Student activism in a high income country
Why take any action?
TOPE ORIOLA STAFF
PHOTO: TOPE ORIOLA
A university student wakes up on a Monday morning from his bed purchased on credit in his parents’ mortgaged home, grabs his laptop bought on credit and drives in his car bought on credit to attend classes paid for by his student loan and still wonders why UMSU and other students’ organizations are making such hullabaloo culminating in the Day of Action. Taught from infancy how privileged he is to be born in North America and how his standard of living is the dream of everyone in most parts of the world, he counts himself lucky and saunters with an air of pride and self-assurance. The future cannot be brighter. Was there a need for the demonstration in the first place and what is the implication of apathy to student unionism?
Many are like that hypothetical student who thinks UMSU and its ilk are crying wolf when there is none around. Why go on a nationwide demonstration to ensure tuition freeze when most Canadians are middle class and can afford to pay? The general belief as depicted in statistical terms is that most Canadians are middle class. However, you need not be a social scientist to know that for the most part statistical analysis is one thing, reality is another. How many of the people you meet daily strike you as high-income earners?
Many students seem captivated and titillated by the illusion of belonging to the middle class. In reality, ours — for better or worse — is a debtdriven economy. According to the Canadian Federation of Students, the average student debt upon completion of a four-year bachelor degree is $32,200 and in 2006, student debt increased by $1.56 million a day! I was thus taken aback by the turn-out on Feb. 7, the Day of Action. My surprise was not because I expected more people to turn out to peacefully voice their protest, but because many were impressed that we had what they considered a huge number of students in attendance.
I admit that conditions of learning are a lot better in Canada than in a number of countries, but the real cost of the fabulous loans being enjoyed by students today will become glaring years after graduation. The rate of unemployment has been put at 6.2 per cent by Statistics Canada as of Jan. 2007. Hence, you don’t have to be a pessimist to acknowledge that chances are that some university graduates are bound to grapple with unemployment months after graduation. Many of the students would realize, albeit belatedly, why CFS and UMSU have been raising the roof-top with protests.
Perhaps I’m biased being an international student and required to pay more than double what others pay, but there is no indication that Canadian students find it easier to pay. But for funds provided through such U of M initiatives like International Graduate Students’ Entrance Scholarship, Manitoba Graduate Scholarship, U of M Graduate Fellowship and other generous funding, life would be hellish for some of us. Nonetheless, even international students did not turn out fully and that from my perspective was more disappointing.
The issue is not whether or not you agree with UMSU or CFS, the crux of the matter is to get a better deal not just for present generation of students, but for those unborn. Matt Soprovich, for instance, almost single-handedly brought the issue of food services on campus to our attention and the debate rages on. Some are opposed to peaceful protest as expression of dissent. What other means is there to fight for students’ rights? Is it by pretending that all is well by being silent or reticent?
Coming from a background of vociferous student unionism and as a retired student activist — you loose some of that zest when you complete your bachelor degree and get into the real world — I know there is no better time to fight for a more equitable society than when you are a student with little care in the world. Upon graduation, most people end up in the motley of humanity, struggling with jobs, housing, spouses and children.
Abhorrence of student unionism, in my mind’s eye, is born of myopic vision, grows into lack of concern for what happens in the society and ends in life as one of the apathetic masses, tossed like the waves of the sea in no particular direction.
It is not too late to do something you would be proud of later in life. Those who wish to be involved still have the chance to do so. Whether or not such people get involved, none of us will be there to pay the interests and principal of their accumulated student loans. Those who were actively involved would at least be confident that they did their best in their own time. A word is enough.
Tope Oriola is comment editor of the Manitoban and a graduate student in sociology.
