The Daily Californian » problems

Letters: May 13 – May 20

Letters to the editor — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:00:02 +0000

Challenge commonly held assumptions

As a former member of the People’s Park Community Advisory Board and current university staff, I write in response to Lynn Yu’s piece “Peoples Park Problems” and the general low opinion of these pages for Cal students who serve off-campus communities.

If the staff writers and editorial board respected their peers, who devote thousands of service hours annually, they would seek the opinion of at least one of the more than the 10,600 UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students who engage in public service each year when covering matters such as off-campus poverty, homelessness, education inequity, mass incarceration and other issues of oppression and exploitation.

Instead, we get pieces like that of Yu. She states the park is one of the “biggest headaches for the city” and that she has arrived at this conclusion not by speaking with people in the park but through speaking with students. She then blames the stagnant situation on loud “dissenters” who “cry back.” She proposes “relocating Cal Corps to a new facility there” because “the university continues to expand every year.” She ends by stating she would like a park — but one “that’s actually for the students.”

Several longtime Berkeley residents have made incisive comments on Yu’s opinion piece. Instead of adding to their critique, I would like to distance Cal Corps Public Service Center from her remarks, and share my disappointment in Yu’s and this paper’s general approach to reinforcing rather than challenging commonly held assumptions about those on the wrong side of power and privilege.

When we do get stories of poverty and homelessness among your pages, we find not one interview with a student who is actively confronting this issue in the community. Not one student who is tutoring local youth is cited as a source in stories of the achievement gap in the city of Berkeley. Essays on mass incarceration go without citing one formerly incarcerated Cal student.

These are uninformed opinions with no effort to cover a cocurricular activity that enriches learning and that just about one third of the entire student body participates in. They include minimal to zero interviews with student leaders engaged in public service — as compared with the level of coverage of Cal sports, in which around 1,000 students participate. The exception to this — a piece highlighting Minh Dang’s accomplishments — demonstrates the rule.

As Cal Corps’ assistant director, I encourage Cal students to provide direct material assistance to under-resourced communities. Students find many avenues for providing philanthropy or hands-on direct service. Yet simple volunteerism does nothing to change the system that produces such inequity and is as to social change as memorizing dates in high school is to original scholarship in college.

The Daily Cal’s fellow student leaders excel in their public service pursuits when they facilitate reflective dialogue with their peers — dialogue that questions and problematizes the status quo — in the process often speaking directly with community members to hear their stories. The personal transformations that your peers undergo through this process often leads them to center their social change efforts on the voices and leadership of those most impacted by the injustices cited above.

So why not speak with these students instead of floating (even as “fun” filler) the notion that People’s Park would be a suitable site for the public service center? Your decision to run Yu’s piece demonstrates how far removed you are from the topic about which she writes and is an insult to the UC Berkeley students who live the public service mission of the University of California.

Thousands of students commit large portions of their Cal days seeking to transform power and engage in authentic relationships across differences. These students challenge themselves and their assumptions and have genuine dialogue with the nontraditional, localized working class and working poor leadership of color.

Rather than acknowledge her assumptions about the people who inhabit the park, Yu jumps to a farcical conclusion and one that seeks to cut off at the knees any counter argument by painting those who engage in such arguments as unreasonable. Unfortunately, your writers routinely fail to interrogate their assumptions in the writing process, a failure that reflects poorly on your paper.

From my own practice of coaching students to confront material needs in the short term, while exploring the structural dimensions of their service, I have seen them develop a deeper understanding of the social, political and economic issues that surround us. What will it take for the Daily Cal to take even the first step: to care to pursue these same stories with weight and depth?

— Mike Bishop,
Cal Corps assistant director

A misunderstanding of a clear assertion

In his response to my recent article on the proposed Aquatics Center, Vice Chancellor Wilton alleges that I made “erroneous assertions” about financing for the project. Yet I never claimed (nor presumed) that the proposed Aquatics Center would be financed by the same model as the $153 million Student-Athlete High Performance Center. What I asserted, and continue to assert, is that administrators in Intercollegiate Athletics made false statements to the press and to the university about the level of private donations, with the result that UC Berkeley has had to take on significant debt for IA projects.

