March 22, 2009 - Choices

No political group has a monopoly on ideas. Sometimes, getting out of our crowed can help us deal with a difficult problem. Far from being a socialist myself, I was definitely impressed by the October 5 issue of The Agitator, entitled Building a united student movement.

Here are some excerpts most relevant to our current situation:

Student union leaders who embark on a radical course with no meaningful base of support from the membership will ensure a backlash, such as electoral defeat to the right, and possibly a defederation campaign from CFS. This top-down "left-wing" strategy has to be discarded.

(...)

On every campus there are right-wing and left-wing students, but the vast majority fall somewhere in the middle, carrying a mix of both progressive and conservative ideas. Radicals need to focus on winning this middle majority away from the right and towards the left. This can't be done through denouncing, bullying and intimidating them, only through patiently winning them to effective action and coherent politics.


Unfortunately, patience is scarce when turnover occurs every one or two years and when every student politician wants his or her "legacy". In the recent past, "left-wing" student union executives across Ontario have promoted the complete opposite of the movement-building attitude presented above.

We've all heard it happen elsewhere. In a few words, here's the recipe for disaster: Adopt some controversial motion at the local, provincial or national student organization. Don't take the time to consult your membership before, or even discuss it with them after. When asked about it by the media, make some inflammatory remarks that convince no one but those already convinced, and manage to infuriate basically everyone else. Then blame the media for being biased or sensationalist. At the end of the year, bring some new recruits to your electoral slate. If official slates are allowed, choose a name like "students united" or "students first", no matter how ironic it now sounds. Win the elections. Repeat.

So many times, I wanted to say that we should stop embracing all these causes at once. But when the motion is already on the table, who can vote against women's rights? Who can vote against an anti-racism campaign? It was just easier to support it all to show that "we care", even if most of these bold motions and bold statements don't lead to concrete actions, or concrete results.

So many times, I wanted to extend a hand to people "somewhere in the middle", only to find out that they were already labelled as "anti-student" or "reactionary" by the activist leadership, and their ideas had to be discarded, lest we "weaken the movement". And if anyone dare suggest that the leadership's attitude is weakening the movement, they will be immediately required to apologize for insulting those who are so dedicated to "the cause".


I wanted to conclude this post with predictions for the future - from the March 22 BOA onwards. I have no doubts that Seamus, Julie and Roxanne will get out of this impasse and keep their jobs in May. After all, their strategy is working in the short term. In the long term, it could be the first step into the trap described above. The choices ahead of us, when (if?) we get out of the current storm, are becoming increasingly clear.


Here's the grand question: How can we, as students, as activists and as friends, help the executive of the SFUO develop a philosophy of sustainable, inclusive movement-building?

The answer, of course, is well beyond the scope of this modest blog.