Whatever happened to the '60s spirit? Activism and democracy in the Student Unions of today
This December an international peace conference in London will bring together representatives of the Iraqi resistance with the American and British parents of soldiers killed by the resistance with Trade Unionists, politicians, peace campaigners and students from across Britain to issue an international call for the withdrawal of British and US troops from Iraq. This unity of people from across the world who have been the losers in Bush and Blair's war is unprecedented, and prevents a powerful answer to those who say we can't change the situation in Iraq.
Students have been at the forefront of the anti-war movement since 9/11. The thousands of school students who walked out of lessons to demonstrate in Parliament Square the week the war started are this year's freshers. This term, a tour by George Galloway of British universities has drawn audiences of over 300 in most places (including an audience of 750 at Leeds University). Motions supporting the peace conference have been submitted everywhere and passed so far at Warwick and Swansea, and student societies are also delegating people to attend.
The erosion of direct democracy in Student Unions does present student campaigners with difficulty, though. Regular general meetings, open to all students, used to be the place union policies were either won or lost. Motivated by problems of poor turnout at these meetings, or a desire for a more managerial "service provider" ethos, many student unions switched to a more mediated form of democracy. Instead of going out and mobilizing students to come and debate policy, many solved the problem of inquorate general meetings by doing away with them and replacing them with student councils, based on representative, rather than direct, democracy. These bodies tend to be more conservative than general meetings, because the students with votes at them will have been put through some part of the mill of the NUS bureaucracy's "training" for would-be student officers. They've been taught that their job is to conform to health and safety laws, not break ultra-vires, and run the union and its societies efficiently. Expending resources on a mass campaign against war or top-up fees interferes with that set-up. Of course some don't buy into this, but the general effect is conservatising, and turns Student Unions tame.
Historically, since the 1960s, students have played a radicalizing role in society. Some in the student movement would like to see that radicalizing role consigned to the history books, and view student unions merely as service providers. Information from Birmingham University Guild of Students given to societies includes guidance on how to seek commercial sponsorship, the law around this, and how to ensure the society gets the best deal. If this is how student societies are meant to operate, then they are just preparation for going into business, not organizations that campaign and try to change bits of the world we don't like.
Many students are turned off "student politics" by the prevailing idea that it's all about organizing the best parties and selling the cheapest beer. Thousands of students have gone on anti-war demos, and thousands more will attend the climate change demonstration at the US embassy this December. We have to battle to ensure that activism on the ground is reflected in the structures of the National Union of Students, and reverse the erosion of democracy in the student movement. Some of the best student activists are the least good at engaging with official student politics, because they see it as irrelevant. However, the longer we take an anarchist attitude to the NUS, the longer we will be represented by people who refuse to challenge the government.
It's vital that the students mobilizing for the climate change demo and the peace conference are also the delegates to NUS conference this year. It's a disgrace that would have been unheard of in the 1960s 70s or 80s that the Trades Union Congress had a more left wing position on the war in Iraq than the NUS (which still refuses to affiliate to the Stop the War Coalition) did. If we want our union to look like the activism that exists on the ground in the colleges we have to engage with it and struggle to change it, not ignore it.
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