Kieran Lawrence looks at autonomous weapons and the effect they could have on modern warfare
Continuing a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Angela Merkel
Ben Bland examines the fallout from the Iowa caucuses and looks forward to the New Hampshire primaries.
In the first of a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Nicholas Sarkozy
A few days ago YUSU quietly dismissed its role as a union fighting for the political rights of students, and played a small but important new role in helping to silence our angry voices.
On November 9th 2011 a huge demonstration against the government Higher Education White Paper, set to introduce market reforms and competition to universities, has been planned. This action will mostly involve students but has drawn support from unions of teachers, lecturers and electricians as well as members of the Church of England. Ahead of the rally, students from Birmingham and St Andrews have occupied university property, whilst student unions up and down the country have issued strong statements of support. Despite this, YUSU will not be subsidising coaches to the event organised by campaigners.
Set in the positively turbulent context of occupations, strikes, and protests around the world this demonstration is not just a rear-guard action against £9,000 tuition fees or even a first step in the scheduled 'autumn of resistance'; this demonstration is fundamentally an expression of political ownership. These universities owe allegiance to us, the students, not to corporations. These streets belong to us, the working people, not to banks and high street chains. Our futures are decided by us, the young, not by the old and privileged. Despite this, YUSU will not be subsidising coaches to the event organised by campaigners.
Nonviolent direct action is clearly a crucial method for students to show discontent; it being one of the only ways we can represent ourselves to the rest of the nation and work in solidarity with other activists. In a sense the public protest is central to how we communicate with the rest of the public. Despite this, YUSU will not be subsidising coaches to the event organised by campaigners. Why is this? The official line is that the protest route was organised too late and that there aren't enough stewards; however few other universities have raised such qualms. Take the University of Cambridge; a motion was put forward for coach funding and, according to the website of student activists at the university, was passed quickly and easily - £500 was immediately made available. The simple answer seems to be that YUSU has no appetite for student activism outside of internal issues and renaming lecture halls. Perhaps there are issues about image, being associated with overexcited activity? Yet the 'violence' in the 2010 demo was marginal at best and opposed by the vast majority of participants.
Whatever the exact reasoning behind the lack of support from YUSU, it is the result that is most worrying. The primary purpose of a students' union should be supporting the rights and needs of the student body, and at the moment those rights and needs are under vicious assault from a government bent on austerity of the most rotten kind. In response 2010 and 2011 have, and will have seen, some of the greatest political upheavals against the powers-that-be for years. We may not be talking about a dictatorship of the proletariat or political apocalypse here, but this may be a generation-defining narrative, and students from the University of York will be largely missing from that narrative. No funding from our own union is the ultimate slap in the face; we are denied our right to voice and agency from the off.
From you article I would say you feel very passionate about this subject, and are determined to protest.
I would therefore suggest that you would be protesting in London with or without any subsidy from YUSU, and so really the only benefit of coaches would be to bring along the less committed and half hearted, who just want a day out for a bit of fun and shouting.
Don't forget that there are other students out there who don't agree with you; and YUSU is there to represent all of us, not just political activists with a certain view.
"I would therefore suggest that you would be protesting in London with or without any subsidy from YUSU, and so really the only benefit of coaches would be to bring along the less committed and half hearted, who just want a day out for a bit of fun and shouting."
Some of us can't afford the travel. I am one student who wants to attend the protest but can't afford it. So the benefit of the YUSU subsidised coaches is not to bring along the 'less committed' - why would you waste your day like that if you didn't believe in the cause? - but it's to...well, subsidise. I thought that would be obvious.
"Don't forget that there are other students out there who don't agree with you; and YUSU is there to represent all of us, not just political activists with a certain view."
Remeber last November? YUSU organised coaches to the protests in London. The White Paper has been opposed by many in the university, staff included, so don't be obtuse and suggest this is a minority interest.
I would like to clear up the 'reasoning' behind YUSU not supporting this demonstration.
A proposal was brought to Community Assembly that YUSU should support the demonstration, was debated in a democratic forum and the vote concluded that we as a union would not support this demonstration. Whilst I couldn't speak for the voting intentions of the people in the room the discussion included a lot of doubt about what the march aims to achieve, and the proposers were unable to say what they thought the main idea behind the march was. The YUSU President noted from his discussions that there were safety concerns, including little disabled support and insufficient stewards to ensure a safe march. He said this had caused a number of other unions to withdraw their support for the march.
