Plan (Bologna)

.ExternalClass .ecxhmmessage P
{padding:0px;}
.ExternalClass body.ecxhmmessage
{font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma;}
Upon return from the European Social Forum, Paris, 2003, students at University of Wales, Swansea discovered that the Philosophy, Development studies, sociology, anthropology and chemistry departments were up for sale. The Vice Chancellor announced his unpopular "going for growth" plans at a public student meeting called by the students union. His tone of voice at the meeting implied that he was aware of the fragile legitamacy of his plans and was expecting resistance.
 Sure enough, concerned students responded to these neo-libberal attacks by forming the open, non hierarchical, and horizontal "student action comittee", where the participation of students opposed to the proposed cuts was welcomed. Attendence at the meetings was incremental as the campaign progressed. At the first meeting, where several lecturers, union members and concerned students were present, an occupation was suggested. Whilst the union members objected, some of the concerned students began instantly to discuss the formulation of strategy.
 I wrote an article about the cuts (-) and published it on www.indymedia.org. a few days later the website's editors collated the article onto the front page with a collection of other articles from various universities around the country. (around 5-10 other university occupations around the same issue, top up fees, within the same week). (include front page) - interestingly enough, they had included a link to a step by step guide on "how to occupy your university" (include link)
 I printed out 10 copies and handed them out to interested students (generally to people I had met on previous protests and pickets) - and invited them round to our house for underground "occupation meetings". with the help of www.undercurrents.org we screened the "harvard occupation" video to encourage, empower and inspire protesting students and give ourselves the vision necessary to carry out a similar action.
 We worked together to publicise the "protest" of the 20th March 2004 where the planned occupation was scheduled to take place. We flyered the university and took a stall down to the centre of town to inform the general public about events on the campus. We took stalls down to the campus. We took stalls down to the campus to give students the opportunity to fill in a petition to keep the departments open. We filmed the proceedings. The so-called university "authorities" tried to prevent us from doing this; we actively disobeyed their attempts at stifling us. As the day of the occupation arrived, the underground occupation meetings became more frequent and more densely frequented. We agreed that we should attempt to subvert the students union meeting and get them to support the occupation. We had discussed issues such as who would be involved in the actual occupation, who would support the occupation from outside, and who would support from home. Technical issues such as internet access for real-time news-wire coverage, access to camcorders to prevent rights abuse by police and mobile phone/sms tree for quick response emergency tactics were discussed.
 Legal issues such as the right to protest, right to occupy, ownership of the university and rights should arrest occur were explored.
 Political issues such as how long the occupation should last before it became a real problem for the so-called university "authorities", and how we should go about lobbying the welsh assembly were talked about.
 Social issues such as Ian Kavanagh bringing a van with a soundsystem, dj, mic and the distribution of free food for protestors, were broached.
 When the day of the senate meeting arrived, action began at the students union meeting. Here the pusilanimous burocrats of the union decided to veto the students' creative endeavour, therefore depriving all parties of the resistance any real chance of success. However, many brave students and lecturers decided to stand together, with or without the support of the corrupted SU and occupy the academic registry (or "Abby Building") regardless.
 The scene was vibrant, energetic, moving. 500+ students stood outside the meeting where the future of their departments was being "decided" -(negotiated), where "excellence" was being "invested in", all chanting in unison with Zach de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine a raucus chorus of "FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME - MUTHERFUCKERS!!!".
 In the midst of the rebellion - revellers expressing their outrage free-party style; juggling, spinning poi, devil sticks, diblos - the Student Action Comittee was making on the spot decisions in real-time participatory democracy. How should we get into the building? How should we disrupt the meeting? Who was prepared to get arrested? as the tension mounted we soon got surrounded by 12 riot vans worth of police. We later learned from a police insider that this heavy handed response was largely due to the vice chancellor phoning the police and telling them that he feared for his life; that he was scared that someone was trying to assassinate him!
As the police were chasing us, a few of the students ran into the courtyard. The police grabbed Fergle and I heard a sickening crunch, so I started shouting ''YOU-VE BROKEN HIS ARM, YOU-VE BROKEN HIS ARM', at which point the policeman let him go and we ran into the courtyard to link arms with about 30 other students who were chanting ''WE-RE NOT MOVING, WE-RE NOT MOVING''.
 The police followed us in and locked the gates. They started trying to intimidate us by asking us if we-d ever been arrested before. Then 4 of them tried physically removing Cef Hayward, one on each arm and one on each leg. I interceded in this phoney arrest by pointing a videocamera at them and shouting ''I AM FILMING YOU, YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW, YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW!!!'' at which point they dropped Cef and got onto their walkie talkie to check with their boss whether or not their actions were legal.
 The rest of the students were outside the courtyard. We were at a stalemate. Two of the greek students, Manthos and Vasso had managed to break through an open window. Ben Lockwood had attempted singlehandedly to force the police line, and had been arrested. John McSweeny managed to negotiate himself into the courtyard to suggest to us that we should fall back and regroup. We agreed and everyone met up that evening in the students union bar< exhausted yet elated by what we had achieved.
 There at the students union bar, the participants of the emergency meeting were deciding what the best course of action would be in regard to the repressed occupation. Asher was suggesting that we go back that same evening with bars and ladders and stop at nothing to break in. Others were suggesting trying again the following day. Due to tiredness and disorganization I had to agree with the latter, even though channelling the energy we had generated did seem like a very appealing option.
 The following day was a bit of a shambles. Students were very frustrated, angry and upset, which was understandable. Instead of getting properly organised, in the sense of who does what, where, when and how, (Which we had a chance to do) ie who was going to>
-write press reports
-Deal with technical issues - access to internet live streaming from the abbey, indymedia/undercurrents style
-Give students access to clear, detailed, and accurate legal information (Legal support)
-Who was prepared to get arrested,
-Who would take care of media issues, videocameras, editing, software etc.
-Who would cook, provide food for occupying students.
-How we would organise a phone tree.
-Who would providde the music (Without which, what would be the point), juggling clubs, devil sticks, diablo, puppets, muppets and fuck it...
 
