February 15, 2007 - Wind of change

Picard, Wolfe, Joseph, Brisson. They won.

We won.

It's nice to win for a change. For the first time in ages, social justice and environmental groups on campus got their members on a majority of the executive seats of the SFUO.

Heck, even Dean (the comeback Finance candidate) had a green platform that year.

The presidential race (Hrick vs. Michel) was decided by 12 or 15 votes, and there would be a recount, but none of "us" cared that much. I don't even remember who "we" supported between the two of them.

Four out of six was what mattered. I remember Danika's campaign, with volunteers from a bunch of student clubs, Alt 101ers, and others, who participated in such an election for the first time. She was running against two SFUO insiders, and it looked like an uphill battle. Then the Fulcrum endorsed her for VPSA. So did La Rotonde. And by the third week we thought we could win. But it was hard to believe until February 15.

So when the results were in, there were shouts and tears of joy. On that evening, the 1848, the usual hangout of the SFUO clique, was taken over by a different group of students. It seemed very symbolic. It felt like the clique was broken and the SFUO was based on a grassroots student movement once more.

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This was only two years ago. If you read the media and blogs, it seems I'm now part of the clique, it appears the roles have been reversed. Isn't this strange? How much can change in two years?