UCD Lecture Boycott
national |
miscellaneous |
news report 
Wednesday November 20, 2002 17:34
by OK - SYUCD
The Campaign for Free Education called a lecture boycott for today.
The CFE called a boycott of lectures and held a march around campus. About 300 students marched around the campus. A letter was then handed into the College President Art Cosgrove. The president supports the re-introduction of fees, the letter asked for him to withdraw his comments.
After the march there was a mass meeting. At the meeting differences emerged about the CFE and future actions. However it was agreed that action would be taken around the time of the Budget, which is due on 4 December.
It is time that the USI escalate their campaign aganst fees to more than just the token publicity stunt. It's time that the USI organise mass militant action of students around the country.
Comments (10 of 10)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10congrats on the demo.
why are more students turning out for demos outside of dublin?
in galway a couple of weeks ago thousands turned out. yesterday in waterford, 2,000.
why do you think its more difficult to mobilise students in dublin?
UCD students are notoriously apathetic; the place is mostly a degree factory for future career enhancement. Perhaps that would explain it?
There are a few reasons why the mobilisation of students has been best outside of Dublin. Firstly in Limerick there were three colleges that mobilised for a demonstration including UL where there is an activist President of the SU Eoin O'Broin.
Unlike in UCD, UL Students Union put a serious effort into mobilising students.
Secondly it is easier to mobilise students in smaller colleges and ITs.
Small colleges - becasue of their size - are easier to make an impact in. In a small college everyone can find out about a demo in a day. In a large college a week of mobilising may not be enough for everyone to know that an action is planned.
Secondly the class nature of Institutes of technology is quite different to Universities. Put simply there is about twice as many students in ITs on the grant than in colleges like UCD.
Thirdly a college like UCD was designed in the sixties specifically to quell any student atmosphere and any possibility of mobilising students. It is a decentralised campus - there is no real centre where students gather. This makes it harder to disseminate information about protests etc.
Finally perhaps Socialist Youth should get with the times, read a newspaper or two (apart from the Voice) and realise that USI is mobilising students and not just hosting publicity stunts. I would harldy call 6,000 students out in Limerick and 6,500 students out in Galway and few thousand students out in Tallaght and so on a "publicity stunt". If that kind of mobilisation isn't mass action what is? A few hundred students in UCD?
We do recognise that USI has been doing mass actions, that's not being questioned. Whether that is because of the USI or because of the real anger against fees is another question. What we are saying is that USI should now be doing national days of action especially coming up to the budget.
When the USI were saying they were doing localised actions I was under the impression they would be in rapid succession, not a drawn out process like we have seen, this has had the effect of dampening down the anger. It is not time to 'hold our fire'. To make the impact neccesary coming up to the budget the protests need to make a very serious impact.
Finally, this is a bit off the point but I think Labour Youth should 'get with the times', Social Democracy is dead. Read the papers, look at what is happening across Europe Social Democracy are privitising, putting workers out on strike and going to war like there's no tomorrow. The Irish Labour Party are in no way fundamentally different to their European 'comrades'. If you are genuine about fighting for students and workers you should look at the nature of your own party.
Cian O'Callaghan is teling SY to get with the times!! I think that you should get with the times and realise that the Labour Party have long sold out. I could mention coalitions, tax amnesties, social partnership, nice treaty,.....
I also think you should not insult an organisation that has done a large amount of the work in the CFE, alongside others of course.
I could go on and criticise the actions of some, but there is no point doing it on an open website, and there's no point in a way that may be detrimental to the CFE. I want the CFE to be built up and strengthened, Im not going to lower it into the sectarianism of Ithe debate that's typical of Indymedia!
SY want to build up fighting democratic SUs on a national basis, we have always supported actions of SUs around the country calling demos. At the same time we realise that many of the SU leaders are unwilling to really challenge the government.
UL - http://www.ulsu.ul.ie
LIT - http://www.litsu.ie
Mary I - http://www.micsu.ie/
LSAD - Limerick School of Art & Design!
ah ha cian, what a great bureaucrat you are! you dont even know how many colleges in limerick paid for your usi expences, you bastard.
the state has put LSAD in as part of LIT even though they don't want to have anything to do with them so USI would have gotton paid from the one source as reards them two.
cian o'callaghan you're a tribuneite bollocks
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