All of the above mentioned needs to be understood within the context of the global protests @against@ the G8, WTO, IMC, World bank (please tell me what we are fighting for!). This was the globalization of our education, a global issue with local repercussions that affected our everyday life. Finally, an issue about which we could generate union from the roots, and give a more participatory vision to local, social and radical politics.
Anyway, the suggested strategies were not listened to, and instead students flocked, en masse, to the offending staff-s offices, purportedly to question them as to why they were imposing the cuts (as if this mindless mob mentality would have achieved the slightest result< well, intimidation I suppose, but at the height of the terror war_qu) and students were fobbed off by rhetoric and doublespeak. Had we videoed any of the actions of the 21st march (beware the ides of your fearful eyes, listen the tides, awaken be wise) 2004, we would have had a better chance at articulating a cogent, clearly defined and effective argument against the united kingdom-s pioneered educational Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). Thereby contesting the globalised privatization and stratification of our higher education system.
 As it happened, many students were running around the campus on a @witch hunt@ of offending staff members, I was running accross singleton park to collect pete-s videocamera. He handed it to me with his charger, as he was without batteries. When I caught up with the guys we were getting ready to make an appointment to confront the Vice Chancellor. He arrived in the lobby of the Abby with his personal bodyguard. We were between 20/30 students. Some students asked some very articulate questions such as>
 
Whilst I pointed a videocamera at the VC that had run out of batteries. I knew that their were no batteries in the videocamera, but the VC didn-t, and neither did the students. In an Ideal world, I would be showing you the footage of his lip-service and lies, however instead, due to disorganization and situational inconvenience I am writing a book about it. You will have to forgive the clumsiness of my expression.
 Anyway, the concrete effect that this action did have was to put pressure on the VC, possibly dissuading the most virile of his lies, and demonstrating to the other students that recording these types of high-profile meetings on videocamera is of paramount importance if we are to communicate his fumbling excuses to a wider audience, which really is the only reason we should approach him in the first place. to expose his tyrrany. In fact, I communicated this directly to him at the end of the @meeting@ (Maybe more of a public audience) in that I told him>
 
''By the way, we are watching you, we are going to expose you''
 
There was no trace of anger or agression in my voice, I had my throat chackra (vishuddi) - perfectly controlled by the mindfulness of non-attachment,@ however his unconscious (pride-based) reaction (sanskara) lead him to respond>
 
''is that a threat_''
 
to which I calmly responded>
 
''No''
 
And followed the students out.
 
