Three Articles That Do Justice to the University

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For the University of Puerto Rico, it's been a day of vindication.

A response to the full-page column that governor Luis Fortuño published on January 13 in El Nuevo Día, "La UPR que todos queremos" ["The University we all want"], was written in the news magazine Diálogo by a collaborator identified only as a teacher who has worked for decades without tenure. In governor Fortuño's subtle diatribe (for that's really all it is) he warns that he will dramatically restructure the University, altering it beyond recognition.

The author of the riposte to governor Fortuño's column harshly criticizes his vision, management, and plans for the University and compares the governor's words to those of a defendant confessing his crime before a jury. Probably the most interesting thing about his response is how he exquisitely demolishes the fallacies in the governor's arguments by using data published on the webpage of the Oficina de Gerencia y Presupuesto (OGP), the Island's budget management department. While the governor boasts of how his administration has slashed spending since he took over in 2009, he doesn't mention that the budget assigned to the Governor's Office has increased by almost 500% between 2008 and 2010. Yes, you read it right: almost 500%. I highly recommend taking a look at both the article [in spanish] and the numbers on the OGP webpage.

A summary of the past two months of the student protests was also published today in the U.S. newspaper The Huffington Post by UPR professor Maritza Stanchich. Contrary to most of the material regarding the student protests published by the mainstream news sources on the Island, she avoids falling into the trap of superficially reporting events, preferring instead to contextualize the University's crisis within the greater picture of the Island's fiscal woes, one of the few articles to do so. It also has the added advantage of being written in English, thereby making it available to a greater worldwide audience and at the same time helping to offset the flood of disinformation about Puerto Rico that the Fortuño administration has spread in the U.S. media. This is also the reason that this blog is now available in both English and Spanish.

Finally, El Nuevo Día published today an article (that really should have been front page news and not buried in page twenty) revealing that the University president himself, José Ramón De la Torre, and the Board of Trustees admitted in a report given to the Comisón Cameral de Hacienda that the current crisis was caused by the nefarious Law 7 [Ley 7 de Emergencia Fiscal] and not by the last administration. Indeed, the report, which was signed by the now president of the Board of Trustees, Ygrí Rivera when she was second vice-president, goes even further and says that the last administration actually took effective measures to curb spending in anticipation of the current crisis. In light of this evidence, all the arguments that the University administration and the governor have given to convince people that imposing the $800 special fee on students was inevitable come crashing down.

How Puerto Rico's real fiscal situation has been kept from the public has never before been made so glaringly obvious until today. There should be no doubt left in anyone's mind that this administration has in its hands a serious credibility problem, one that I very much doubt it will be able to get rid of.

Impotence, creativity, and bitter medicine

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It's been a rough week for the University of Puerto Rico.

To begin with, the Student Center of the Río Piedras campus was vandalized by a group of people whose faces were covered to hide their identities. (I should say that in general, there has been overwhelming disapproval towards the actions of those who unnecessarily damaged the Center.) The next day, several students who were distributing leaflets on campus and who had committed no crime were arrested. That very same day the riot squads returned to the campus, again bringing with them violent confrontations between students and police. The ban on all large activities on campus decreed by the provost of Río Piedras, Ana Guadalupe, was extended for another thirty days, thanks to the Board of Trustees. There are strong rumors that there will be a change in the University's presidency. Governor Luis Fortuño wrote a column in El Nuevo Día saying that he will create a committee that will advise him on how to restructure the University "desde sus cimientos" ["from its foundations"], if necessary. Various programs, among them Hispanic Studies, will be put "on pause" next academic year. And as if all this wasn't enough, the University has started to collect the draconian $800 fiscal stabilization fee and no one knows how or when the special grants that were created to help students pay it will be available.

And this is only the first week of class this year.

All these events help give an idea of the overwhelming sense of impotence that has overcome the University community in the face of the unjustness of its situation. To make matters worse, students are forced to pay the $800 fee with their own money, doing it who knows how, because the promised financial aid won't be available for the moment. If they do not pay at least the minimum payment now, they will not be able to continue studies this semester.

This is a heavy blow to the morale of the student movement because right now, there is no other alternative left to them. However, it is also because of this that I think that this year we will truly see what the students' imagination and persistence are capable of. During this crisis there has been no shortage of brilliant and innovative ideas. I think we can expect more of that, this time around applied to the problem of pressure mechanisms since, evidently, new ways of protesting are needed that can give better results.

