as I saw my roommates, we pretty much had the same feelings at the beginning."

NARR: Sebastian, who didn't give his last name, also has a special perspective on the attacks. He comes from the Italian city of Trieste, which borders on Croatia in the former Yugoslavia. When he arrived in the United States, he thought he was in a safe place:

TAPE CUT TWO: SEBASTIAN

"This country is relatively isolated, separated by two oceans from the rest of the world, while I come from a country, especially a city, which was close to war areas. I've been during the 90s physically close to war. I have never been in war, and I recall from the 1990s seeing jet planes fly over the Gulf of Trieste. They were flying to Yugoslavia."

NARR: But Sebastian believes even that experience didn't prepare him for the anxiety he feels now. This kind of danger seems closer, he says, although Michigan State is at least a day's drive away from Washington, D.C. and New York. He's one of many international students struggling to understand what happened, and to deal with the fact that they're far from home. Tracy Steen is a graduate student in clinical psychology who helped set up a National Crisis Counseling Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She recalls the reaction the first day of the attack:

TAPE CUT THREE: STEEN

"A lot of international students kept saying, 'Today the borders were closed, what does this mean?' This is something we have to consider with such a large population of international students."

NARR: Some international students also find it hard to comprehend the scale of the disaster, especially at the World Trade Center. A student who'd just arrived from the Bahamas told Tracy Steen he couldn't imagine such huge numbers of people working together in one place, let alone dying. Students from Arab nations face other concerns. Faisal (FI-sal), who also didn't give his last name, has been studying at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. While most of his classmates remain friendly, he says a few have avoided him since the attacks. He feels he can't concentrate on his studies any more, so he's returning home to the United Arab Emirates. He hopes to come back to study in the United States sometime in the future:

TAPE CUT FOUR: FAISAL

"I hope that everything will cool down, and people will understand that not all Arab and Muslim students are responsible for what's going on. We say that what's happened is wrong, and we are not supporting it. We are like all other people around, sad and angry about what's happened."

NARR: American universities are making special efforts to help Arab students like Faisal. Dr. James Etzkorn is director of clinical counseling at the University of Michigan:

TAPE CUT FIVE: ETZKORN

"A number of them were saying that they felt scared, and wanted to make clear that they were as shocked as anyone else. So we're making an effort to reach out especially to those peoples."

NARR: Doctor Etzkorn says the University's Counseling Service plans to meet with leaders of Islamic organizations and work out special programs to meet their needs. These include offering guest speakers or small group counseling. And for all the students at the University of Michigan, he says the Counseling Service is trying to provide a place where they can feel secure expressing their emotions, whether those feelings are fear, anger or sadness.