You’ve gotta fight for your right to get an education

Originally published October 29, 2009.

We’ve spent months fighting over facets of the college experience, from the clout scandal to Illinois’s MAP grant funding to the DREAM Act. At the heart of all of these issues lies a single question: do we have a right to a college education?

We’ve spent months fighting over facets of the college experience, from the clout scandal to Illinois’s MAP grant funding to the DREAM Act. At the heart of all of these issues lies a single question: do we have a right to a college education?

When I use the word “right,” I mean a choice that everyone has access to, in which their individual merit is the only factor that determines their attendance at a particular university. Two of the greatest impediments to this, as we’ve seen over the course of the summer through this fall, are political influence and money.

Since the clout scandal broke months ago, apathetic onlookers seem to express the same complaint.

Whether in regard to people’s obsession with forcing trustees to take the blame or to the sense of futility that things could ever change, they respond with the point that many schools have clout lists.

While forcing a good chunk of the Board of Trustees to resign, including Joe White and Richard Herman, may relieve a little of our immediate frustration, the problem won’t be corrected until we demand that the state legislators involved pay the price for essentially starting everything.

If we truly believe in working toward fairness in higher education—that is, insisting that dedicated minds have a right to attend college based on that academic dedication alone—then we need to step up our response and set the example for other public institutions governed by unfair political influence.

The bigger obstacle (one further aggravated by state government in Illinois) is money, as we’ve seen in the recent fight to re-establish funding for Illinois’s MAP grants. Public response to the under-funding of the program over the summer finally pushed Governor Quinn to allot another $205 million for grants two weeks ago. As the state takes out a loan to pay for the expense, people are voicing their concerns about how we’ll manage to pay it back.

Anyone attending college in the last several years has likely noticed a continuous increase in tuition rates, brought on in part by legislative efforts to keep costs down for students. To compensate for flat-lining funding from other sources (in our case, state government), universities jack up their prices, increasing the need for grant and scholarship funding.

Ice that expensive cake with the skyrocketing cost of textbooks and you’ve got a dessert so pricey that many in even the upper middle-class have a hard time footing the bill, to say nothing of the impact it has on lower-income students’ college prospects.

It’s impossible not to recognize that race and ethnicity are tied into this battle against college cost. While certainly not all prospective lower-income students identify as racial or ethnic minorities or vice-versa, the exorbitant price of attending a university plays a serious role in determining the make-up of a college population. Increasing costs and dwindling financial aid resources make college a privilege, not a right.

In some circumstances, the U.S. outright denies people a chance to attend—people who, though technically undocumented, have lived here most of their lives.

This is the problem the DREAM Act aims to correct by providing conditional residency to those who qualify. But if it’s not one thing, it’s another: even if the legislation passes, these students would be ineligible for federal aid.

Greater social, historical, and cultural factors have established much of America’s financial landscape, and it would be naïve to say that making college truly affordable for all would be a simple solution to enact—or that it is a solution able to level out the inequalities created by those factors. But the issues we’ve faced as of late can and must be opportunities to make headway in the struggle to refocus the college experience from a discriminatory business to a truly higher, broader, and better education.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Islamic banking may secure freedom for French Muslims

Originally published October 15, 2009.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy made his opinion on the burqa very clear over the summer, and after getting some legal snags worked out, he’s also strongly indicated his feelings about Islamic banking. France’s Finance Minister Christine Lagarde put it succinctly in a new government television ad, reported in an NPR article on Tuesday: “I would like to convince you that London is not your only choice for Islamic investment, but that Paris is also ready to welcome you and any of your clients who are looking for an alternative.”

Burqas are out but banking is in for Sarkozy’s France, launching some other French politicians into an uproar. Henri Emmanuelli, a deputy leader of the Socialist Party, calls Sarkozy’s activities threatening to France’s secularism. The Front National, the party of the French far-right, claims that Islamic banking will put communities at risk due to increased immigration of Muslims into France.

Banks that observe Islamic Shari’ah seem to have been unaffected by current global financial troubles, and according to NPR, Moody’s rating agency suggests that such banks hold $700 billion in assets. Given that France has the largest Muslim minority in Europe, it sounds like Sarkozy would like to see some of that dough revitalizing the country’s economy.

