if you're on facebook, the next step is to join the group "The SOS Concordia Manifesto" so that you can stand up and be counted. your name will appear in print as a show of support.
if you're not on facebook, email us your name and student ID and we will include you in the printed version.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
THE SOS MANIFESTO
Robbed: The Great Democracy Swindle at Con U
This is a manifesto. Do with it as you would any other: if you don’t agree, crinkle it up and toss it aside. Find the nearest trash can and fill it up with this. But if you do agree (and we’re hoping you do) then take this text and tape it up on the nearest wall. Then take ten more copies and tape them to bathroom stall doors, bus shelters, chalkboards, desks, anywhere. Cover the school in these words, because people need to know everything we’re about to say.
Your school is on the verge of sucking, Concordia. Your CSU is composed of a majority of cowards who would prefer to hide behind their legal right to remain hidden than expose themselves to the light of public scrutiny. Your university administration has become distant and disillusioned with the students it is there to serve. Your Teaching and Research Assistants Union has been overrun by a select few engineers, and this body, intended to represent all TAs and RAs at the school, is now being led by an executive composed of six men and one woman; six engineers, one JMSB student, with absolutely no Fine Arts or Arts and Science representation.
Your school has fallen prey to a subtle disease, one whose effects are truly generational and devastating. The disease is apathy under ignorant rule. Luckily, there is a cure.
Concordia used to be a fun place, a place where art and expression lived and breathed, where students could congregate freely and hold events without being subject to draconian scrutiny. Concordia once served as fertile ground for such innovative ideas as free daily vegan lunches (People’s Potato), an organic grocery store (Frigo Vert) and a free on-campus bike shop (Right to Move).
Concordia used to be all of these things because at the centre of it all was a unifying hub in the form of the Concordia Student Union. Now, everything is different.
Now, students can’t distribute flyers in the
Now, dissenting students can’t voice their outrage over the hypocrisy of our student government without having security being called on them.
Now, the rife ineptitude of our student government forces groups like the People’s Potato to make bilateral agreements with other student organizations, just to get the space that they were initially promised by the CSU.
Now, CSU councilors are demanding that their photos not be taken for the student press.
Now, in the EV building, home to one of Canada’s best and brightest fine arts schools, student art is not allowed to appear on the walls.
Now, in that same building, a string of companies occupies the spaces once promised to students as art galleries.
Now, your student representatives are either remaining silent (Mohamed Shuriye) or voting in favour of (Walter Chan) charging you an extra $4/credit (Technology Infrastructure Fee). That’s $120/year for a full-time student and will generate the university $3 million (to compensate for a $10 million shortfall this year).
Now, a full quarter ($750,000) of that $3 million is going into the pocket of former-President Claude Lajeunesse in the form of severance pay.
Doesn’t this seem, well, a little sucky to you? Doesn’t this seem like something has gone terribly wrong with our once vibrant, multicultural, multipolitical campus? It’s because something has! Something is very wrong! We’re losing our ability to organize because we’re losing student space on campus. As a result, things have not only ground to a halt, they’re starting to unravel, and as anyone who has ever broken anything will tell you: it is much harder to rebuild things when they’re lying in pieces.
But fear not. It’s not too late, and never is. We’ve compiled for your consideration a short list of renegade activities that just might save us from the institutional doldrums that lie in wait.
Tips to save Concordia:
- Tape this manifesto to as many surfaces on campus as possible.
- Go to the next CSU council meeting and video important excerpts with your cell phone. Post them anonymously on YouTube and send the address in the form of a letter to the student press. They will publish it.
- At 3 pm on the first Tuesday of every month, go to the EV building and cover the walls in colourful hand-drawn art. Go in droves and be diligent about it. Use superglue. While you’re at it, tape up a few more copies of this manifesto.
- Videotape people tearing down the beautiful art and post the footage on YouTube.
- Contact Mathieu Murphy-Perron, CSU VP Loyola & Sustainability and give him your support. Tell him how pissed off you are at the sucky school we’re becoming. He’s an artist and a good man and should be more vocal with his true feelings about what’s happening in his government.
- Take back any space on campus however you can. Bring people in costume. Poster. Sit.
- Discuss this with your professors. Get them to put pressure on their faculty representatives at Concordia’s Board of Governors.
- Start a discussion forum online. Too late. We already did. Go to: http://sosconcordia.blogspot.com. Let this serve as just one of the commons where people can air their concerns and organize around issues that are important to students.
- Talk to your friends about this.
We’re not kidding. Do these things. Do many more. Use the forum to plan them. Take back your school before it’s taken from you completely.
As for the rest of you… you know who you are: the Noah Stewarts,
Sincerely,
SOS
how this space works
greetings. welcome to sos.
to use the space, simply post and read comments.
that is all.
to use the space, simply post and read comments.
that is all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)