Nevertheless, 2011 promises to bring more of the bitter medicine that has been shoved down the University's throat in massive overdoses. Thus, I conclude this depressing blogpost with the following suggestion: if the students must pay the fee, they should pay with coins or with bills of really low denominations as a sign of protest. If the University administration is that eager to collect the fee, then they shouldn't mind counting pennies or dollar bills.

If more of that bitter medicine has to be taken, then at least it shouldn't be taken lying down. As the song says: "For a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down..."

Why give away toys on Three Kings Day?

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By now, the reader probably knows of the riot that formed in the Roberto Clemente Coliseum on Three Kings Day during the governor's now-traditional toy giveaway. I won't go into how the activity should have been organized, or what should or should not have been done (enough has been said about that, anyway). Instead, I would like to invite the reader to rethink how this activity might be celebrated.

I should start by saying that I have never been to one of these activities. Nor have I any intention of going in the future. In fact, I am actually very grateful that I was never taken to one when I was a child. There is a very simple reason for this: going to one of these activities seems to me the worst possible way that I can think of to celebrate Three Kings Day. Who wants to spend a hot day in line waiting for a toy that may or may not be given to you by the governor? There are even people who camp out on the street or a parking lot the night before just so they can get a good turn when the activity finally starts. It is also worth mentioning the several people who fainted in this year's activity and the case of the girl who died several years ago on a previous occasion because of the heat. Quite frankly, it isn't worth it and I cannot begin to comprehend why they insist on doing this type of activity year after year.

Equally unpleasant is the image that is perpetuated of the benevolent leader who gives goods to the neediest among his people while he celebrates the traditions of yesteryear with his family. Besides being tacky and paternalistic (and I might add third-world-like), this image couldn't be farther from the truth. The reality is that the whole thing ends up being a public relations and photo opportunity for whatever governor happens to be in power. I don't think I exaggerate when I say this. This is why this year's celebration was deemed a success, when it obviously wasn't. How else could one explain the fact that this year they decided to give away notebook computers besides toys? (By the way, this year the government spent $780,000 on toys, while on other occasions private companies donated them. Whether or not the notebook computers were also bought with the government's money, I don't know.)

There are those who have said that it is important that this sort of activity continue because it fulfills an important social function. Well, yes. But I also believe that there are better ways to celebrate Three Kings Day than this one. Why not have a real people's celebration? Why not take advantage of the occasion to teach and perpetuate the best of Puerto Rico's traditions? Why give away toys on Three Kings Day and not, instead, a day that is genuinely pleasant and that anybody who wants to can enjoy?

Empty City: New Year's Eve 2010

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This post is merely an observation. I believe it is an observation worth making because at the moment it seemed very odd to me. But I really don't have the necessary knowledge to reach any conclusions.

Last night, during New Year's Eve, I went with my Mom to take a stroll in Condado to pass the time watching the lights and the people who went there to party. On the way a light drizzle started to fall, so I decided to take a brief detour to Old San Juan to look at the Christmas lights over there while we waited for the rain to stop. To my surprise, there was no traffic jam going into Old San Juan. Indeed, there was very little traffic on the way. San Juan was practically empty.

By then, the drizzle had stopped and we headed over to Condado to walk for a bit. We left our car at the Parque de la Laguna and walked towards Dos Hermanos bridge, at which point we entered Condado. It was the same story as in Old San Juan: streets with very few pedestrians, many closed restaurants, and very little activity, in spite of the fact that this New Year's Eve was on a Friday.

Of course, this is the first time I go to Old San Juan and Condado on a New Year's Eve, so I wouldn't know what would be normal for this occasion. But of all places that came to mind to pass a New Year's Eve, I thought that in Condado there would be a lot of activity and people in the streets. The fact that there weren't seemed very strange to me. Even the large hotels that usually host a New Year's Eve party seemed half-empty. Some of the restaurants that were open seemed to have a lot of people in them, but I didn't see enough of them to be able to say if this was the norm.

Is this an indication of the state of Puerto Rico's economy? I really don't know. But I think it worth finding out why we, who don't need many reasons to party, didn't party more on a New Year's Eve. We'll have to wait and see what the Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián have to tell us.

Enough!

En español

The images and news coming from Río Piedras have left me with an unpleasant mix of feelings. The sadness, the anger, but above all, the overwhelming feeling of impotence are very strong. The temptation is to try some sort of distraction, like changing the channel, navigating away from the websites I'm viewing, or going to sleep; anything to keep me from facing the feeling of not being able to do something so that the violence stops and that the repressive forces that have taken over the University of Puerto Rico leave it alone. But I also feel that to try to ignore what is going on in Río Piedras and Hato Rey would be a gross act of indifference that would rob me of my humanity, that would take me one step closer to becoming a monstrous being incapable of feeling other Puerto Ricans' pain. I don't mean other people's pain in general. I mean other Puerto Ricans'. I would feel like I would be fulfilling the stereotype of the apathetic Puerto Rican, indifferent to what goes on around him, only looking out for his own needs and interests, unwilling to take action and say "Enough is enough!"

