Student political involvement is not a myth

Student political involvement is not a myth

By Susan Evans

In the mid-1960s, student protest movements were sweeping like
wildfire across the campuses of our nation’s colleges and
universities. Now, 30 years later, it seems the movements are
nothing but relics of the past: a historical footnote worthy of
study but not repeat.

That my generation ­ Generation X they call it ­ is so
frequently maligned as responsible for ushering in this era of
indifference is indicative of the depths to which our critics have
slipped into their own generational abyss of apathy, where energies
are invested not in creating viable solutions to society’s
problems, but in pointing fingers and laying blame.

It also hints at our critics’ tendency to dismiss current
protest movements as empty and idle endeavors: full of sound and
fury, to be sure, but ultimately signifying nothing.

The most alarming thing about apathy is that it is not a static
concept but a very real, very palpable, very destructive reality.
It is what keeps able-bodied and otherwise upstanding citizens from
coming to the aid of their neighbors on the mean streets of L.A and
New York.

It is what allows dishonest and incompetent politicians to
remain incumbent in our nation’s highest elected offices. And in
the end, it is what renders non-feasance as evil as
malfeasance.

But is my generation truly to blame? Are we really the lazy and
aimless creatures of indifference that popular culture so
frequently portrays us to be? I, for one, think not.

Given that I have been a UC student for the better part of 10
years ­ first as a UCLA undergraduate and now as a doctoral
student at UC Berkeley ­ I have seen numerous instances of
resistance and dissent. In the late 1980s, for example, hundreds of
UC students pitched tents in Schoenberg Quad at UCLA to protest the
atrocities of apartheid. In the early 1990s, students at Berkeley
protested proposed cuts in the ethnic studies department while UCLA
students demonstrated in support of a separate Chicana/o studies
department.

Earlier this year, a group of students demonstrated outside UC
Regent Tirso del Junco’s medical office in protest of some Regents’
opposition to affirmative action. And just last month, a large
contingent of students from UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and
UC Berkeley marched together at UCLA in protest of the proposed
dismantling of affirmative action programs in our state.

Despite his firm, if not courageous, support of affirmative
action, Chancellor Charles Young issued a written statement in
response to the demonstrations outside of del Junco’s office:
"There are more appropriate ways to try to achieve one’s goals," he
said, "(and) protests are symbolic and can only lead to a symbolic
response" (Daily Bruin, March 13).

But isn’t that precisely the point and potency of a protest? In
symbolizing resistance, a protest dramatizes the issue at stake,
and the encounters that follow provide a forum in which that issue
can be articulated more clearly.

To be sure, a protest alone will not inevitably lead to a
resolution, and not all protests are inherently benign. For some
protests can, and oftentimes do, lead to unanticipated and
undesirable results. But if a protest provokes meaningful and
intelligent discussion on a given topic, then isn’t it a valuable
and legitimate means of expressing concern and dissent?

It may be that it is all too easy for one generation to rail
against the other as an irresponsible villain responsible for all
the evils in society. But maybe if we all as Americans momentarily
refrained from playing the blame game, and worked instead toward
forging a more cohesive and tolerant society, then perhaps protests
would indeed become a relic of our past: not because of apathy and
indifference but simply because there would no longer be a need for
them.

Evans is an alumnus of UCLA.