-I'm writing this because it was a election promise of mine to engage the grassroots and get students heard (this was described at the time as unrealistic). Why Am I not lobbying silently behind closed doors? Its because I just don't believe that the executive or guild council are democratic enough to reform themselves. I believe we need open and honest debate which all students can take part in too reform and re-ignite the guild of students as a campaigning organization.
Last guild council students decided to end the guilds campaign against shell after two years in failure. Two years ago the world and students across the country were in uproar about revelations about shells behavior in Nigeria; its disregard for international laws, its environmental abuse and its role in the murder of 9 Nigerian activists including and internationally acclaimed poet, writer, activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Several students societies rallied the student body, created a petition with hundreds of signatures showing broad student support for the university to divest its shares in shell and cease allowing it to promote itself on campus. Those societies and individuals passed a motion at guild council mandating the guild to cease its promotion of shell, investment in the company and for the EEO and president lobby the university to do likewise. At this point the guild got involved..... and a popular campaign which had the broad support of the student body was effectively over.
I don't want to discuss if students should or should not campaign against shell, I just want to analyze why a campaign with so many committed organizers, activists and popular support failed. Why two years later the campaign had lost all momentum.
Passing a motion through guild council - had the same effect on the campaigns momentum as a 20,000 ton train traveling east at 86mph would have on 12 stone 3lb jogger traveling east. The guild cuts its students out of any process of taking its campaigns further.
Its the job of the officers sitting of various university committees to pass up guild council mandates, that committee then hopefully discusses the proposal decides the outcome, and (if the motion mandates) for that officer to write a letter to relevant committee/person/organization . A process which the student group is cut out off. The influence the student group has over its campaign is via guild council and the officers reports on the process of their representation.
The system of campaign representation was (I hope) designed with the best intentions, to get students heard. Its has unfortunately now become more like a bottleneck more of a block than boost to student campaigns. It is surprising? how effective was the one man army ever going be against the university?
In the case of the Shell campaign the student groups behind it where left at a loose end, they still had all that energy all their passion but no real targets left to put it all to good use on. Given time with nothing to do it died away its members left or put their energies into new campaigns. By the time a group of students decided they didn't want their officers to campaign on this anymore, the campaign was truly a shadow of its former self (It didn't really defend itself very vigorously in guild council).
A student society should never be left in the cold, the guild should be helping its students take their campaigns further. Students groups don't know who two target next; guild officers in their reports on their campaigns on there blog and communications to Guild council should contain minutes of meetings they raise the issue at, which departs or individuals objected and who approved, (It will be hard) the guild should work to truly break the bottleneck of this representation open; get permission for student media and students to sit in on all the meetings from the council downward, let students groups send representatives to address the committees directly and even hard get even more representatives who are more accountable for students on these committees.
This bottleneck must be broken students voices should be heard by the university in there full undiluted force with all their passion and commitment. Maybe then popular campaigns like the shell campaign won't fail....
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Here here Ed. You are of course completely right to say that student groups are being shut out of the closed shop of the Guild. I wish you all the best this year, you'll go far. Josie Le Blond
ReplyDeleteDear Ed,
ReplyDeleteA very passionate and thought provoking piece.
I do empathise with your concerns that passing a motion through guild council may sometimes seem as if you are also passing the baton.
The executive, as I hope you will appreciate this year, are best placed with their connections and training to be spear any Guild campaign, especially with their democratic legitimacy.
I am sure the exec will utilise the energy of the students they represent to steam role any such campaign and indeed working with the powers that be in the Guild is a tried and tested means of making real change.
With regards to your ex officio comments about GC subcommittees not being properly accountable to Guild Council itself, you have some valid points.
All full members of the University are entitled to attend and take part (in a non-voting capacity) at any open business subcommittee. These dates can be obtained by the independent chairs or the relevant committee chair.
In addition to this the Independent Chairs have an important role in all of these committees to act in the interests of Guild Council. So that the delegated responsibilities given to these committees are exercised within the specified remit. Subcommittees are required to provide detailed reports to Guild Council regarding there actions in order to be accountable. In the future these subcommittees may face more stringent observations from the chairs themselves considering some of last years misdemeanours.
I hope this goes someway to allaying some of your concerns. As always no system is entirely perfect and with the impending GC and democratic review I am sure the currently system will be inevitably bettered.
Yours,
Hey all, writer of the original Shell motion here (two long years ago, where does the time go?, etc.)
ReplyDeleteI dont have the original motion on me, and should probably be doing my actual work rather than looking it up online, but I never really intended it to mandate a 'Guild campaign' against Shell, for several reasons:
a. I don't think it would have passed if I did.
b. I think P&P could/did do a much better job than the Guild would have managed.
c. The Guild Council structure is so ridiculously undemocratic that I feel almost any campaign they run, particularly on political issues, has no legitimacy.
I was just tired of seeing the murderous, gas-flaring, tar-sands-extracting, offshore-pipeline-building, community-destroying, let-me-reemphasise-the-murdering-part shower of bastards advertising themselves in the Guild. From memory the motion asked the Guild to stop accepting any advertising or sponsorship from Shell, and to write to Shell telling them that this was happening and why.
Do I assume that this has now been overturned and the mudering, polluting, etc. bags of scummy scum are allowed back in the Guild?
Yeah it has been overturned
ReplyDeleteThis might be the time to start looking out for Shell around campus again then - ironically, by overturning the motion that banned Shell, they may now have a more visible presence, making it easier to sustain an on-campus campaign against them. After all, if anything, they're getting worse rather than better...
ReplyDeleteThanks "yours" lots of useful information in your reply. Although I would say meetings are open in a very loose sense of the word "These dates can be obtained by the independent chairs or the relevant committee chair". I was not just talking about guild council sub committees but councils "above" GC were the guild interacts with the uni.
ReplyDeleteHey Steven nice to know I'm being watched thanks.
I agree with what you say about guild democracy especially after the referendum. I think students and P&P are far more effective campainers. Although the shell campaign is a bad example, I do still think the channels of communication with the uni are a very thin bottleneck that excludes students and makes it hard for them to get their point across to the uni.