Activism update

During Spring Break, our tree-sitter stepped down. From the tree, that is. But not long after, a new protest arose. This protest has to do with the appointment of the new UC President: current chancellor of the University of Texas Mark Yudof. At first, his appointment was celebrated and his persona appraised – Yudof is a distinguished researcher and fits the UC profile in his preoccupation with issues such as free speech and gender discrimination. Controversy arose when the financial aspects of his appointment were made public: Yudof will be earning $828,084 annually in wage and compensations. In the words of Richard Blum, chair of the Board of Regents who appointed him: “He's expensive, but he's worth it”. Others, however, have not been so generous. The view of the critics is best summarized by the following cartoon.


Meanwhile, (the city of) Berkeley witnesses another form of protest. Yesterday a local software company announced it will relocate outside of the city as a protest against the Berkeley police department (and, consequently, the city’s mayor). The police, the company’s CEO argues, is failing to guarantee safety and orderliness in downtown Berkeley as too large a share of the department’s officers are caught up dealing with yet another protest: that of the anti-war protesters, surrounding the US Marine recruitment center. The mayor’s decision to allow these protesters the space and time to voice their opinion, it is argued, has been detrimental to the business climate – eventually resulting in the company’s drastic step.

At our house, we decided to have a discussion session of our own regarding the Fitna-movie release. We watched the movie in a quite diverse group of people (i.e. of Iranian, German, Chinese, American and of course Dutch origin), but were unified in our perception of the movie: we all accepted the right of someone, anyone, to make a movie like this and we all agreed that it probably wouldn’t be very beneficial to the ‘problems’ Wilders is addressing. We exchanged opinions, rather, on issues such as the possible differences, when it comes to freedom of speech, between politician and civilians; and the friction between accepting dominant ideology and respecting dissent. All in all an enlightening experience for me to get a glance of what other people think of the things that I accept as ‘normal’. Now the waiting is for a translation of Rita’s maiden speech to appear online, so we can complete the ‘introduction to Dutch politics’.