The State of the Union
Today at 12:47pm
In the beginning...
Four years, a long enough time in anyone's book, and far too long for me, so it is with no great regret that I depart UBU and cease have any involvement in it, or for that matter the NUS. When I started a few year's ago in student politics, I was wide-eyed, and naive, and I probably still am. I enjoyed the purity of an academic argument, the belief that the person who presented the best option would always win out. Oh dear! How regularly and systematically this has been proven false. Whether it is a cabal of favouritism, in-crowds, or in certain cases, chips-on-shoulders, all of them prevent the sensible adoption of policy, and the exercising of schemes that are universally in the best interest of the student body.
A cabal of favouritism...
One of the most disappointing things about any organisation is the in crowds, and how they treat others. One of the greatest honours I had was trying to deal with discrimination, for women, black and ethnic minorities and LGBT students. It is therefore deeply ironic that such cliqueyness from these very groups exists pervasively. Yes-men and yes-women, abound, all caught up in the majesty of their grand project. I guess the old addage, that the lower the stakes the more gruesome the fight, is so true, and student politics is the lowest of stakes. An old sage said to me recently: it is only once you leave the bubble that you realise how insignificant it all is.
A lack of purpose...
The million dollar question though is what's the point? What have we changed? What is the state of the Union, compared to when we started. What's the point of the Union? Something I'm asked daily, and you know what, I don't know. I used to, because it used to be about helping students, and in some areas it still is, RAG and SCA do it well, the AU has helped develop people, and the training team, although less so now, really made a difference to the lives of many students. However, too much now its about serving self-interest, and I hate that. Its the new form of running for your CV, its called running for your ego. One of my least favourite people Jo Weston ran because she was passionate about campaigning, passionate about helping students, and in that sense she was a true student officer, and highly commendable, too many others today, do it for themselves, and no one else, how disappointing that is. Gone are the days when people came into office with a purpose, today they are the only ones running in elections, and they occupy pointless jobs, which long ago should have been farmed out to much more committed and talented staff members.
Does your Union love you?
Yet, still, we defend our Union to the hilt, and indeed week on week we are urged, and we are proclaimed to love our Union. Well does it love you? And do you love it? I want to know what my Union has done for me. I want to know what its done to declare that it loves me? Taken a jolly to Brighton perhaps? Gone to the NUSSL trade-fair? Closed a shop? Stopped a bus service? Do I love my Union? How can I show it? Using the shop? Coming to balls? Voting in elections, running in elections? Supporting campaigns. Well I don't know, and you see its a bit like hugging a hoodie, you can say it, and not have to do it, and have no reasonable barometer for assessing its validity. So in future, maybe we should wait and see if anyone actually loves us before proclaiming we love them.
10 things you need to do...
1) Become a proper democracy, not a ruling cabal
2) Earn some respect in the University
3) Balance the books
4) Move away from a cult of personality
5) Become a campaigning Union
6) Worry more about the bread and butter than ethics
7) Value every student equally
8) Value the Union's staff
9) Be more than just 8 student-officers, be a team.
10) Love your Union, not yourself.
