Muleskinner

Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: Opinion

Commentary: Raghvendra Singh [Click to enlarge]

Super Tuesday brings an opportunity to witness history in the making for international UCM students

As the race for the presidential elections picked up steam Super Tuesday, pundits and polls throughout the country analyzed the issues on which different communities, generations and genders tend to base their decisions.

And, as the nation gets closer to the delegate count and the crucial picking up of the nominee's from both political sides, we are beginning to the crucial nature of the young vote in this election, and how it may very well change the history of the United States.

However, there tends to be a substantial portion of the population of students in various universities and colleges in the U.S. which will not directly have their say in the elections because they lack the right to vote. Yet, most of them still have considerably important opinions about the state of the union and the world.

"A lot of people in my own country may not be highly interested in the on-going presidential elections," said Babek Mammadov, a UCM international student from Azerbaijan. "Though I am sure the president of my country, who has long shared close relations with Bush, would be deeply interested in the process."

Kavita Pillai, an English graduate student from India, said it has been a great opportunity to witness the democratic process in one of the largest democracies in the world, second would be India.

"The president of the U.S. is a much larger figure than the leader of the U.S., he is virtually the leader of the free world," Pillai said.

Though the media attention on the presidential elections has helped the international students become involved in the process, the right to vote is something they surely miss.

Mammadov said the right to vote for president shouldn't just be granted to U.S. citizens, but to citizens all over the world.

"The president of the U.S. is like a world leader who makes several important decisions for the world over," Mammadov said. "And so, the right to vote for the U.S. presidential elections should be given to everyone."

Lawrence Chiteri, a theater arts graduate student from Kenya, said he surely would be happy to enjoy some of the other rights, beside the right to vote.

"As an international student, we are bound to be in the limits of our rights," Chiteri said. "So, even if I had the right to vote in the upcoming election, I would have surely exchanged it to enjoy some other privileges."

All in all, even though international students of UCM might not be able to deliver history, they tend to be more than happy to witness this change in history.

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