One of two perspectives on the Bristol University occupation which appeared on the research blog, Mała Kultura Współczesna, earlier this month.
Cerelia Athanassiou: Encounters with Powerful Men
‘The moment the people is legitimately assembled as a sovereign body, the jurisdiction of the government wholly lapses, the executive power is suspended…For in the presence of the person represented, representatives no longer exist.’ (Rousseau [1762] 2008: 92)
For a moment we’re into the second day of the occupation of Senate House at the University of Bristol. Only ‘original occupiers’ (i.e. the students that first went into Senate Room, of Senate House – the administrative nerve-centre of the University) are allowed access to the occupation space, and they have to register with Security every time they come in and out of the building. The occupiers have been in negotiation with the University’s Registrar about opening up access to the occupation, but have thus far been unsuccessful. I volunteered to go into the second of such negotiation meetings as one of the ‘representatives’ of the group – University Management only agreed to meet with representatives of the group rather than with the whole group itself. They presented no rationale for this, but it seems that their perseverance with this system of meetings corresponded to their refusal to see the current system of management of the University as hierarchical and problematic. In fact, every aspect of their correspondence or meeting with our group oozed condescension, aloofness and disdain. This is what it feels like to be confronted by power.
The message we got from Management in those two ‘representative’ meetings was that our tactic of occupation was undemocratic, coercive, unconstitutional and unrepresentative; the repetition of these words was meant to remind us of the illegitimacy of our protest. The repeated reference to Management’s responsibility for an entire University was aimed at further marginalising us and the concerns we brought to the fore with our action. The sanitised meeting room in which our meetings were conducted, with their modern furniture and with the highest-quality technical equipment (including one of the many new plasma screens that have populated the University in recent years) also communicated to the group of three sleep-deprived student-occupier ‘representatives’ that here is an institution which is successfully providing for a large number of students and staff, and which thus has no interest in listening to a ‘minority view’. No part of that meeting was sympathetic to the cause brought forward by the ‘occupiers’. But there was also a sense of unease that Management policy had been questioned in such a spectacular manner; unease that a random group of students was now occupying a grandiose conference room in the heart of the University’s administrative hub; unease that students at the bottom of this University h
ierarchy had the tenacity to occupy that conference room a few minutes before the start of a meeting of University Senate; unease that these students issued Management with a list of controversial demands. The closed field of politics was just opened up slightly and became re-politicised; and this brought with it the realisation that a random group of students can be just as important a player in this as Management.
As the letters of support started flowing in from other students, individual members of staff, and then whole departments across the University, we understood the far-reaching consequences of our action: we had energised what had so far been a de-politicised sphere of influence. We do not want to be a part of Management’s Public Relations informed ‘vision’ of an ideal University brand; we do not subscribe to ‘values’ which seek to marketise a public good; we do not see how the University can function as a space of critical thinking when its own structures overload and exploit its own workers, most of whom work far harder and longer than they are paid for. These are not irrational pronouncements, the arguments supporting these views are not uninformed, and Management are aware of this. The re-politicisation of the sphere of Higher Education brings with it interesting consequences, which rightly scare those in power: their version of what is good for this and other universities, and of what counts as ‘good’ education, have not only been questioned, but alternatives have been made possible.
One of our main targets of protest has to remain the undemocratic decision-making structure of this University and the cosiness with which some job functions in the Management structure operate; and we will demonstrate that another, democratic and fair, way of organisation is not only possible but already real. This is the face of the re-energised student movement nationally: leader-less and in direct opposition to power and convention – and this annoys people. We weren’t lying when we said that Senate House was just the end of the beginning; the potential for change is too great for us to stop now.
In solidarity with all student activists and with university occupations happening across the country (including those continuing over Christmas) and internationally.
