Report from the National Day of Action at UWS
Since I couldn't make it to the student rally in the city I stayed with the book-exhumers at my uni.
The rally started at noon outside some dinky on campus takeaway shop still holding up a photocopy of my appearance in the
DTM. I couldn't spot any signs of shovels, something for the last fortnight we had been told to bring along. There was a sudden movement at half past the hour as the BBQ started sizzling the charred pseudo-meat. Seemingly more people were interested in free food as opposed to free education. The bullhorns were squeaky and sometimes inaudible as some guy from the NUS read a letter of solidarity and support from the students at UTS.
The rally then got mobile, up to the grave of the buried books. Along the way the students chanted something along the lines of "...hey, come off it, education's not for profit..." this being that while UWS has seen loads of cutbacks, Vice-Chancellor Jan Reid has been swimming in the "excess funds." The photographers from
Daily Telegraph scrambled around the marching students as they sweated it away snapping rolls of anger.
The group finally reached the gravesite after having to navigate some wild grass, loose rocks and an unseen creek bed. The books weren't actually dug up, it was considered too hard since the Uni used bobcats and the soil had turned into rock-hard clay. Clay that is still able to have grass growing in it. So instead of recovering the one hundred year-old first editions of some Germanic affiliation or some such - something by Martin Luther was in the mix - a tomb stake was planted just thirty metres from the actual site. Getting closer would see the loss of a couple of students and photographers. An idea was struck as the student association president posed for a photo alongside a stake driver. The rally moved again.
Upon the Ceremonial Lawn the protesters huddled in a loosening and noisy mass. The uni as it is today sucks so much due to a grand scam to integrate all the UWS branches into one. The outline was written up in a hidden-till-the-last-minute-when-nothing-could-be-done-about-it proposal, "Shape of the Future." A hole was dug in the nice green ground and the manifest thrown in. Another stake was planted. Discussions from disgusted students carried on for a while until they ran out of zealots. Word went around that the VC had run off to the nursing buildings on campus to escape the fury and anger of the righteous pack.
The bullhorn was used to great effect, two feet away from a representative of the higher and blinder-ups. To really piss the crowd off the rep whispered her response and tried to look like a hardarse, she ended up looking more ignorant and scared than anything else. Of course, a rally wouldn't be complete without it's naysayers. One of which tried to wrestle the attention from the speaker onto himself. Unfortunately "what are you going to do about it?" was the extent of his argument. He soon ran off when a couple of students tried to be the voice of reason and reality. The standoff lasted until the collective agreed to come back on the first Thursday after the Easter holiday to hear how the administration would handle and cope with their demands.
It was two o'clock when the shindig finally wrapped up.
Soon Van, University of Western Sydney
Published May 2001 at unistudent.com.au (National Union of Students)
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