As it happened, this ''No'' Was actually one of Paul Kingsnorth's ''Yeses'', as I subsequently produced a 15 minute video documentary on the subject with the help of ASN - the Autonomous Students Network (See acknowledgements), and we sold it to the BBC-s current affairs programme ''dragons eye'' who screened footage from our film ''Groping for Growth'' on national television.
 I was only paid 40 quid (expenses) for the rape of our film. I was trying to insist on 600 quid per minute of footage, a very good price, I am told, on the market. However, it was the first time I had dealt with media sharks, and I was in the middle of my final exams.
 Anyway, the campaign to raise awareness of these illegal department closures and the broader unfairness of the neo-liberal introduction of Top-up fees to access higher education was ultimately more important than personal cost, as Cef Hayward suggested, the message was more important than the money.
 
Also, we didn't trust the mainstream media to reprezent us unbiasedly, therefore we took matters into our own hands. if we didn't stand up and face this inappropriate facet of the malignant, orwellian Neo-Liberal Agenda, then who would, and if we didn't resist now, then
when would we? If not us who, if not now, when? IF NOT US WHO?! IF NOT NOW WHEN?!
 
 We took our film Groping for Growth (named to satyrise the VC's "going for growth plans") into lecture theatres to demonstrate to students a local issue that swould have direct repercussions on their lives, and in so doing gave them the vision, inspiration and opportunity to take concrete, meaningful action about it. One of the most magical things about making the film, and this highly specialized means of distributing it to it's target audience, was the fact that many students within the audience would recognize their comrades within the footage. This gave the campus a strong community feel. You could see the union generated in people's eyes at the protests, they would say things like "I didn't know this sort of thing was possible" referring to the sense of liberation, empowerment, meaningful involvement and autonomy people were begginning to experience.
 In the last two weeks of term we systematically, methodically and comprehensively screened the film, in lecture theatres of all the major subjects. We based our screening activities on the timetables aquired from the departmental secretaries and split into Affinity groups (maybe we should have formulated "Infinity groups...?!") that could manage the task of exposing the sinister truth about department closures (see plan Bologna, below), to pertinent audiences. We managed this on what Naomi Klein might call "No Budget" - that is to say that the meagre few hundred pounds we raised through benefit gigs and general good humour (Ie the practice of Right Livelihood) were dedicated back to the cause; ie we invested in a T-Shirt campaign, website, (www.asn.org) and used to burn copies of the film for distribution as mentioned above.
 
Everyone who participated on the campaign did so, to my knowledge, on a purely voluntary basis. This was a true, practical, intimate example of human spirit uniting in the interests of communal benefit, and probably would have succeeded in maintaining the 5 departments, Sociology, Anthropology, Chemistry, Development Studies and Philosophy open, keeping the jobs of the staff, and sustaining the validity of the student's degrees, had we succeeded in dragging the issue through the courts as I had suggested to other participants in the local social movement we had generated.
 
In fact, I was in a position where I could have gone to court .The vice chanceller "summoned" me out by accusing me personally of libel due to true comments I had made during an appeal I had made for the results of my degree, which I felt had been adversely affected by my involvement in the campaign.
 
That is to say, yes I still believe that my results would have been a first (not 2:1) if during my revision for my Spanish oral exam, for example I had not been "disturbed" by Helen Hintjens Development Studies Lecturer who I am always pleased to see, in order to go and market our film to the media sharks.
 
