To the editor:
The following is an open letter to all OSCA members who didn't participate in the vote on donations to our Nicaraguan Sister Co-op.
Apathy is one thing when it means only a handful of people show up at an important speaker, a forum, or a planning session. That's troublesome, although I know many good reasons for it and can imagine more. But when apathy means that a multi-million dollar student-run not-for-profit such as OSCA backs down unexpectedly on a historical commitment to its sister cooperative, a commitment that is essential to their continued function, then I am ashamed beyond words of my peers.
We spend so much time at Oberlin whining about causes and projects that don't really DO anything, aren't really worth our time. And yet when something comes along where what we do could make or break a set of lives, less than 2/3 of OSCA - the amount required for an all-OSCA vote to be valid - could even be bothered to mark a check on a slip of paper and put it in a folder. This is what happened to both the first and second (since there weren't enough people voting in the first) all-OSCA votes on the amount (or existence) of our donation to the Nicaraguan Sister Co-op in Limay. So as far as I know, now we are sending nothing.
Last year two women from the Limay co-operative visited us. They told us how essential our continued support was and emphasized the need for solidarity. They talked about the situation in Nicaragua, and about the government's lack of support for any such non-privatized communal projects, an about the incredible importance of the self-reliance and dignity they get from participating in this co-operative venture. They expressed a fear that if it weren't for the delegation we haggle over sending each year that people here wouldn't really feel a connection to the project or have motivation to maintain support. This seems to be a general problem of US citizens, and even (or especially) US liberal college students.
These women's fears appear to have been more justified than even they expected, since one semester after these women were here, we can't even be bothered to send them the money that's already allocated in our goddamn budget to make sure their co-operative can continue to exist. That money wasn't even going to come out of our precious refunds. So why, WHY, in the name of whatever you hold sacred, was it so impossible for you to take 2 seconds to vote on this? Even to vote No, so we could have had a valid vote and so whatever the result was it would supposedly have some rationale behind it besides apathy.
I personally can't imagine facing those women and breaking the news: "Thanks for visiting us. By the way, we are going to destroy everything you've built for no good reason at all except we couldn't be bothered." Could you face them?
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 12; December 13, 1996
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