Student government resolutions can’t enact change on their own. The effort that sometimes succeeds their passage, however, can.
At the Tuesday Undergraduate Students Association Council meeting, the USAC General Representative 1 office will introduce a resolution in the hopes of establishing an on-campus space dedicated to prayer and meditation.
The discussion shouldn’t take very long and the resolution’s passage should be swift and easy, but it has no actual effect except to express the council’s symbolic support of the prayer space. This expression of support, while a positive thing, seems rather empty compared to actually securing support from the administration. A resolution looks like progress, but, simply put, it isn’t.
To be clear, a resolution doesn’t hurt; it’s good to send a message to the administration about the students’ wants and needs. Fortunately, a number of student representatives have already spoken with the students’ association board of directors to advocate for the project, a much more direct method than a symbolic resolution. To keep making progress, the council members pushing for this space should make sure they don’t stop at passing a simple resolution, but continue making concrete steps toward their ultimate goal.
If ASUCLA gives them the green light, council members and supporters of the space need to prove to the board that financing the prayer space is beneficial to students and is something that should continue long after these student organizers have graduated. This will take more than a resolution and rhetoric to accomplish.
One way to prove the space’s worth is to make it educational. The project should maintain an educational theme in the style of the newly passed diversity requirement for the College of Letters and Science. Allowing for people of different faiths not only to use the space to pray and meditate, but to educate their fellow students about their religions on a regular basis could turn this well-intentioned idea into an even more effective endeavor.
Besides praying together in the same space, representatives from different religious student organizations, like the Sikh Student Association, Muslim Student Association and various Jewish student groups, could make brief presentations on their religious practices to educate anyone interested.
While the resolution on its own may not result in anything tangible, the prayer space itself is a practical idea that council members and student organizers need to turn into a reality. Muslim students, for example, currently don’t have a convenient space to pray on or near campus. Catholic students have the University Catholic Center on Gayley Avenue and Jewish students have Hillel, but Muslim students often have to make their own makeshift prayer spaces because they don’t have a space to call their own. They have often been relegated to the space behind Kerckhoff Hall for lack of a better location.
People belonging to less mainstream religions could also use the space if they lack one on campus or nearby.
A nondenominational prayer space was established in the John Wooden Center in 2010, but it has since been abandoned. Last year’s General Representative 1 Sam Haws attempted to reestablish the space in the Wooden Center, but gave up on finding another location after being rejected. Good intentions and a USAC resolution won’t cut it. This year’s attempt should explore as many locations as possible to finally establish the space.
The idea for a prayer space comes with a dark backdrop. When someone thinks of religious discrimination at UCLA, one likely thinks of Rachel Beyda. Beyda’s near-rejection for a position on the USAC Judicial Board made national headlines after four council members initially voted against her appointment, citing her Jewishness or citing nothing concrete at all. This was followed by the fliers targeting Students for Justice in Palestine, only the most recent in a long string of examples of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism on campus.
Of course, saying this is a solely Jewish or Muslim issue is to ignore the complexities of religious discrimination. While anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are often the two largest problems cited when discussing religion on campus, students need to remain cognizant of the difficulties people of most religious backgrounds face. This is why a unitary, nondenominational space can be so useful.
If carried out properly, initiatives such as these could change the way a good number of students view people that hold different religious or spiritual beliefs. Creating a space for people to come together doesn’t automatically mean they will, but giving them the opportunity to do so is a positive step and one that should be taken. It doesn’t hurt to try.
He writes…
“Muslim students, for example, currently don’t have a convenient space to pray on or near campus. Catholic students have the University Catholic Center on Gayley Avenue and Jewish students have Hillel, but Muslim students often have to make their own makeshift prayer spaces because they don’t have a space to call their own.”
Does UCLA really OWE a prayer space to minority religious groups? If religion is supposed to provide a moral compass, is such a question even a legitimate moral concern? No one is stopping anyone from practicing their religion, but to insist that the religious are entitled to a dedicated space – paid for by UCLA students and taxpayers – sounds more like childish narcissism than religion.
Let’s not forget, much of the resources on campus are paid for by students who aren’t wealthy. In fact, many of them are incurring heavy student loans. If there is free space on campus, perhaps it should be utilized to generate income and reduces the tuition burden on all students. Wouldn’t that be more moral and ethical than insisting on ‘religious entitlements?”
Ghoogasian says, “The Jews and Catholics have a place of their own, so we should have one, too!” When I was a child and one of my siblings got ice cream without me, I would wage this same kind of jealous argument: “He has it, so I’m entitled to it, too!” Honestly, is this an appropriate argument for a place of worship?
How about this: Instead of utilizing someone else’s resources for OUR prayer space, why not form an inter-faith group to help feed people in poverty? Why not think about what others, instead of thinking about what you are entitled to? That kind of thinking strikes me as more inline with the true nature of all religions, and it is certainly a more moral and practical use of resources.