I refuse to fit into this stereotype. I refuse to become a monstrous being incapable of empathizing with other Puerto Ricans, the way that the Island's leaders have done, such as Governor Luis Fortuño, with his deplorable speech the other day. Or his Chief of Staff, Marcos Rodríguez-Ema, with his violent outbursts towards those who think differently from him. Or the President of the University, José Ramón De la Torre, the President of the Board of Trustees, Ygrí Rivera, and the Provost of Río Piedras, Ana Guadalupe, who, in their monumental incompetence and their obviously uncaring attitude towards the University, allow the use of brute force by the government to supposedly maintain order and security in the University's campuses. Or Puerto Rico's Supreme Court, that had the impudence to say that the University is a semi-public space and, therefore, subject to its administrators whims on how public expression is allowed to manifest itself. I refuse to shut my eyes before these things.

Make no mistake, what has been seen today is an act of government repression designed to silence dissidence, an indispensable ingredient in order for democracy to exist. These acts of barbarism cannot be tolerated in Puerto Rico. Those who have allowed and supported the suspension of civil rights and the essentially cowardly violence towards students –students who were unarmed, without bodily protection, and in number far less than the government's agents dispatched in the University's campuses– do not deserve to be held in the high esteem they continue to enjoy. They have failed in the worse possible way those who they swore to defend, betraying them without a second thought. You, dear reader, and me.

This is why as long as this disastrous administration lasts, I will continue to denounce what must be denounced and will do all that is within my power to let the world know that in Puerto Rico, right now, there exists a neo-fascist, authoritarian, and despotic government. If you also believe that this government has exceeded its reach, I invite you to do the same. Share news stories, videos, and this and other blogs to spread the word about the outrages being seen daily in Puerto Rico. I firmly believe that we can all be agents of change from a nonviolent, yet indomitable and irreproachable position.

Long live the students! We are the best thing that this country has left right now.

What will become of the University?

En español

The future of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) has never seemed so uncertain. Today, on Tuesday, December 14, 2010, starts the second student strike in a year. This is in spite of the fact that everyone is aware that a strike is not the best thing for the University right now. But, after all is said and done, what other way do the students have to pressure the University administration? On more than one occasion, the administration has made crystal clear that they have no intentions whatsoever to either engage in dialogue with the students or to negotiate. They stubbornly insist in maintaining their position on the $800 quota. The Island's Supreme Court has just made a decision that regulates all protests in the University. The governor has said that he will create a committee of advisers to amend the law of the University, robbing it of its autonomy from government intervention. And, in recent days, the Río Piedras campus has been turned into a police state.

Are these conditions that lead to free thinking, to the creation of a safe environment where every idea and opinion is welcome? Is the presence of armed guards in the hallways of the University supposed to make one feel safe? Is the example offered by the UPR President, the President of the Board of Trustees, the Río Piedras Provost, and other administrators an example of a university education, of openness to dialogue, of love for the University, or of a culture of peace?

Absolutely not.

I confess that I seriously doubt that the strike is the way to go right now. But I also understand that in order to achieve change, it is necessary that those who are in power become a little bit uncomfortable. Otherwise, nothing will happen, if history is any guide. From the French Revolution to the civil rights struggles of the sixties, there has never been significant social change without conflict and without making those who are in power uncomfortable. It is because of this that the administration's insistence that any protest occur within specially designated areas and that the University remain functioning as in a normal day should be looked upon with deep suspicion. Even more so when the Provost of Río Piedras, Ana Guadalupe, has decreed that during an entire month all meetings, protests, marches, festivals, pickets, and other activities are prohibited.

To be sure, the fact that it is necessary to alter the normal order of things in order to make the widespread anger felt where it needs to be felt does not mean that anybody's rights to differ should be denied, as the government and the UPR administration have made it seem. But it cannot be expected that, given the circumstances, the day continue normally as if nothing was happening. This creates the illusion that nothing is happening and that any protester is protesting for no reason.

I sincerely hope we don't see a rerun of the spilling of blood that has been seen at UPR during the student protests of the second half of the twentieth century. But sadly, after today, anything could happen.