I subsequently went to see a councillor due to "stress" - so that I had documentary evidence that the closures had affected my performance. I then appealed officially to the exam board that there were "extenuating circumstances" for my degree and required that the exam board`s attention should be drawn to the documentary evidence we had collected of the nefarious police oppression and threatened expulsion we had experienced due to demanding justice for the departments; In particular to the "Groping for Growth" film. By forcing the exam board's attention to the travesty maybe we could have influenced public opinion somewhat right?
 
 Well in fact, this was just bait. The vice chancellor's inviting me to court was just what I wanted! I was delighted that collectively our movement would be able to emulate "No Logo's McLibel Case, where activists successfully tackled "The Scottish Multinational's" environmental, social and political abuse. The only thing that stopped me from going ahead with court proceedings was "doubt". It seemed at times that I was the only one who was convinced we would attain victory. I mean, why was anyone fighting if they thought we would lose? anyway, I am not the only one capable of generating a court case on this issue! It's none of my fucking business really! Even though I happen to particularly give a shit. Y therefore why did none of the other participands in the movement demand justice? - you are telling me that there were no legal proceedings? WHY! - If you read about the McLibel case you will recieve the same inspiration that participants at our (open) underground occupation meetings recieved prior to the UNIVERSITY OF WALES SWANSEA CLOSURES OCCUPATION recieved by watching the underground "Harvard University Occupation" video. This inspired us to collectively work on a task, which we did, with very positive outcomes. Our protest/occupation was a first step. In order to resist Neo-Liberal university monopolisation at a global scale, we need to concretely oppose it at a local level. A court case @Swansea University would give us just such a chance.
 
Further to the commotion at the college several students had formulated a counter-agenda strategy, informally known as "going for GROPE", which we intended to present in an open plenary at the 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM in London. "GROPE"  is acronymous (Out of Time? - Out of Mind) for: GETTING READY TO OCCUPY PLACES EVERYWHERE (We are everywhere, so why not occupy everywhere!?).
 
We wanted to network with like-minded students, lecturers and members of the public, across Europe and the UK, creating not just a "phone tree" of quick response resistance (check out twitter and SMS for potential wild-fire gatherings - Pachamama be praised, rainbow family unite! for the long life of light, which will outshine the night) but rather an international "occupation tree"  which would facilitate the union, evolution and ascension of the human family tree (ripening the virtuous potentials in the mind-stream of the masses). We want not just to globalize resistance, a feat that is proving to be not just possible, but necessary and effective in these technologically sophisticated times, but to universalize compassion, an essential task that we shall have to collectively accomplish if we are finally to abandon suffering and it's causes before it is too late.
 
The way that can be spoken
Is not the true way.
So don't listen
to a motherfucking word I say,
just pray;
and contemplate the end of days.
Cos it's the undeclared war
by the rich on the poor
as they cut back our liberties and lay down the law...
Raw, sore, 'pon the floor
yes you know the score
we reprezent the hardcore!
So it's time to unite,
Rise up and FIGHT!
Together we can do it we'll defeat the dark night
hold tight
 
Solid as your soul,
it's your solidarity,
YES I got ya back
connecting open heartedly!
OPEN YOUR MIND TO ETERNITY!
YES you can do it this is the true liberty...
 
Now your free.
 
It seems that these corporate cutbacks in higher education are following some sort of world-bank directives priming the worlds higher education system for privatization. A further example of this would be the "Plan Bologna" proposals taking effect in Europe (Also met with heavy resistance and subsequent "state" repression), and globally, in Russia, Africa and Latin America (see www.indymedia.org)
 
We now have the best chance historically that people have ever had to create a global people's movement that can shift societies' priorities away from warfare and greed, towards satisfying human welfare and need. The organizational expression of this movement can be found in the WORLD SOCIAL FORUM, taking place this coming year 2011 in Dakar, Senegal... (www
http://fsm2011.org/

WE REALLY ARE EVERYWHERE, A BETTER WORLD REALLY IS POSSIBLE, YOU REALLY ARE NOT ALONE...

Matt Reinhart, www.myspace.com/owllyrical