In claiming that the Aquatics Center is parallel “in concept” to the Student-Athlete High Performance Center, I referenced their being designed for the exclusive use of Intercollegiate Athletics. In none of the documents I have read has a reason been given that the Aquatics Center should be reserved exclusively for Intercollegiate Athletics.

Vice Chancellor Wilton claims that the project “will serve every member of the campus and neighboring community who use university pools.” He suggests that I am misinformed to think otherwise, but M. Kathryn Scott, the director of UC Berkeley’s physical education department, raises a similar objection: “The details of usage … do not show any benefit of increased or enriched water time to any program other than the Intercollegiate Athletics Water Polo and Swimming and Diving Teams.”

The projects the vice chancellor cites as evidence that capital projects can be and have been devoted to particular campus populations that all “support the academic interests of some of our students and faculty.” The problem here is that a significant piece of Berkeley’s precious real estate would be devoted exclusively to an “auxiliary enterprise” of the university — Intercollegiate Athletics — and therefore, the project does not conform to the principle stated in the 2020 Long Range Development Plan — namely, to “provide the space, technology and infrastructure we require to excel in education, research, and public service.” Nor does it conform to the Southside Plan, designed to meet another of the objectives articulated in the 2020 LRDP: to “provide the housing, access, and services we require to support a vital intellectual community and promote full engagement in campus life.” Indeed, as some have pointed out, by eliminating yet another parking lot, the proposed Aquatics Center makes “full engagement” with campus life more difficult for a great many.
I note the vice chancellor does not discuss at all the rejected possibility that the Aquatics Center be located at Strawberry Canyon, where swimming facilities (in need of upgrade and repair) already exist. The Environmental Impact Report acknowledges that this site “would be the environmentally preferred alternative.”

Vice Chancellor Wilton misunderstands my remarks about Berkeley’s crumbling bricks and mortar. These remarks were an attempt to alert the Berkeley community to the deleterious effects of declining state investment in public education. I do not dispute that the administration has worked hard — even heroically — to minimize these effects. What I wished to point out is that the decline in state support for public education makes it a target for venture capitalists. Just as impoverished neighborhoods become investment magnets for developers (without benefiting the residents, often displaced by gentrification), I am suggesting, the land granted by the state for the education of its citizens is increasingly vulnerable for exploitation. In this case, it seems to me that the will of private donors is sufficient to subvert the expressed will of UC Berkeley with regard to the development of available space.

— Celeste Langan,
UC Berkeley associate professor of English

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Water rights

Rebecca Peters — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:00:26 +0000

The lack of access to water in unstable developing countries is an international security threat. Although the United Nations declared 2013 as the “International Year of Water Cooperation,” solutions to international water issues will not be met unless the global north directs foreign aid dollars to improve reliable access water, sanitation, and hygiene. Contrary to persistent beliefs, such aid has substantial international security bases.

Aid systems and development policy must support a system that is responsive to complex community-level needs because the labyrinth of water, sanitation and hygiene issues exists at the confluence of health, education and equity problems. Root causes of global economic and political instability are linked to poverty, inequality and unemployment. The rapid rise in global poverty has accompanied the rise of international security threats since the Cold War, according to anthropologist of development professor Akhil Gupta of the University of California, Los Angeles. Achieving human security in developing countries is paramount for reducing international security threats and goes beyond simply the absence of violent conflict — it means establishing basic access to essential services like water, sanitation and hygiene. The many competing human uses for water — personal consumption, agriculture, industry, and sanitation systems — combined with the lack of sufficient infrastructure in developing countries means that natural water systems (rivers, aquifers, streams and rainfall) cannot be abstracted from discussions of human and international security.

