8. THE STUDENT MOVEMENT
It rests with you [the youth of the well-to-do classes] either to
palter continually with your conscience, and in the end to say, one
fine day: "Perish humanity, provided I can have plenty of pleasures
and enjoy them to the full, so long as the people are foolish enough
to let me."
Or, once more the inevitable alternative, to take part
with the [Anarchist-] Socialists and work with them for the complete
transformation of society .. .come and place your services at the
disposal of those who most need them. And remember, if you do come,
that you come not as masters, but as comrades in the struggle ...
The never-ceasing struggle for truth, justice and
equality among the[working and poor] people, whose gratitude you will
earn - what nobler career can the youth of all nations desire than
this?
Peter Kropotkin, An Appeal to The Young, 1880,
various editions
1. INTRODUCTION
1. We support the progressive student movement in higher education
because it is progressive, because it is fighting racism, because we
oppose racism wherever it exists, because we stand in solidarity with
the struggles of working class students, and because we believe we
can recruit serious Anarchist/ Syndicalist activists from it.
2. WORKERS AND STUDENTS
2. We recognise that the problems students face -low bursaries,
bad conditions, racism et.- are the product of capitalism and the
State, and that this has concrete implications for how we approach
the student struggle.
2.1. this means that the student movement can only succeed if it
is anti-capitalist. In turn, this means that links have to be built
with other anti-capitalist struggles like rent boycotts etc. In
concrete terms, the university is not an island, it is vital to build
alliances.
2.2. given students distance from the production process, varied
origins and general numbers in the overall population, the student
movement is unable to make a revolution. That is to say, it cannot
solve its problems by itself. Only the working class can make the
revolution because it a productive class with no vested interest in
capitalism united in the workplace and powerful because of its
ability to disrupt production. Therefore a student-worker alliance is
necessary to students.
2.3. However, such an alliance should be on workers terms- if
students do not defend workers, they should not be supported by
workers. In other words, there must be a principled alliance that
emphasises the needs of the working class. Moreover, our general
principles of class struggle lead us to argue that workers should
play the leading role in this alliance. The students should not come
as experts and leaders but as comrades coming to aid the struggle of
the workers. Overall, these students would fall into the category of
the middle class that splits to join the workers in the struggle and
the revolution. They should renounce the privileges of the middle
class and ambitions for power in the State and capitalism.
3. TOWARDS THE WORKERS UNIVERSITY
3. the universities and technikons need to be fundamentally
restructured in tow ways
3.1. democratised and placed under worker-student-staff control
(as should all education) 3.2. reorientated- at present they train
experts and managers whose function is to work for the bosses to
provide knowledge, control etc. Instead of this situation, the
intellectual resources of the tertiary education sector must be made
to serve the needs of the working and poor people, who, after all,
sustain the universities and technikons through their labour. At
present the professions are distorted by capitalism: the doctor
cannot practice properly, for the people are ill due to the
conditions of capitalism; the teacher is regulated to teach obedience
and bourgeois history, not independent inquiry and the struggles of
the working class etc.
3. WSF ACTIVITY IN THE STUDENT MOVEMENT
4. We argue as follows
4.1. For a breaking off of alliances between student groups and
political parties in parliament. 4.2 . For the unification of student
groups into broad transformation fronts with the end goal of forming
Black-centred progressive student unions.
4.3. For solidarity from students for workers struggles against
repressive labour relations, casualisation of jobs, retrenchments
etc. with an immediate focus on the thousands of workers who already
work in the tertiary education sector as cleaners etc. Solidarity
with teaching and office staff.
4.4. For a class struggle approach to the student struggle, not a
black nationalist approach that denies the importance of class.
4.5. For opposition to all funding cuts, discrimination and bad
conditions. For increased funding to historically Black tertiary
education, and for increased bursaries to prevent the exclusion of
the Black working class youth from higher education. Unconditional
opposition to racism.
4.6. For mass action, not reliance on politicians, as a way to win
gains.
4.7. Affirmative action to make the university populations of the
historically white universities and technikons representative of the
country as a whole.
4.8. Defence of all student activists victimised for fighting for
transformation.
4.9. . Opposition to all reactionary uses of science. For example,
military research, work on surveillance, vivisection. Defend the
rights of students to refuse to perform vivisection. Fight for a
people-centred form of science, not a bosses technology tool increase
exploitation.
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