Letters to the Editor

Got Food?

Having read Alex Marra’s article “Hungry Anyone?” in The Commonwealth Times on Nov. 25, regarding the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and their Ramadan Fast-A-Thon, I began to think about this event and how the MSA apparently has Muslim missionary work and fund-raising all mixed up.

The purpose of this event was all-admirable, feeding the hungry in our community. But with a slogan like: “Go hungry…so someone else wont have to,” it seems to me like they got it all wrong from the start. First of all, this implies that the only way to help the hungry is to go hungry yourself – a strange thought indeed. There are numerous ways that we as fellow VCU students can help the hungry in Richmond, none of which require one to solemnly pledge and join the Ramadan Muslim fasting ritual, if only for a day. (Nevermind the potential damage to your body from not eating nor drinking for an entire day.)

Secondly, Ramadan is widely viewed as an exercise of religious expression – be a good Muslim and starve as well as thirst yourself from sunrise to sunset. Why then, this link to Islam, when this campaign was expressly directed toward non-Muslims? Has the MSA a hidden, secret agenda to convert the student population into Islam? And if not, why then force the Ramadan ritual onto everyone non-Muslim who just want to help the hungry? I think the MSA would have benefited greatly on toning this whole Muslim/Ramadan thing a bit down. At least enough so that they wouldn’t reject the thousands out there, who actually want to help, but don’t yet feel quite ready to convert to Islam. I can understand the MSA’s desire to spread the Muslim word, and to link Islam with something charitable and community-building, but the irony is that there probably would have been a better response to “Help the hungry” if it wasn’t so closely linked to Ramadan and Islam. One can easily imagine the Muslim outcry if VCU instituted a Christian “Lent-A-Thon” connected to charity fund-raising, as Marra stated.

We can praise the MSA for all their “Muslim awareness” events, all their lectures on the damaging U.N. sanctions on Iraq, the horrible U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, and on the destructive and unjust upcoming war with Iraq. (Nevermind that Afghanistan now actually has a democratically elected government, and that the current regime in Iraq is a danger for the whole world, including its Muslim neighbors). But with all these events, I feel compelled to ask the MSA where their concern is, say in the Western Sahara conflict? Western Sahara was in 1975 brutally invaded and occupied by Morocco, just as it was about to gain its independence from its Spanish colonizer. Ever since, there has been a sporadic guerilla war between the liberation movement Polisario and the Moroccan occupying forces. Where is the “awareness” and lectures on this conflict? Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that this is not a war waged by Uncle Sam, but instead is between two Muslim, Arab countries? How about some education on the Muslim conflicts that do not involve the US of A?

The MSA should meet its responsibility, and seek to provide an unbiased and objective view on all these hot spots and not resort to advertising and propaganda disguised as lecturing and fund-raising.

In the meantime I’ll continue to make the lives of the hungry and homeless here in Richmond a little easier, in my own, secular way

Mikael Simble

The importance of security guards

As a third-year security guard at the Rhoads/Johnson/West Grace dormitories, I found Mike Talley’s depiction of the VCU security staff extremely interesting. Since I don’t recall Mr. Talley ever working security, I’ll just chalk up his poorly drawn cartoon to complete ignorance.

Although I realize it appears as if our job consists of simply sitting at a desk and listening to music, I can assure Mr. Talley, as well as the small group of people who read your low-quality publication, that our job is much more involved than it appears. Before being hired, I too was ignorant as to exactly what a VCU Security job entailed.

Security guards deal with anything and everything concerning the dormitories they work in. Aside from being responsible for monitoring the traffic coming into the building and dealing with sign-in, we also help residents, other students and random people off the street with their countless questions.

Guards must also assist any maintenance workers or contractors who need access to the roof or other locked areas, in addition to assisting any residents with maintenance concerns. This ranges from contacting the R.A. on call for a student who is locked out of their room to fixing a flooding toilet ourselves.

Security guards do multiple floor-walks throughout the day and night, checking to make sure fire extinguishers are all present and fully charged and looking for any damage to the floors, such as graffiti or missing ceiling tiles.

In addition to these everyday obligations, guards are often involved in potentially life-threatening situations, whether our lives are being endangered or those of a resident or guest. Guards have put out fires in the dormitories, broken up fist-fights, been the victims of violence themselves, administered first aid in injuries and saved more than one resident or guest from severe injury or even death in the case of alcohol poisonings and suicide attempts.

More than one resident has come to the security desk after an incident in which we intervened and thanked us profusely for our actions. However, the job is nearly always entirely thankless. Not only do residents and their guests not appreciate the job we do, they often harass us for doing it. Guards get complaints from residents until the day they move out about policies we don’t set but simply get paid to enforce. We’re often insulted and even shouted at routinely by residents and their parents, as well as their guests.

Thus, I recommend that next time you choose to print entirely libelous material, you check the facts first. It’s always best not to write (or in this case, draw) about a topic one knows absolutely nothing about.

Christine M. Davison
West Grace security guard