Similar to most environmental initiatives anywhere else in the world, people have to be pushed to make change that puts more money in someone else’s pockets. If tolerating France’s significant Muslim population could yield some profit, the French government is much more likely to comply. Banking, unlike burqa sales, could seriously benefit France.

While Sarkozy clearly only wants to gain convenient profit from his appeal to Muslims in France and abroad, that money could secure greater freedom of choice for practicing French Muslims. Establishing outlets for Islamic banking could encourage greater tolerance of Muslim observances in the future. If things get off to a good start (the Islamic Bank of Qatar has already applied for a license to open), maybe even the burqa ban will be quelled.

France’s fervor for secularism is aggressively one-sided, tipped in favor of, well, secularism. It presents the argument for the separation of church and state in a totally different manner, mandating in many circumstances that everyone forcibly maintain the secularist attitudes of said state. As others have argued in the instance of the burqa, a number of women opt not to wear them. The choice must belong to Muslim women individually—not their families, not men they don’t know, not religious leaders, and not to the French government.

What we have in the case of Islamic banking being legalized is choice in a particular instance being returned to Muslims. And while there’s no money in giving people a choice over what they wear, it becomes a little more difficult to outlaw one aspect of religious observance when another has already been given the government’s green light.

Despite angry rhetoric from other French politicians, I’d like to approve of Sarkozy’s politics of convenience just this once. If he uses it correctly, he’s given himself the opportunity to step back just slightly from his motions to cram an extremist, pompous brand of purported secularism down the throats of the citizens he represents.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Bollywhat?: A year after Slumdog Millionaire, we still don’t understand Hindi cinema

Originally published October 8, 2009.

After the popularity of Slumdog Millionaire, “Bollywood” is a term on the minds and lips of many in the American entertainment industry. It’s funny—even though it’s not a Bollywood film, Danny Boyle’s hit continues to shape how Americans connect with Hindi cinema.

After the popularity of Slumdog Millionaire, “Bollywood” is a term on the minds and lips of many in the American entertainment industry. It’s funny—even though it’s not a Bollywood film, Danny Boyle’s hit continues to shape how Americans connect with Hindi cinema.

To me, this recent blossoming of things Bollywood in the U.S. seems more promoted by producers in film and television than a huge jump in the interest level of viewers. Slumdog grossed almost $370 million worldwide, and while this isn’t an astronomical sum, it certainly isn’t something to sneeze at given that the film’s success was an unexpected surprise.

But previous Western forays into Hindi cinema haven’t met with such positive response.

2005’s Bride and Prejudice, starring prominent Indian actress and former Ms. World Aishwarya Rai, netted less domestically than its production budget—just shy of $7 million.

2007’s Guru, truer to standard Bollywood format, made barely $2 million here.

Marigold, another 2007 effort at Hollywood-Bollywood fusion starring Heroes’ Ali Larter, did even worse. It never even made it to the U.S.

Despite this, American producers insist that viewers here crave some music and masala in their entertainment.

Based on one popular movie that only features a Bollywood-esque dance scene during its credits, we now have things like Bollywood Hero, an Independent Film Channel mini-series starring Chris Kattan.

We even have a Bollywood-themed episode of USA’s Psych featuring Sendhil Ramamurthy, also of Heroes fame.

Those Heroes folks seem to love the idea of bringing Bollywood to American audiences—maybe we’ll see Milo Ventimiglia or Masi Oka next.

But seriously, understanding Hindi cinema means first understanding that it isn’t the only film industry in India—there are so many languages spoken in the country that it’s impossible.

And not all of the movies coming out of India are three-hour-long musicals either, though many films are.

As someone who enjoys Hindi cinema, I feel the increasing urge to say something, especially after the “From Hollywood to Bollywood” night hosted by the Illini Union Board.

A movie like Bride and Prejudice pays homage to Hindi cinema conventions but doesn’t do justice to over-the-top, lengthy, song-and-dance-filled masala films. Plus, we’re ignoring every other language film industry in India or lumping them all together under the Bollywood heading, neither of which is good.

Besides, Aishwarya did Jane Austen better the first time in Kandukondain Kandukondain.