Hope this helps clear up your confusion.
Luke Sandford
Union Chair
#1 "Don't forget that there are other students out there who don't agree with you; and YUSU is there to represent all of us, not just political activists with a certain view."
What a charmingly naive view. You must be new here.
Well, Luke, from the Guardian, here's Michael Chessum from the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts explaining the march's aims:
"We are determined to block the cuts and privatisation agenda before it becomes a reality, and build a sustainable movement to defeat the government … It does not matter if University College London is aiming to raise application rates from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds if, just a few miles away, London Metropolitan – the most working class university in the country, with almost as many black students as the whole of the Russell Group – is forced to close or privatise. Meanwhile, fee waivers – a ploy to plug the funding gap caused by the policy of £9,000 fees – will raid bursary pots, pushing more students into scarce part-time work, or poverty."
Hope this clears up your confusion.
Well, if Chessum's statement is anything to go by, YUSU were right to not support the demonstration. Pie in the sky idealist bullshit, I'm afraid. No leaway for negotiation, compromise, or a realistic plan for an alternative.
This is Izaak, the author of the article. Technical issues mean I can't post with my own account. Anyway...
Thank you for your replies. In regards to the YUSU vote on the issue - yes there was a community assembly, but how well advertised was this event, how much effort was put in to get a good representation of students? Even as somebody involved in preperations for the march I didn't hear much at all about it and none of my friends (anecdote alert...) did. On the other hand a large number of people signed the petition calling for YUSU funding of the coaches, and I would not be surprised if the number of signatures outnumbered the number of people at the 'community' assembly. In terms of the aims of the march that should have been clear to the union, it was certainly made clear by the organisers at the NUS - this was a march against the Higher Education White Paper, the 'reforms' that it wanted to introduce. As simple as that. Moreover, the presence of occupation and protest movements all around the world at the moment made this a perfect time for action.
Finally, this was not "pie in the sky" - it was a protest against the privatisation of universities. Unless you think that introducing corporate rule to education and making it harder for disadvantaged students to get into university is written in scripture then attempting to block it is an entirely legitimate action.
It's easy to have a general protest about the way higher education is going (and I agree that it is a shambles) but the reluctance of the anti-cuts, anti-fees mob to propose a sustainable alternative lets it down. (I'd have more sympathy if there was some acknowledgement that fewer people should go to university, and this should pave the way back to a student grant system.) Furthermore, the 'all or nothing' approach leaves no room for negotiation, and makes it less credible and likely to influence policy. So you're shooting yourselves in the foot, basically.
Izaak again.
Surely the alternative is to not privatise higher education, keep it a public good? Education is extremely important, why not cut Trident instead or recognise that such deep cuts coupled with massive privatisation isn't actually the best way to secure economic well-being for the country?
@ #8 Anonymous, it's all very well to say "I'd have more sympathy if there was some acknowledgement that fewer people should go to university," but you can't deny that there is more and more of an expectation for people to have degrees. It's hard to get into many areas of the job market without one.
"Surely the alternative is to not privatise higher education, keep it a public good?"
I agree - but the idea of sending 50% of the population to university is neither practical nor really desirable. I'd rather a minority who would benefit went to university for free than masses of people who would receive no real intellectual pleasure go for the sake of going and wrack up debt. And realistically, Trident is not going to be scrapped (again, pie in the sky). If the protesters have drawn up a *plausible* list of alternative revenue sources, then that would interesting.
"you can't deny that there is more and more of an expectation for people to have degrees. It's hard to get into many areas of the job market without one."
It's true that many jobs that could be done perfectly well by non-graduates now require the applicant have a degree. Why? Because there is excess of degree recipients. By encouraging more and more people to go to university, degrees are devalued to such an extent that they become a necessity. It's the rational course of action for an individual to get one relative to his or her peers, because if not they would be disadvantaged, but collectively it perpetuates a downward spiral.
It would've made much more sense to have made the target 50% of young people in Further Education, not university higher education.
It might've meant that university remained more focused on the academic side, and an improvement in Further education for skills, trades and employability.
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report