An important part of human development is about learning, often through accepting the point of view of others and taking something from the process. I think this is a lesson that a whole generation must have missed out on. Welcome to my generation, where conformity is the new cool and where politics certainly isn’t. As Britain heads down the 'middle' road of politics, led by New Labour with their not-so-new ideas on how to 
govern society, the disenfranchised, 'don’t give a shit' youth of today file out of universities, proud to be just another brick in the wall.
Pics: Will Poole &
Will Jobbins
My college was the London College of Communication, the largest of all the sites. LCC is modern, trendy and arty, and its students were likewise. What the LCC lacked was any credible student community or social network. There was no real encouragement to congregate. Maybe it’s because one really unique and powerful aspect of student philosophy had been lost – that feeling that together, students could do anything. The radical political movements of the ‘60s and ‘70s were dead and with it the rallies, debate and new or experimental ways of thinking.
During freshers’ week, before I had my first class, the student union organised a workshop titled ‘Student’s Involvement in Changing the World’. Just eight people turned up, including myself, out of the entire first year of the university. Even the lecturer failed to attend, and so we had to have a representative from the Student Union take over. We opened up with a Q&A of sorts, so I asked what our union had accomplished in the outside world since the university opened.
The answer was not a lot, to put it politely. They hadn’t run one campaign or rally. This was a union that was fighting to communicate to its own students let alone anyone outside the college walls, a sadly ironic affair considering the college’s name. Yet somehow, before leaving the room, I found myself signing up to the Student Council. I think they may have resorted to putting something in the water.
The Student Council was an eye-opening experience. There were very 
few people involved and even fewer of those actually turned up regularly. Elections for positions were a farce, because out of tens of thousands of students only 400 people even bothered to vote. Don’t get me wrong here – those that are involved work very well with what they have and are bright, determined and dedicated. The problem here isn’t the people running the show, it’s the apathetic students themselves. Crushing words indeed, but it’s very hard to form any other sort of opinion given the evidence.
The big event for all student unions is the NUS conference, which I was able to attend. The NUS conference is pretty much a three-day bender in Blackpool, speckled with a few hours of pantomime and voting. The same group of reactionaries vote one way on everything, and everyone else votes whichever way the beloved President does. You have to love uni politics – even though I agreed with points on both sides, I was amazed at how mundane the subjects were. Can you believe that the motion to campaign for free education was voted down five to one? At the NUS, of all places? It was also evident that every topic of debate was related to student society, such as the binge drinking culture and the price of a pint. There wasn’t a whisper about the world outside the university walls. The idea of changing the world is now considered an optimistic fantasy by many, but maybe that’s the trait we are lacking. Maybe having a child-like vision of a better future would actually give us something to aspire to. Maybe we have all just grown up a little too fast.
In today’s world we are encouraged to grow up faster and faster. We have a life plan already in existence even before birth and, as soon as we’ve got that out of the way its off to nursery, then primary school, and then some of us – providing we have jumped through enough hoops – go to sixth form or college. Then its university for the lucky ones, then a job, a house, a husband/wife, two kids, retirement and death. There are so many hoops to hurdle and not all of us make it to the final stages, but we all manage to meet at the end. We are taught from birth that this is just the way it is and the way it will always be, with an emphasis on the philosophy that taking maximum enjoyment from life is easiest when jumping through as many of these hoops as possible. We care so much about getting to the end of our course of hoops that we don’t take the time to ask important questions, like why are they there? What was their desired purpose and effect? Could we make them easier to jump through? And should we even jump through them at all?
arse and get involved, the
NUS can be contacted at
www.nus.org.ukHowever I do have hope for the future, as there is a sizeable minority who are still able to think for themselves and shun conformity. Any large-scale political demonstration is almost guaranteed to be attended by – and in some cases led by – passionate student unionists. Yet they remain a minority, and when surrounded by so many others who honestly aren’t interested in anything more than making grades and winning drinking competitions, I feel that my generation, at least, has lost the fight.
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written by Ruthie , June 15, 2009
written by WP , June 18, 2009
written by Anon , August 12, 2009
It's one thing to claim that students are apathetic and don't care about issues, especially not anything that relates to life outside the student bubble, but another to claim the only way to make a difference is to go a war zone.
You claim that 'your' generation has lost its fight, and yet the people who do fight back have yet to see you do any fighting. I have been at LCC for years and only once saw your name on the student union election website. Sounds like your talking from a high horse mate. Granted, you may not see the priority over Palestine, but as you must well know, and as any serious person would understand, many of the left are involved in many different campaigns and organisations. You could have acted to support the jobs of our teaching staff at LCC which are under threat, and since those in prominent positions in the SU arts have effectively given their support to such plans, your help would have been useful, but your contribution was zilch, nada, zero.
The left is small, and the appetite for activism is weak, yet it is the student unions which have created the problem, and the agenda of most student unions currently is to push this apathetic culture on to students with the expectation that is the only thing that will motivate them. This agenda comes from people who have more interest in promoting their careers after sabbatical life than what they actually do as a sabbatical.
written by W P , August 13, 2009
I am intrigued by the hypocrisy in your response/criticism. In the 2 terms I was at UAL I didn't see you once at any of the su meetings, Lcc meetings or any conferences arguing for anything at all. So how exactly are you meant to have met me or know what I've argued for? It's very easy to throw stones when you're not making a stand yourself.
How humorous that someone who has absolutely no experience with the union and those Sabs within it is prepared to make such accusations, especially when they are wrong by all accounts.
