Newspaper Page Text
November 30, 1984/The Maroon Tiger/Page 9A
=FEATURES=
No Thanks To Give
By William Dean
Special To The Maroon Tiger
President Abraham Lincoln’s
Thanksgiving Day Proclamation
for 1863 begins, "The year that is
drawing toward its close has
been filled with the blessings of
fruitful fields and healthful
skies.” As the United States
observes its national holiday, 120
years later, it should be mindful
that 22 drought-stricken coun
tries in Africa have enjoyed
neither fruitful fields nor
healthful skies.
Reports of the Food and
Agriculture Organization and
the World Food Program, both
agencies of the United Nations,
are warning of intense human
suffering across the African
continent, west to east, and in
the south.
Drought conditions in Senegal
will reduce agricultural produc
tion by 85 percent in large
sections of the country. Food,
feed and seed reserves are
depleted in Mauritania. Crop
losses could reach 50 percent in
the northern and upper regions
of Ghana. Food shortages and
famine exist in parts of Chad.
Three million Ethiopians are
affected by drought; in Mozam
bique, four million. Lack of
irrigation water has resulted in a
50 percent drop in wheat plan
tings in Zimbabwe. Botswana,
Swaziland and Lesotho have had
only one-half of their normal
rainfall. Behind each of these
figures lurks a world of suffering.
The drought is one problem
among many pressing down
heavily on these countries: pop
ulation growth outstripping the
growth in food supply; inade
quate programs to promote
domestic food production; wars
and the influx of refugees dis
rupting farming; heavy insect
infestation of crops; widespread
outbreaks of rinderpest, the
infectious disease affecting cat
tle; a reduced capacity, because
of the scarcity of foreign ex
change, to cover food deficits by
commercial imports.
The result is that significant
numbers of the 150 million
people living in the 22 countries
face, in the words of the Food
and Agriculture Organization’s
Director General, Edouard
Saouma, “the most serious
economic distress and shortage
of food, which may reach
proportions of hunger and
malnourishment on a massive
scale.”
A great human drama is un
folding in our midst and we in
the Western world, whether we
like it or not, are key participants
in the outcome.
The Food and Agriculture
Organization is requesting from
donor nations $76 million to
provide seeds fertilizer, tools
and vaccines for control of
animal diseases, and 4.2 million
metric tons of food for the
drought-stricken countries. To
date, far less than the amount of
aid needed has been pledged.
The consequences of the
wealthier nations’ failture to
help avert such suffering would
be awesome: starvation,
Dean is a lawyer in New York
City.
malnutrition and hunger for the
people of some of the poorest
countries in the world, and same
for those who could help but did
nothing.
I shudder to think of the
judgment that future
generations would pass on our
moral stature if we callously
ignored this unfolding tragedy.
In 1973 and 1974, the drought
and accompanying famine in
West Africa and East Africa
claimed several hundred thou
sand lives and caused lasting
injury to many others from
malnutrition.
The response today from the
world community must be that
of the Flolocaust survivors:
Never again!
The Trials Of Becoming A Young Adult
By Steven R. Lee
Special to The Maroon Tiger
There were 64 million babies
born in the U.S. between 1946
and 1961 who are now between
the ages of 23 and 38. This group
now represents one-third of the
nation’s population. Young
adults represent one of the most
rapidly growing populations of
psychiatric patients in America.
For a moment, consider the
“plight” of the young adult.
Separation from home must
occur. It is a time of new
beginnings and of establishing
identity. The young adult faces
career decisions, and begins the
task of developing intimate
relationships built on trust.
Imagine that people around
you, even those closest to you,
seem rigid, self-centered, un
willing to communicate or
argumentative. What would it be
like to feel “stuck” with nowhere
to turn and to feel like the
situation will never change?
Would alcohol or drugs become
a way of coping or escaping?
These are the kinds of concerns
that young adults often have
about themselves or their
parents. These are also the
concerns parents sometimes
have about their young adult
children.
If someone is in this situation,
it may seem hopeless and un
changeable. But change is possi
ble, although it may not be easy.
Change in the young adult
requires the ability to evaluate
several different developmental
stages since anger, depression
and frustration are derived from
many different sources.
Generally, towards the end of
high school and after gradua
tion, young men and women
begin the process of leaving
home — of separation and
independence. One factor in
successful separation from home
is the establishment of intimate
•relationships. Intimacy develops
through self disclosure which
requires risk-taking and basic
trust in oneself and in others.
Without consistency in the abili
ty to trust others, the young adult
will have a disregard for rules
and authority.
Another factor necessary for
separation is develpment of a
sense of identity. Young adults
must feel capable of mastering
changes in their lives; that they
are competent and adequate in
the most basic sense.
