First off, thanks for doing this post. I’ve been recommended that book before - is there a particularly relevant passage?

I agree about the necessity of doing ground work in advance of these types of actions but I would just add that this action - against a fee increase - should not be viewed in isolation from the ongoing organizing that has happened against fee increases on our campuses. In 2005, 98% of students at UofT voted against fee increases. Thousands of students rallied on February 7, 2007 against fee increases. Students’ unions across Canada have advocated against fee increases. Many, many actions have been organized by students. Despite all of this, and the efforts of student representatives at UofT, the administration continues with fee increases, making education more and more inaccessible.

And again, I agree with the importance of doing enough ground work, but I also know that historically there has always been a negative backlash - in March of 1987, after four years of organizing without success, students shut down a meeting of the Governing Council to make a statement about the university’s failure to divest from the racist apartheid South African regime. Reading through the news clippings, there was a lot of negative backlash then as well. This is the nature of the mainstream and sometimes even campus media. However, after this high-profile event public pressure mounted and UofT divested from SA within several months.

Of course what is most necessary is to show that there is support amongst the general student body on the ground. That’s why we will be organizing a rally on Tuesday at 4:10pm at UofT downtown. I hope you and some of the brothers and sisters from UTM will be able to join us (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=11965687390).

Ryan

A good Paulo Freire quotation for you:

“Revolutionary leaders must avoid organizing themselves apart from the
people; whatever contradiction to the people may occur fortuitously, due
to certain historical conditions, must be solved–not augmented by the
cultural invasion of an imposed relationship. … To be concrete: if at
a given historical moment the basic aspiration of the people goes no
further than a demand for salary increases, the leaders can commit one
of two errors. They can limit their action to stimulating this one
demand or they can overrule this popular aspiration and substitute
something more far-reaching–but something which has not yet come to the
forefront of the people’s attention. In the first case, the
revolutionary leaders follow a line of adaptation to the people’s
demands. In the second case, by disrespecting the aspirations of the
people, they fall into cultural invasion.”

Vlad, I agree with your position on this, as I also stated on the Facebook groups on the subject. I also read some sections of Salinsky’s book and highly recommend it. If I remember correctly, the section I read was on the Feminist’s movement of the ’70s and how that was successful - but I read so many articles on advocacy last year that it is tough to remember which one belongs to which book!! There were probably a few different cases described, but you’re definitely correct in stating that he is a well-acknowledged source on that topic and some lessons can be learned for this issue as well.

Secondly, I think some clarification on the diplomatic actions that *specifically* related to the New College negotiations would have been helpful. I am aware that there has been “decrease tuition” movements over the last few years, some more successful than others, and that this is an ongoing issue. But I don’t think you should necessarily lump them together, which is how it appears. Noaman did tell me that there were some efforts by New College residence council members to have meetings with admin. and amongst themselves that failed (apparently the president of the New College council is not really for considering alternatives…) but none of these were discussed or elaborated on, so it seems like students just rushed to action without thinking. Again, this is going to portray your actions in a bad light.

I am not necessarily against protest movements, and indeed I said that I would be willing to participate in this. But just the seeming lack of co-operation amongst student governers/leaders and administration, in addition to the lack of effective communication amongst the student body has unfortunately created a back-lash effect which was also unfortunately all but predictable.

That said, I am also against the fee increases, I wish you all the best with this.

The accused are Farrah Miranda and Liisa Schofield, campus organizers for the Ontario Public Interest Research Group; Michal Hay, former VP university affairs at UTSU; Hayes, who is president of ASSU; Edward Wong, an ASSU executive; APUS staffers Oriel Varga and Chris Ramsaroop; recent U of T graduate Noaman Ali; Farshad Azadian and Semra Eylul Sevi, members of the activist group Always Question; and students Luis Granados, Golta Shahidi, and Gabi Rodriguez. The accused also include one minor who cannot be named, and who has been additionally charged with uttering a death threat. The minor is undergoing a separate legal process at youth court.