But maybe you have a different experience from your many years of being at LCC and being in the Pro-Palestine Solidarity group, if you want to make a song and dance about it, write us an article and we will publish it.
written by Anon , August 16, 2009
In a nutshell, if you're gunning for a respectable career in a trade union or as a councillor or any career really, it doesn't make much sense to have opposed tuition fees or fought for your lecturer's rights to keep their jobs.
It's more pronounced at the national level of the union, where the most dubious of these individuals usually rise to the top. Their arguments are that students are not interested in taking on political matters, and especially not in any militant sense, therefore the best you can do is to become part of the political mainstream and accept the general logic, bar a few compromises.
It has been this generation that has abused its position, and for example, given up the fight for free education, once a celebrated right of every person in the UK, something which every cabinet minister enjoyed, now a forgotton 'utopian' concept. Why? Because they fundamentally agree with the logic of the mainstream politicians, who have disregarded every principle they once had, killed a million in Iraq which cost billions, decreased taxation on the rich and middle class, and cut services and provisions as if they got some kind of perverse gratification fron it.
Their record on fees is incredible, at the height of the anti-fees feeling they refused to organise a national demonstration, they even refused to organise a demonstration outside parliament when MPs were voting for christ's sake.
Unfortunatley their position inside the student movement, what is left of it, influences a lot of people, and it seems also - yourself, to accept a position that it is students who are the ones who don't give to shits. But it's not the problem, the problem is that they've allied themselves to those students who are more interested in pubs and beer.
On a smaller scale, those that have accepted these ideas, go about organising very little, the SU arts union spent thousands on hiring the Truman brewery for their fayre, which turned out to be a jamboree for commercialism, with commercial stalls were given proud place at the front, students had to walk past about 30 stalls before eventually seeing a student society. They encouraged the development of the hub, which for all it's advantages, means that the individual colleges have been neglected massively. Their solution to the lack of events at LCC and so on? Events where you can get drunk. 1-5-0 parties. There's rarely anyone to be found in the office at LCC, no, instead they are all holed up in the central office far away from students and doing relatively little, instead they could be on the ground, helping societies set up events, organise campaigns, advertise the hub, promote the bar, helping course reps. Less Common came out twice(?), much less than the six times it is meant to be released, Kit should have got sacked for that. And instead of a student union newspaper we have got the Arts London newspaper, a truly awful newspaper funded by Rupert Murdock, which contains (despite the title) very little news.
They've even employed Dave Lewis, the well known ex NUS treasurer, aside from the fact that he presided over the NUS Extra card, a horrendous failure, he was a fucking racist. http://live.cgcu.net/news/1831 He joins the legions of other managers in the 'hub'. I don't even want to speculate what ridiculous salaries they are on.
And Will, maybe you should find the link, because it was your name next to that quote, unforunatley the arts London website barely works, so I couldn't find it for you. It was on the side of the newspaper, next to the main article, in a fancy box, where individual student opinions are to be represented. And by the way, I was on student council for three years, the only motion (and I submitted a lot) which was deemed acceptable was the anti-racist motion I submitted, which included affiliation to Love Music Hate Racism. I organised a lot of events, a meeting of 80, a film showing of 150, three societies, pity last year was my last year and I had to do some work eh?
written by Kit Friend , August 19, 2009
Interesting to hear about these right-wing labour party affiliated people... especially as the main body of opposition to NUS types is usually that they're too far left... in any case, I digress. Despite being one of the few to fly an openly Conservative flag at NUS events, I'd certainly challenge the notion that anything is drifting to the right.
It probably doesn't make much sense career wise to oppose tuition fees, or fight loudly for redundancies to be minimised. And most sabbs aren't here for their careers. Hence why last year you saw the first ever serious effort from us to get out there and talk to students about debt (a campaign that spoke to 950 individuals in winter term, was included in the training of all course reps, and inductions, and has consistently called on the Rector to formally react, and for on my part alone has heard me call for a better way of funding Arts education in particular the ICA, HEA, ADM-HEA, Arts Council and virtually every other opportunity public and private). For the part of fighting for lecturers jobs, aside for calling for better funding (which would solve lots of issues), this year the SUARTS sabbs met with UCU and other trade union reps as soon as cuts loomed, pressured senior staff and on more than one occasion secured student meetings with them, and named and shamed malpractice in consultation at every committee and other event possible.
Read More here http://www.toxinmagazine.co.uk...mment.html
written by Anon , September 04, 2009
A few bones of contention though, NUS has failed. If this was a football match between students and the government, and NUS was in goal, it would be 10 - 0 to the government. At which point did the NUS actually succeed in defending the interests of students?
Sorry for raising facts with you, but have we not ended up with tuition fees, top up fees, and now the impending raising of the cap, without barely a whimper from the NUS leadership? NUS's tactics have failed, simple.
Dave Lewis [Removed due to legal reasons - Editor], I'm not sure you're going on about the same thing that I was, and I'm not even sure you actually read the article I linked to. Do you even now about what I was talking about? Check the article again, and read till the bottom, how that man was not sacked on the spot for gross misconduct I don't know. In any other job, his career would be over, but hey that's the NUS for you.
All the rest is just waffle, you could name qualitative things you have done for students, but you can not. How many people voted for you? Hmm, just over 200 I believe. Was there anything of serious merit in your manifesto? Nope. How many people stood against you for your position? Zero. How many job interviews have you gone for and told at the end you've got the job because of lack of interest?
The SU means nothing to students because it hasn't done anything to deserve the respect of students. That's the reason for its current malaise and the reason it concentrates on ridiculous parties, give-aways and adverts. Student Unions actually used to be a lot better, it's a pity those traditions were lost. The longer it is led by those who get wet with anticipation about their future careers in politics, like yourself, the worse the situation becomes.
PS. I see all the careerists join the Tories these days.
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