The film also featured music by A.R. Rahman, which reminds me of another Slumdog Millionaire-derived misconception.

Despite many Americans getting their first taste of Rahman’s music through the movie’s inventive soundtrack, it’s far from the first film he’s composed for, many of the others being actual Bollywood (and Kollywood) films.

Overall, despite the sometimes melodramatic plots, ridiculous dance scenes, and periodically overwhelming corniness, there’s much to be seen in and said of Hindi cinema.

Behind the scenes, you have an industry accused by many of being plagued by nepotism.

And while screen portrayals need to be taken with a grain of salt, it’s intriguing to see films that appear so light-hearted dealing with things like arranged marriage, gender politics, sexual freedom, contrived notions of attractiveness and of course censorship regulations.

Sometimes it’s the things that can’t be shown that tell the most about the industry, the relationship between government and culture and the myriad of language groups in one of the most complex countries in the world.

Is the U.S. as ready for Bollywood as the entertainment industry seems to think?

Not until we stop trying to force misinterpretations of it into single-genre, short-length productions.

A dash of masala in otherwise American productions just isn’t going to cut it.

Give us the whole spicy mish-mash of styles and songs, and let us decide for ourselves.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Sparkman murder exhibits culture of violence taking over across US

Originally published October 1, 2009.

Obama’s administration thus far has certainly been a controversial one for many, but it also seems to have unintentionally spawned something much less anticipated—a culture of violent response to politics.

Bill Sparkman was 51 years old. He lived in London, Kentucky, where he worked as a substitute teacher and classroom aide. He was a cancer survivor. He was also a part-time census worker.

On September 13, Sparkman was found dead at Hoskins Cemetary in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. He was bound, gagged, and almost naked. Though his feet rested on the ground, there was a noose around his neck tied to a nearby tree branch. The word “Fed” was scrawled on his chest in red marker, and his census ID was taped to his neck.

Close on the heels of Bill Sparkman’s death came the posting and removal of a Facebook poll asking whether participants thought President Obama should be killed. And of course, all of this follows increasingly aggressive demonstrations at town hall meetings and healthcare reform discussions at which people have turned out with guns and posters calling for the death of Obama.

Obama’s administration thus far has certainly been a controversial one for many, but it also seems to have unintentionally spawned something much less anticipated—a culture of violent response to politics.

It’s not as though people have never committed destructive deeds over political reasons or disagreements. It’s not even as though worse acts have never been carried out. The disconcerting aspect is that this aggression is highly public and directed at one common target—Barack Obama and anything perceived as having to do with him: legislation, speeches, public gatherings, you name it, right down to census workers.

Given what was written on his body, it seems Bill Sparkman paid dearly, not specifically for his census work or his personal life, but for his connection to our current president.

But the motivation for such serious enmity remains unclear. Accusations of racism have been made left and right, and while I think issues of race play especially heavily into the evolving dynamics of American culture right now, it seems too cut-and-dry to attribute this inclination toward violence strictly to racial tension.

One of the most confusing elements of this rabid anti-Obama sentiment is that, though some of it had existed before he was even elected, much of it has been amplified by debates on healthcare reform and stimulus spending. While having fervid feelings and opinions about both issues is quite valid, I can’t wrap my head around the pseudo-logic that leads to these overt threats of violence. How does someone make the jump from criticism of Obama’s (and Congress’s, for that matter) suggestions for economic recovery and healthcare reform to a decision that the clear solution is simply to suggest or carry out the president’s murder?

How does someone who comes to a well-researched conclusion on either side of the healthcare debate feel so intensely about it that killing someone is justifiable? How do people get riled up more over Obama speaking to schoolchildren about working hard and making a commitment to their country (which most presidents notably do, even to adult audiences) than the fact that we are at war?

More importantly, how do we get off the track we’re on? It’s a typical response for people to shut out everything someone else says when their beliefs differ on a single issue—something much more common than politically-motivated violence. But until we can determine what has pushed political disagreement to this openly hostile level and why television news media seems so intent on urging it on—until we can figure out why Bill Sparkman was murdered in a place without a history of politically-motivated violence—questions are all we have.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.