Gerald Mikkelson has been grilled by colleagues at St. Petersburg State University about why President Bush wants to attack Iraq.

Mikkelson, a Kansas University professor in Russia on a Fulbright grant, said the looming war had made life abroad more difficult.

“Being overseas now is certainly more dangerous and more uncomfortable than it would be if this war in Iraq were not right around the corner,” Mikkelson said. “We are on the spot to justify, or at least explain, policies of our own government with which we may not agree, and which, indeed, we may regard as endangering peace in other parts of the world.”

Mikkelson, who is translating Russian literature to English, is among many KU professors and students abroad who say antiwar sentiment has changed life in other countries.

He said Russians opposed the war for several reasons, including fear that fighting in the Middle East could spill over into Russia, which shares borders with Iran.

“George Bush is extremely unpopular in Russia,” Mikkelson said. “Saddam Hussein is no hero in Russians’ eyes either, although he gets sympathy from older Communists for being the underdog and for standing up to American might.”

Brazilian reaction

Joshua Freeman, chairman of family medicine at the KU School of Medicine, is working on the other side of the world from Mikkelson, but many of the sentiments he’s hearing are the same. Freeman is at Federal University in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to develop a family medicine program there.

“The sentiment seems pretty unanimously against the war,” he said. “There is a lot of hostility to Saddam Hussein, but this seems to be dwarfed by the hostility to George Bush and his aides.”

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He said most people there thought the United States was “arrogant,” there wasn’t enough evidence linking Iraq to terrorism, and terrorism would increase with a war.

Freeman said many Brazilians were telling him their opinions on the war, but he hasn’t felt threatened.

“People are nice to me,” Freeman said. “They just can’t understand how the American people can support such a policy.”

So far, KU’s study abroad programs haven’t undergone any changes, said Lynn Bretz, a KU spokeswoman. She said KU this week would be sending e-mail and letters to current and prospective study abroad students and their parents reminding them of “common sensical” recommendations for Americans studying abroad. Those recommendations include dressing like people in the host country and not participating in political demonstrations.

Safe in Italy

KU officials will monitor State Department travel advisories and make decisions on programs based on that information, Bretz said. There are about 460 KU students in other countries this semester.

“There’s definitely heightened tensions,” Bretz said. “With activity like this going on, you get the feeling it’s more likely for something to happen.”

That hasn’t fazed Carol Holstead, associate professor of journalism, who helps lead KU’s study abroad program in Paderno del Grappa, Italy. The small town is about 35 miles north of Venice.

“We feel safe,” Holstead said. “Being in Paderno is sort of like being in Tonganoxie. It’s small and out of the way.

“But we recognize that traveling in large cities, where terrorists would seem more likely to attack, could be riskier. We have tried everywhere we’ve gone not to draw attention to ourselves because that seemed sensible and because we are guests in another country.”

Holstead said she had noticed more peace flags appearing on Italian buildings.

“I have noticed, too, that Italians tend to paint all Americans with the Bush brush, so to speak,” she said. “They assume that if we are American we support forcefully disarming Iraq. I have found myself trying to explain a few times that I do not support war, and in fact, don’t know a single person who does.”