If it makes you feel any better, you can think of it as an initiative to promote mental health on campus which is USAC’s largest project. Plenty of research to back it up, you can look it up if you so please 🙂
In response to your interfaith community service comment: That is a pretty great idea! I encourage you to take the appropriate steps to carry it out.
Actually, no, that doesn’t make me feel any better at all. I’m not going to pretend this is about a “mental health initiative”. I’m not interested in a bait-and-switch with my tuition.
I can certainly link you to many articles that refute any benefits of religion on mental health. If that isn’t good enough, I can also link you to ISIS videos where thousands of pious followers cheer as they behead men, women and children, and burn people alive in cages – all to honor their religion.
If that still isn’t good enough, I can link you to images in Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Darfur, Nigeria and many other places where thousands of devout worshipers are committing some of the worst genocides in human history – in the name of their religion.
What do you think of their mental health?
Are you going to sell us religion like an evangelical preacher? If we pray in the precious prayer space, we’ll enjoy the benefits mental health. All we have to do is dial the 800 number and make a donation, right?
No thanks. If we want religion, we’ll pay for our own prayer space. If we want a mental health initiative, we’ll pay for a mental health initiative that’s designed to actually deliver mental health. But don’t sell us religion, and tell us that we’re actually getting mental health. We’re smart enough to buy what we need without you.
In response to your comment on the interfaith community service, I’m glad you appreciate the idea. I would like to take up such an initiative, but unfortunately, I have to spend much of my time writing things to keep people from ripping off my tuition. Perhaps the “pray space/mental health initiative” people could spend their time and that effort instead of picking all our pockets.
Sorry I stopped reading when you brought ISIS to the table
No fighting. I work a night shift. Too bad you didn’t read past ISIS. Those points shooting down religion as a means of mental health were very persuasive, if I do say so myself.
I find it hard to believe that you can’t find a nice place to meditate on the beautiful campus of UCLA.
I agree that an interfaith service group would be a better use of everyone’s time and resources. I have prior commitments, but I do think the world would be much served if the so-called “righteous” would get off their knees, get out of their “all-expenses-paid” prayer space, and do something practical instead of discussing the century old best-sellers of goat herders.
Aram Ghoogasian’s articles always seem to carry a hint of antisemitism along with the ever present theme that Muslims are perpetual victims. It almost seems as if he thinks Muslims are in some kind of competition with Jews for the status of “Most Discriminated Against.”
He writes…
“Beyda’s near-rejection for a position on the USAC Judicial Board made national headlines after four council members initially voted against her appointment, citing her Jewishness or citing nothing concrete at all. This was followed by the fliers targeting Students for Justice in Palestine, only the most recent in a long string of examples of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism on campus.”
The Rachel Beyda incident was a nationally recognized outrage. It was an act of antisemitism that reverberated across the country and clearly, Googasian is uncomfortable with all the attention it received. He’s not troubled or embarrassed for UCLA, rather he seems to feel that he’s losing the race for “victim status.” Ever since the Rachel Beyda incident, Googasian’s articles have often included something to “off set” the perceived increase in “antisemitic sensitivity”. In this article – as he has done before – he tries to create a moral equivalence between flyers criticizing “Students for Justice in Palestine” as something comparable to antisemitism.
Antisemitism is form of racism. “Students for Justice in Palestine” is a political group supposedly against Israeli policy. Criticizing the practices of a political group is a 1st amendment right and our society encourages political discourse. Discriminating against Rachel Beyda solely because she is Jewish is not political discourse – it’s racism. To equate these two issues belittles what happened to Rachel Beyda in particular, and antisemitism in general – and that’s exactly what Googasian is trying to do. It is offensive and I wish the Daily Bruin would tell Googasian to stop it.
Googasian goes on to write…
“Of course, saying this is a solely Jewish or Muslim issue is to ignore the complexities of religious discrimination. While anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are often the two largest problems cited when
discussing religion on campus, students need to remain cognizant of the difficulties people of most religious backgrounds face.”
There is not doubt that Googasian sees much of the world as a competition between “antisemitism” and “islamophobia”. I submit to anyone reading this that such a view contributes more to the problem than the solution.
Aram, I was all with you about the meditation room until the mention of SJP. SJP is a political organization, not a religious or ethnic one. Criticizing their politics and methods is entirely justified and has nothing to do with Islamophobia. For some reason you try to equate this with the Rachel Beyda incident, which was clearly anti-Semitism. It appears like you’re trying to play down anti-Semitism and play up Islamophobia by drawing a false equivalence between the two.
Arguing for a meditation room is fine, but you’d be better off sticking to that instead of trying to introduce a clearly political dimension to it. Not everything has to do with Israel and the Jews.
Knowing the history of on campus “prayer spaces”, the Muslim Brotherhood Student Association will take it over and make it a mosque.