Sheffield university occupied for gaza

[belboid]

y'know it's funny..... if students protest about something not directly student related, they're slagged off for only being interested in 'fashionable' causes, if they protest about student loans, or somesuch, they get slagged for only thinking about themselves and not caring aobut others less fortunate.

Seems like some people think students should just be jolly grateful that they're allowed to study at all.

 

[Das Uberdog]

And here's the rub. Occupying lecture theatres gives the illusion of influence, but nothing more. It's a bizarre combination of over-inflated self-importance and impotence.

Gaza is a fashionable cause, bound up with cultural issues that go back millennia. There are issues closer to home that students are better able to understand and address. But then campaigning against foreign atrocities from the safety of your own country has always been an easy route to righteousness.

No-one I know from the occupation has any delusions of grandeur - the aim isn't to bring down the Israeli state through the cooptation of the University of Sheffield, it's about winning several small demands of great symbolic importance to the current debate on the Middle-East situation, in order to progress a general, social political consensus.

As for the SU at Sheffield, I don't know how much experience with student unions you've had recently (evidently the amount is negligable) but to take an organisation which has a 25% turnout for elections (the highest percentage in the country!) and which is riddled with New Labour hacks and the general apolitical bureaucratic bullshit internal culture as some kind of guage of student opinion is totally bogus. From what I've been told the general reaction to the occupation was far more ambiguous, but regardless, it's got the campus buzzing with talk about the issues in a way nothing has been talked about in the remembered political history of the University.

 

[Azrael]

As for the SU at Sheffield, I don't know how much experience with student unions you've had recently [...]

Enough to make me as scathing as you, but that's by the by. If students can't be bothered to turn out to vote, then the SU is a reflection of student opinion, albeit not a complimentary one. Democracy often lands us with useless specimens in power, but that's as much our fault as it is theirs, especially in low-level elections. Have you an alternative means of discovering and representing student opinion?

Regardless of the occupiers' demands (none of which I'd support), I'd support the occupation if, but only if, the occupiers had been denied the right to stand in an SU election. Is this the case?

 

[durruti02]

Well thank you for not being abusive, beboid.

Legally occupied or not the point remains that there are still plenty of countries in this world containing people who have had their lives ruined by war and yet Gaza is always the sacred cow. I find it totally abhorrent what Israel are doing to the Palestinians, most people do. I also find it totally abhorrent what's been done to Iraqis, many Africans, the list goes on and on.

These occupiers only talk about how bad higher education is in Gaza, what about the normal education? where they're taught to hate the west and Israel, being taught to hate has no place in any school. What about the millions of kids who don't even go to school in the first place cause they are forced to work?

I really don't disagree with what these people are saying but ffs there's far more bigger pieces of this rancid pie that need addressing and they all connect. It's not as iff Sheffield uni can really do anything about the policies of Israel. It also fascinates me how people are always more than willing to flap their arms around about injustices in other countries but never injustices in our own country, we've hardly seen any mass protests about injustices in the UK since the 80s.

oh yeah .. agree ..

 

[Das Uberdog]

Enough to make me as scathing as you, but that's by the by. If students can't be bothered to turn out to vote, then the SU is a reflection of student opinion, albeit not a complimentary one. Democracy often lands us with useless specimens in power, but that's as much our fault as it is theirs, especially in low-level elections. Have you an alternative means of discovering and representing student opinion?

Regardless of the occupiers' demands (none of which I'd support), I'd support the occupation if, but only if, the occupiers had been denied the right to stand in an SU election. Is this the case?

But the occupiers aren't standing on an electable manifesto - they've not got any overarching policy structure other than their demands, and as far as I can tell, nothing politically uniting the members of the occupation other than the occupation itself as a tactic for achieving their demands.

Surely your support of the occupation should rest, rather, on its effectiveness as a tactic. As far as I can see, it's the only thing which could have got negotiations opened in the way it did, achieve the notoriety and publicity which it has done, and achieve the broader political objective of proving how isolated, bureacratic and unrepresentative SU politics actually is by providing an inclusive and participative alternative.

 

[Azrael]

Surely your support of the occupation should rest, rather, on its effectiveness as a tactic.

Why? All sorts of dubious tactics can be work, but I base my support on more than efficacy.

If democratic routes are closed, I'll support "direct action" of varying degrees, depending on the circumstance. While they remian open, it's not the university's fault that the students can't get enough support to be elected. "Democracy until we're outvoted" is a bizarre ideology.

 

[Das Uberdog]

'Majority voting as the absolute legitimator for any political action' is an even more bizarre ideology. What if it's majority voting for an institution which is illegitimate to start with? What happens if peoples' 'democratic channels' are closed by a majority vote - should they shut up? Presuming the ends are something you agree with, then it's not the means to those ends which are important but their achievement at all. That is, if you are actually interested in achieving the ends, rather than simply being irrationally concerned with legitimating some funny and uninteresting voting systems (which necessarily becomes an ends in itself). If you believe something is right, then you should do what is necessary to make it reality.

What really is bizarre is the fact you seem to see 'direct action' and the rest of the political system as two parallel forms of political activity, which don't mix. They're inextricably linked, in reality. The one impacts upon the other. The occupations which have been sweeping through UK universities recently have actually changed both the political discourse and culture of 'official' politics on campus, wherever I've been anyway.

And regardless, how would you suggest the Occupiers actually go about the practical route of standing for election? I mean, technically, how? And if they know they'll lose, but their cause is such that they need to do something to achieve it, what do they do faced with certain electoral defeat on their single-issue campaign? What if the only way to tap into a wider political mood on campus is by seperating oneself from the official bureaucratic 'politics' of the SU? What then?