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>From bjlin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sat May 10 09:42:11 1997
Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 08:50:57 +1000
From: Bruce Lindsay <bjlin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, leftlink@xxxxxxxxxx,
Subject: melbourne uni and the student occupation movement

Some reports of the student occupations of a number of university campuses
in Australia has already been sent around on various lists. I participated
in the support of the Melbourne Uni occupation yesterday, which was a
pretty intense day, although no so much I guess as for those inside and for
those that spent the night there as well (it was very cold even during the
day). These are some quick notes about what happened there and what has
happened recently in the student movements (which perhaps we can now
*really* talk of). The Melb. Uni. action came out of national rallies
against user-pays education/privitazation and on top of a past rally for a
livable income for students/the low-paid. Hence, they are in general built
out of attacks against the social wage. It was very well planned. At the
same time, Sydney university, Adelaide university, Griffith University (in
Queensland) were all occupied for various times. I am not sure at the
moment of the present status of the first two actions, as far as I'm aware
they are still going on. During the day, we also heard that students at the
Northern Metropolitan TAFE (like a polytechnic or community college) had
occupied in support, and I do not know the status of this either. I heard
later that there were also actions at Deakin Uni at Warnambool (a regional
campus), but again this is unconfirmed. This movement was given great
impetus by a three-day occupation at the University of Technology, Sydney a
couple of weeks ago, which basically built a mass movement for the action
there, with hundreds getting involved, with lots of
participatory-democratic structures, and collectivization of necessary
labour. It was busted up by the paramilitary police units and the dog squad
at 2am.

Basically, at Melbourne Uni the occupation lasted about 26 hours and was
essentially a seige situation. Over 200 students went in originally and
after some left about 170 barricaded themselves in for the duration. The
police blocked food getting in and access to toilets, and these issues of
food and sanitation became the critical issues in many ways. During the
night when supporters tried to get food lifted to the occupiers in buckets
the police charged them with about a dozen horses to stop it! The cops'
role was really a process of harassment and intimidation, even though they
weren't averse to more overt repression when they could get away with it,
which was expressed in a really schoolyard manner the whole time. Later it
was interesting to see how this was turned against them. I got there at
about 8am Friday, thinking that I probably wouldn't hang around all that
long. There was already plenty of media there. during the day there were a
series of run-ins with the media and journos, who, yet again, acted like as
bigger wankers as the cops.

>From about 9am there was a long development of activity in support of the
occupiers and things started to get more intensive. Numbers in support grew
from about 20 in the morning to 50 or so by 11 am. Between these times
there was mainly a) the problem of police harassment with food and
sanitation. Buckets and ropes were set up to get rid of excrement and to
lift food up the occupiers (who were on the second floor). At one point the
police cut the rope holding the bucket full of shit, etc, which naturally
caused real outrage (apparently there isn't even a right to shit!). But
then some comrades took the bucket, with a garbage bag full of excrement in
it, and dumped in right in front of the police lines, which the media crews
got heaps of shots of. This lead to great cheers. In response the need of
food, the occupiers threatened to throw documents out of the windows if it
wasn't allowed up - so eventually heaps of admin documents were thrown out
the windows and scattered all over the campus. Yet more cheers. b)
intensive activity to build up support for the occupation and especially
for a rally at 1pm. I did lots of lecture-bashes, other leafletted and
chalked the campus. There was a collective meeting at about 11am to
organize these activites, plus police liason, other solidarity, etc. This
represented the beginning of an important shift I think, becuase suddenly
it was not the usual activists who were doing everything, but all sort of
students organizing all of this work themselves, some who had probably
never done anything like this before. I went to speak to mainly medical,
physiology, etc students, and was really surprised that there were great
cheers and applause going up at the end of my little talk, even during it.

The levels of support kept growing, and we were leafletting the campus,
talking to students and staff, going throught the cafes and libraries with
megaphones, and  so on. There would have been 150 people in support by
12:30 and 250-300 by 1pm.

Now there was not so much a "rally" but a whole movement in support of the
occupation developing, and this included speakers from the ground and from
the occupation (though the windows), there was heaps of chanting, and
people were starting to get food in by many clever ways. This food
provision was important because it proved a means of outwitting the cops as
well as feeding the occupiers, and it was a big focus of attention.
Suddenly the cops were looking a little more helpless, and there was less
of a sense of seige about the place. People made parcels of food and threw
them through the windows, used ropes and buckets, etc. But it was really
entertaining as well, as people really wanted to out-do the cops. They were
on the floor below and would try to cut the ropes through the windows on
that floor. When they opened the windows everyone would pelt them with
fruit and other food. There were great cheers when food parcels got up to
the occupiers. Meanwhile, with a fair bit of confusion amoung organizers,
the supporters began to determine these sort of tasks that needed to be
done themselves. Not only getting food in, but increasingly it all turned
into a mass meeting mixed with a carnival, and people posed ideas such as
occupying other part of the campus (we did check this out, and it was urged
by people in the building). Briefly there was an attempt to occupy the
neighboring law library. In the end, it was decided to have a march around
the campus to build up support, and about tw-third of the rally went on
this. About 150 people stayed at the occupation. Eventually there was
debate over whether to occupy the VCs house on campus, but this action was
deferred  because an ultimatum was put to him to to address the rally. What
happened is that what had in effect become a movement sustained itself, and
the whole process didn't really need the VC. A couple of us went off to get
food for those that would be digging in for the night, as there was more
talk of this occurring. By the time we got back it had been decided by
those inside that they would come out together. (At this point a group of
reactionary knuckleheads from the rugby club tried to dirupt things by
barging through the crowd, but it didn't really have much effect. They may
have had something to do with the right-wing students who periodically
turned up to get their faces on the TV - it was after our disupting one of
these goons that we had a big "talk" with the journos and media crews).
After everyone came out - to huge cheers, jubilation, and some words from
the occupiers (including the first mention of of the idea of anything being
"revolutionary" I've heard seriously at such a mass action) - there was a
de-briefing of about 120 people in the Union building, and then everyone
went off to the pub.

If I can finally make some brief point of analysis of this movement - and I
think it was a real movement,with its own character and development. In the
end the VC did not concede to the occupiers' demands, but what made it a
success was that for the first time I've seen the beginnings of a real mass
base of support emerged, and it functioned in a participatory-democratic
way, collectivized our necessary labour, on the ground as well as inside
(which was a more politically-conscious group). And while I believe that
the positions of the movement remain limited, they do represent a basis of
further antagonistic development and are presented with the emergence of a
real social space in which to develop them. Thirdly, especially significant
was the structure of this movement, which, because of the seige situation
of the occupiers, developed in the base of support for the occupation. The
essential structure of the movement was around this relation of
*interaction* of the occupiers and the supporters outside. This means - and
it was widely ackowledged at the time - that the supporters were an
integral force of the developments as a whole. This is distinct from UTS
were there was much more fluid movement between the occupiers  and the
supporters outside.

Well, this has been rather long-winded and perhaps open to voluminous
criticism, not least for being long-winded, or maybe for inflating the
importance of what happened. But then, the last time there was any sort of
student occupations seriously done in Australia was when I was a first-year
back in 1988. It might be fruitful now if those of us watching and taking
part in these developments also look to what has happened elsewhere among
the students, such as in New Zealand last year or in Canada, which are
comparable countries. At least here things seem to be happening on a
national scale, and this form of struggle in circulating.

Regards, solidarity,

Bruce Lindsay.








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