The process of finding one’s
own identity is also built on basic
trust. A person’s identity
develops over time by their
identification with different
traits from different types of
people. If trust has developed
with authority figures, (parents,
teachers), then traits from these
various people will be selected
and incorporated by the young
person as their own. If an iden
tification with authority figures
has failed to occur, the young
adult will either fail to form an
identity and be bland and
withdrawn, or will form an
identity with people who are
divergent from our cultural
norms.
Once young adults have
begun to establish their identity,
they can begin to develop life
goals. Having a sense of one's
interests and needs enables us to
cultivate friendships with people
who have similar interests and
goals. Iftheyoungadultisableto
develop the tools necessary to
function in society — trust,
identification, and intimacy —
then he or she will be well
equipped to meet the challenge
of independence in adult life.
Sometimes professional help is
required in order for the young
adult and the family to move
through these developmental
stages. Different events
throughout a young adult’s life
can leave a stage incomplete,
preventing progression to the
next stage. Outpatient psy
chiatric treatment and, oc
casionally, inpatient treatment in
a special unit designed
specifically to deal with these
developmental issues may be
necessary. Charter Peachford
Hospital is the only facility in the
Southeast that provides a
specialized program for young
adults. Young adults or parents
of young adults that wish to talk
with someone about the issues
facing people in this age group
should contact the Young Adult
Psychiatric Unit at Charter
Peachford, 455-3200 ext. 534.
Dr. Lee is a Service Director, at
the Young Adult Psychiatric
Unit, Charter Peachford
Hospital.
SGA; A Shame. . .
(Continued from Page 8)
Government Association’s Con
stitution by the first Thursday of
October 1984 or consider
themselves non-existent.
We have seen an SGA that has
operated without the open-door
policy that we were promised.
We have seen an SGA that
constantly criticizes the ad
ministration of this College for its
flaws but has failed to do its part
to keep the flaws out of the
running this great College of
ours.
Vice-President for Academic
Affairs Philip Redrick finds it
difficult to get SGA nominees for
the standing committees of the
College. Vice President for
Business Affairs Wiley Perdue
cannot get any financial state
ment from the SGA after the
homecoming activities. Vice
President Raymon Crawford
finds it extremely difficult to
reach the president and if he’s
lucky enough reach him and
makes an appointment for a
conference, the president
arrives late. One person that we
sympathize with is Public
Relations Director Allen May
who also serves as advisor to the
Student Government Associa
tion. He is said to have made 15
telephone calls in one day to the
Office of the SGA President
without any response.
With all these problems un
solved the SGA President had the
guts to mount the stage of Martin
Luther King Jr. International
Chapel amidst parents, alumni,
friends, staff and faculty during
the most boring homecoming
week ever to ask some of our
most respected faculty members
to get out of their seats because
those seats were reserved for his
staff. And to add insult to injury,
he was not going to start the
program unless they got up to
find seats in the already packed
chapel. We take it upon
ourselves to apologize to Dr.
J.K. Haynes, director of the
Honors Program who had to
leave the chapel to avoid Perry’s
embarrassing behavior and Dr.
Marcellus Barksdale, professor
of History and alumnus of the
College, for this childish and
unfortunate situation.
Now that we have done this in
behalf of the 2,000 or so students
of this College, we expect Perry
to follow suit since we think the
great leaders whose spirit he
always invokes in his speeches
could be ashamed to be
associated with this rude
behavior. We have been in
formed that the Officials of the
SGA had expressed concern
about the exodus of faculty from
this college.
Maybe, we should ask
them this question: If
you were a faculty
member and were look
ed down upon by a
student during
homecoming or another
day and later were
offered a job by some
other organization,
what would you do?
We are aware that the student
body is at this time fed-up with
rhetoric and want a more effec
tive and respectable student
government that would work
closely with the administration
to better the conditions of this
college instead of creating con
frontations; an SGA executive
that would be a lot more open to
all students not selected few; an
SGA that would be accountable
to its obligations and respect
authority but the same time not
sacrificing the plights of its
constituency and an SGA that
would respect and abide by the
mandate of the people give us a
constitution on the first Thursday
of October 1984.
The Perry administration has
outlived its usefulness, and it’s
time for them to account for
their lack of leadership. A better
leader may be hanging in the
skies waiting to assist in the
restratories of Morehouse
College that the Perry Ad
ministration has torn down into
pieces. Now is the time.
STOP PRESS:
LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE?
At the time of going to press,
the SGA Vice President Kevin
Ross had been ticketed by the
Chief Of Campus Police Jeff
Whatley for driving his car
through the gates between the
Office of the Superintendant of
Buildings and Grounds and the
Danforth Chapel and on the
green lawns to the SGA Building
between Sale and Robert Halls.
According to Chief Whatley,
Ross said he did not have a
current campus sticker and he
thought he would be punished
for coming through the main
entrance of the College. Ross
was not available for comments.