Re: AUT: Universities under siege, etc...

["Chris Hurl" <munkah@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

hey guys,

I just thought I'd jump in here, although my discussion remains confused and
tangential.

While I still regard universities are a critical area of struggle, I do
think we have to be realistic about the possibilities struggle.  So, as
Peter asks, "Is it just too much to ask of people who are already besieged?"
  In actively attempting to organize students, I ask myself this question
everyday.

Up here in British Columbia, universities are being attacked on every level.
  Tuition fees have more than doubled over the past two years.  Student
needs-based grants have been eliminated.  The Federal Government is seeking
to triple the level of commercialization of campuses over the next few years
and publicly funded research insititutions are following like lapdogs.  The
Social Science and Humanities Research Council just shotgunned through a
proposal to move away from funding individual researchers in order to seek
greater collaboration with community (ie. business, government) groups.

The critical response to all these initiatives have been mediated through
institutionalized avenues such as student unions, university committees,
etc.  And the critical response has either been reactionary (ie.  reduce
tuition fees, reinstate grants) or falling back on the liberal argument for
the free exchange of ideas, which I find to be enormously limiting.  Those
who argue for the free exchange of ideas fail to see how any concessions
that have been made to enable any sort of "free exchange" were the product
of struggles in the university in the 1960s-70s.  Rather than seeking to
reestablish these movements, these folks generally prefer to adopt motions
in their various committees and send them off expecting that they can invoke
some sort of change.

Yesterday, I helped present over 38,000 petitions demanding a "reduction of
tuition fees" to the provincial legislature.  As we sat through question
period and the petitions were simply accepted and thrown on the table,
people were disappointed.  They asked me, "Is that it?" and I responded,
"Well what do you expect?".  The irony is that student unions and the
national student federation in the country expect that petitions, letter
writing and even a mass demonstration will put pressure on the government.
Meanwhile, most students aren't even aware that a student union, let alone a
national federation exists.  There is a deep disconnect between the
institutions advocating on behalf of students and students themselves, just
like the labour movement.  Although resistance is arising in unexpected
areas, which remain disconnected from more coordinated overt struggles.

I remain conflicted in terms of how to proceed.  On the one hand, I think it
is necessary to mobilize students towards mid-term strategies that call for
something like the "massification" of education, rather than simply saying
that tuition fees should be reduced.  But even mass mobilization on such
bread and butter issues remains tedious.  I am certain that pushing such an
agenda with my local student union would be highly contentious.  In fact, as
the university is imploding on its own ivory tower, students are
increasingly coming from upper class families and have no interest in
pursuing these issues.  In fact, they actively fight against them.  The
progressive liberals entrenched in the student union leadership and
bureaucracy would argue that this isn't "realistic" and actively sabotage
any attempt to move in this direction with all their resources.  For those
who are increasingly being pushed out, they are simply trying to stay afloat
and do not have the time or energy to pursue a sustained mass mobilization.

I have always thought that student struggles are inherently limited and need
to expand to other areas.  I just helped organize a conference where I
sought to bring students together with other people that are being hit hard
by the government, ie. indigenous, rural, anti-poverty, labour struggles,
etc.  And yet I remain skeptical.  To what extent can students actually
become involved in these struggles?  When I try organizing around these
issues on campus only five or ten people show up.  If I try organizing
through the student union, it becomes watered down to the point of
meaninglessness.

Talking to activists in other areas, it seems very similar problems are
being experienced.  There seems to be no privileged entry point into
struggle.  It all seems the same.  A rank-and-file coalition bringing
together "radical" activists from different areas (ie. students, workers,
etc) has been quite active in my city.  And yet they are marginalized along
these different institutional avenues.  At a recent student union meeting, I
was told that they "betrayed our trust".

So, I guess what I am saying is that the university as an "autonomous"
insititution, a "monastery" (as one prof told me) has never really existed.
The institutions that are advocating on behalf of students/faculty are
pretending that it already exists and needs to be preserved.  For any real
struggle to arise in my university, the liberal myth of "university
autonomy" must be disavowed, but so do the institutions that perpetuate this
myth.  However, in disavowing these presumptions, our arguements are
actively marginalized on many levels.  I always thought that the way to go
was to seek out how students in their everyday lives actively negate this
myth and build from there. This is a perspective that I think autonomous
marxism provides.  But I still find it difficult to elaborate a concrete
response.  I ramble.

confusedly,

chris



>From: Peter van Heusden <pvh@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: AUT: Universities under siege, etc...
>Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 11:30:21 +0200
>
>Thiago Oppermann wrote:
>
>>We shouldn't react to the traditional exceptionalism of
>>universities by
>>taking up an opportunity to demolish the privilege of the priestly
>>caste
>>(that rings a little hollow if you work in an university, btw. It's
>>an
>>unwelcome asceticism) - we should insist on the universal
>>exception. It's a
>>dangerous game. Insisting on the exception for university workers
>>reproduces
>>the forms of disavowal we are all so very sick of enduring; but the
>>rule is
>>worse.  Hacking at universities while capital builds its own
>>network of
>>research foundations will only create a situation where nothing is
>>said but
>>money.
>>
>>
>In South Africa there was a slogan raised by SASCO (the ANC-aligned
>student movement), for the "massification" of higher
education. This
>was obviously against the prevailing trend of exclusion of more and
>more poor, black students from higher education. This was obviously
>a useful demand, and the way that SASCO blunted its own struggle by
>fighting against (often white-dominated) university administrations
>as opposed to building a broad-based campaign against the
>government's policies was frustrating. At the same time, that
>struggle (with one notable exception - at University of Durban
>Westville in 1996) never really managed to build any links outside
>of the university. I worry that this is typical, and thus the
>struggle for the "universal exception" will remain looking a
bit
>hypocritical.
>
>I guess part of where I'm coming from is that while a large number
>of people in South Africa have to apply that kind of
"generalised",
>"flexibile" intelligence that Virno talks about in Grammar of
the
>Multitude, it is expressed in a language and practice that is miles
>removed from that of the university. Thus, fighting for this
>"universal exception" would mean bridging a gap, creating a
new
>language and practice. There are a few examples of NGOs trying to
>pass on knowledge about globalisation, neo-liberalism, etc. but very
>much from a statist, leftist language that valorises Left
>institutions. Hm... I guess I'm just saying, is it possible to
>"defend the university" in any meaningful way these days
without
>building that defence into a struggle that stretches beyond the
>institution's boundaries? And if one has to broaden the struggle in
>those ways - is that practical? Or is that just too much to expect
>from people who are already besieged?
>
>Peter
>
>
>
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