The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report found that people suffering from waterborne illnesses occupy over half of all hospital beds globally. Pathogens from dirty water result in diarrhea which still remains the leading killer of children younger than 5 years old — 1.8 million a year, or about 4,900 per day. Water-related illness alone causes 443 million missed school days per year. This means that for other development improvements to be met — including improving universal achievement of primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and eradicating extreme poverty and hunger – water, sanitation, and hygiene must be prioritized in the global policy and aid agenda.

While empirical data regarding the impact of aid on economic growth is mixed, the overall positive effects of aid specifically directed to the water sector are clear. A 2010 article in the Journal of Global Health used a country-level analysis to determine the relationship between official development assistance and improvements in access to water and sanitation. The results of this inquiry into aid effectiveness since the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 shows that countries receiving official assistance are 4 to 18 times more likely to have access to improved water supply than countries without assistance. Furthermore, countries with the greatest gains in sanitation were up to nine times as likely to have greater reductions in infant and child mortality.

Although aid is not a panacea for the many complex problems plaguing developing countries, cutting aid for water and sanitation programs would cause significant harm. As the United Nations Security Council suggests, water security takes on a double meaning: It describes both sustainable access to the resource, and the absence of water as a contributor to conflict. Although the global community met the Millennium Development Goal target for safe drinking water, the World Health Organization found that 800 million people are still without clean water and 2 billion without basic sanitation. The momentum to increase access to safe drinking water and improve sanitation in water stressed countries cannot be lost now.

According to Stratfor, a global intelligence agency, Egypt has renewed threats to militarily engage in the event that Ethiopia continues plans to build a dam on the Nile. This example is an indicator for a larger looming security crisis according to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who conveyed the findings of a Defense Intelligence Agency report this September at the United Nations roundtable on water security. Clinton warned that “demand for water will go up, but our fresh water supplies will not keep pace,” increasing the threat of instability within and between states.

Criticism about the infusion of aid to the transitional governments in the unstable regions is not unfounded, but reducing or blocking aid to water stressed countries could heighten tensions rooted in anxiety over reliable access to water. Middle Eastern and North African countries continue to be the worst off in terms of human and economic development indicators, including access to water and sanitation. USAID recently reported that only 27 percent of Afghanis have access to safe drinking water, and 12 percent to adequate sanitation, while two-thirds of water is lost through decrepit infrastructure. Aid directed at improving infrastructure in neglected areas for water and sanitation could significantly improve health, education and human security in such regions.

The BBC estimates that for developed countries and Brazil, Russia, India and China alone, “$800 billion per year will be required by 2015 to cover investments in water infrastructure, a target likely to go unmet.” According to a recent Guardian Global Development article, the developing world will be home to 29 megacities with more than 10 million residents by 2025; therefore, improving infrastructure in these areas to meet the growing demand for water will be crucial. As rainfall becomes more unpredictable and devastating floods continue as a consequence of global climate change, directed aid could reduce conflict in water-stressed countries that are politically and economically volatile.

There are many ways that Cal students can engage with critical water issues. UC Berkeley is transforming into a hub for water-based community engaged research, advocacy, and activism. A number of DeCals all offer opportunities for students. The Berkeley Water Group is a student-driven think tank and research collaborative aiming to nurture ideas and innovation. Many research opportunities, particularly though the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship program, are beginning to focus more water, health and environmental issues.

Whether students work domestically or abroad on water issues, any solutions must be tied to the environmental, economic, social and cultural realities.

In a world with more cell-phones than toilets, improving access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene is both a strategic investment and a moral imperative. The post-9/11 world forces a re-examination of the relationship between human security and global poverty. Development policy changes in the global north, rather than charity, that prioritize water, sanitation and hygiene will contribute to healthy people, thriving ecosystems and sustainable economies in the future. International security necessitates meeting the basic needs of those in developing countries, especially the most basic resource to sustain life: water.
Rebecca Peters is a junior at UC Berkeley and a 2013 Truman and Udall Scholar.

Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Champagne problems: the hamster race

Margaret Perry — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:01:56 +0000

If you have begun to read this column expecting to hear the tragic tale of a student’s addiction to Dom Perignon, read no further. I won’t be discussing anything near as serious a problem. I’m actually going to talk about hamsters. In this university environment of privilege and opportunity, we all have “champagne problems.” Also known as “first-world problems.” If you’ve ever been very thirsty but too lazy to go and get yourself a glass of juice, dropped your iPhone on your face or moaned about not being able to afford tickets to Coachella, you’ve got champagne problems too.The severity of our problems can be measured by degrees of comparison. By virtually all measures of comparison, I have a wonderful, problem-free life. But out of this bliss comes the ultimate middle-class problem in all its glory. I have a deathly fear of being average.When I graduate, I’d like to do something extraordinary with my life. Sure, I want to check off all the usual societal markers of success — good grades, a fruitful career, your own home and a partner and family to share it all with. But I also want to excel in my chosen field and distinguish myself; to be somebody, to use a cliché.Sometimes when I think about how I can get to this mythical extraordinary place of my distinguished and successful future, my path seems clear, illuminated like the lights along the aisles in an airplane bound for take-off. But other times, the plunging fear that I will fall short of my own expectations of myself, that the life I lead will be “inadequate,” looms large in my mind.I think that this is a fear that many people share, especially among the high-achieving students of Cal. I adore university in general, and Berkeley especially. But sometimes being in the university system makes me feel like a hamster.

To get here, we all distinguished ourselves in high school in one way or another. We ran a bit faster than some of the other hamsters in the bubble of our small hamster ball. Now suddenly we’ve been thrust unceremoniously into a much larger ball in which there are way more hamsters all trying to outrun each other, and the sides of the ball are so much steeper and really quite slippery, and our four tiny feet suddenly seem much too small to ever climb to the top.

Suddenly, we need to battle harder to stand out, to grow longer legs or bigger feet, and the fear of failure, or what we perceive to equate to failure, becomes more real. Because just by being here, we’ve all already succeeded. But as the stakes get higher, so do our expectations. And so does the fear of failing our families, our society and above all, ourselves.

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all.” So said J.K. Rowling in her commencement speech to the Harvard Class of 2008. Standing before hundreds of new graduates from the most highly ranked university in the world, she spoke not of the importance of the success of your hopes and dreams, but of their failure. She explained that there is a sense of freedom in failing, in knowing that your worst fear has been realised and yet you are still alive. The strength of your rise back to the top comes from knowing you’ve survived the fall.

J.K. Rowling wanted one thing all her life — to write novels. Her parents wanted her to have a stable career and never to have to live in poverty. Seven years after she graduated from university with honors, she was an unemployed single mother. Both her own and her parents’ worst fears for her life had been realised. And so from the bedrock of abject failure, she began to write Harry Potter and gradually rebuilt her life into the success story it has become today.

I doubt any of the Harvard graduates who sat before her in awed silence walked away from their commencement with a strong desire to fail in life so they could grow stronger through adversity. Most people want to make something of themselves. The race for success is timeless — “I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody,” said the character Franny in J.D. Salinger’s 1961 novella “Franny and Zooey.”

We fear falling out of the hamster ball and into the landscape of our own definition of failure. But the hamster race is ultimately a champagne problem, a symptom of a charmed life that falls away like confetti in comparison to the experience of real hardship that forces the inessential into the background.

“Life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement,” said Rowling in her speech.

Someone once told me that all we really need to lead happy, full lives is to have something to do, someone to love and someone to love us in return.

When I stop and let the ball roll around me for a moment, I remember that and remind myself that I already have everything in my life that I need to be happy.

I’ll end with the words of the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett — “Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

It’s in the trying and failing — the falling down and standing back up — that your life unfolds.

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