Why did you decide to occupy? How and when did you occupy the building, and why did you choose the particular space that you did?
After years of exhausting fights between students, teachers and the rectorate there was a huge displeasure noticeable. One of the main reasons for this was a successive undemocratisation of the academy of fine arts going along with a structural empowerment of the rector. Even the election of the rector caused big resentment and was followed by a judgment of the state that Clementine Deliss - she applied for the rectors job - was sexually discriminated as she was not chosen although she had been the only candidate with a broad popularity amongst students, teachers and the senate.
Our goal was not to get stuck in a political helplessness, which we had experienced for a long period before, but to take action and participate in political decision processes.
At October 22nd, Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen, the rector of the academy, signed the new development and financial agreement that would likely include the realization of the Bologna-process and so far the institution of the bachelor-master system for the teachers department and the department of fine arts.
As a form of protest against the neoliberalisation of education there was a press conference organized by the students that led to the occupation of the main hall.
Besides the demonstration the goal of occupying was to get over that situation of helplessness, to create a situation where information can circulate, where alternative concepts can be worked on theoretically and in everyday life and to give a voice and publicity to the aims of students and teachers (that formed in solidarity right from the beginning)
The main hall, which is the geographical center of the university, until then has been an underused space that couldn’t be used by anybody except by enterprises having their festivities and Christmas parties.
We occupied a room that was badly needed and that didn’t exist so far.
Have you been influenced by the Occupy California movement?
We knew of the things happening in Santa Cruz and I can also say that they impressed us. But, as the political situation – based on the politics of the last years – made this step necessary, I think we would also had occupied without knowing about the Santa Cruz movement. By now we’re having contact and exchange with those students.
Are you interested in making demands? Are these limited to education? How do you see student occupation movement in relation to wider political issues?
As our starting point was defending the contract between our university and the ministry; we regarded demands (against the insertion of Bachelor/Master, against neoliberalisation and economization of the education system) as being necessary and important for our situation.
But we still are aware of the discussions and problems that are connected to making demands.
Our demands are not at all just university specific but are meant to show the broader social context connected with the educational problems. This is not only part of our demands but furthermore there are texts being produced that deal with different social issues as for instance the kindergarten protest, the problem of wagework and precarious workers conditions, the marginalization and discrimination of people because of sex, sexual orientation, religion, ancestry…, a critic of neoliberal politics, and so on. As an open space, the university radiates into the society and is soaked by its outside. That’s why topics of education politics can never be understood and solved without a social connection and an awareness of broader structures. And even the students make experiences with discrimination concerning to their identity as men, women, migrants etc..
In the text of the UCSC movement, they described their position as “communist“– how do you take this? Do you associate yourself more in the communist or anarchist traditions? What do you think of the analysis in the “Communique from an Absent Future”?
Of course we read the “Communique from an Absent Future” and just quoted a passage today that I think is perfectly fitting the point: “We demand not a free university but a free society. A free university in the midst of a capitalist society is like a reading room in a prison.” But unlike them, we are not bound to a specific political tradition although we define ourselves as political left wing and there are anarchist positions as well as communist ones amongst the students. And we find it very important to make a multiplicity possible. I’m personally much more connected to anarchist theory and traditions but that’s my private approach and not topic of the protests.
What do you think of the text by the French Tarnac-9 collective "The Coming Insurrection“?
I think that there are people who read that text; I actually read it. I wouldn’t say I’m influenced, but I don’t want to deny it at the same time. But as I tried to explain earlier we don’t define ourselves as a specifically anarchist movement, although some of us would call themselves anarchists.
What has been the response to the occupation by students, staff and the mainstream press?
There was a solidarity from the teachers with the protests right from the beginning that appeared for instance by some teachers being active within the occupation, compiling the programme for the occupied room where we have different things happening such as workshops, talks, concerts etc. But the reaction of the press was radically different as they tried to infantilize the protests and decline the objectors as lazy, beer drinking, partying, apolitical students. By now this kind of changed as we worked very hard at communicating our theoretical demands, opinions and backgrounds.
What is the future?
An end of the occupation is neither planned nor foreseeable.
By now we’re in the situation where we start to notice the problems about demanding utopias – although I think that the only things you can demand are necessarily utopian. That doesn’t mean that there’s going to be a relativization of our theories, goals, wishes and demands but it means that there are many things left to be talked about and that there’s loads of theoretical work to be done still.
Commentary - The Battle for Free Education
After occupations and sit-ins at the University of California Santa Cruz, Fresno State and an ongoing tussle between students and administrators at the New School, New York, there is now an equally large student occupation movement underway in the University of Fine Arts and the University of Vienna, in Austria.
As can be seen on this YouTube video from inside the occupation, there are hundreds involved. Against the Europe wide, neo-liberal Bologna Process, the unifying demand is for free education; the battle for education as a common good.
It is all too easy to dismiss this recent wave of occupations as small, idealistic struggles by students who don’t understand the realities of politics or economics today. But it is those defenders of the obscene push towards ever-higher tuition fees who are more out of touch with public sentiment.
Even if they don’t have the public on side in the UK, in order to justify increasing tuition fees a number of under examined claims are pushed by the likes of The Economist magazine, or the Russell Group of Universities, and uncritically endorsed by the major political parties. In order to challenge this race to encumber students with household mortgage levels of debt it is not enough to simply point to its injustice, but to also challenge the supposedly rock solid economic and political logic underpinning their argument. Let’s have a go here.
Firstly, they claim that education is about improving the job prospects for graduates – and, like any professional service, that implies that the customer must pay accordingly. Second, they argue Universities operate (or should operate) as free-market entities, on a global stage. Unless they effectively compete, Universities in other countries will draw all the talent away. And third, it is stated that economic growth depends on a highly educated population receiving the best education.
Yet all of these claims – that dominate and define the terms of debate on the issue within the public sphere – are highly questionable. In light of the crisis in graduate employment and qualification inflation on the job market, the cynical, professional development idea of University education increasingly rings hollow.
The attendant claim about the competition of Universities for talent also needs to be subject to critique. Since global league tables are based on assumptions that presuppose this free market model it is not surprising that they will by and large reflect that in their rankings – the more ‘competitive’ the University the higher it will rank. Furthermore, beyond the scientific disciplines, for instance in the humanities, the journal citation indexes are hegemonised by dull, US based publications (such as the American Journal of Political Science, to take one of the worst offenders) which generally spew out predictable, boring research that simply aims to justify the status quo. Academic talent, as measured by publication in these journals, is a race to the mediocre middle – not based on novel thinking, or the ability to inspire students.
And finally, the claim that a highly educated population is necessary to compete on the global stage – repeated to the point where it now seems a truism – is an unproven idea. Beyond a solid secondary education, no correlation has been found between levels and standards of higher education and economic growth in the developed world. This is pretty obvious really. A rigorous degree in History does not necessarily make one a better advertising sales executive, or whatever future tangential career students will stumble into.
Studying for long periods of time is, we must admit, an economically unproductive use of time – and it is exactly on that basis that we must claim it as a common good. Education is a good in itself; just as are the arts; just are most of the things we really value in life. The attempt by government to justify these things in the jargon of productivity, competition, social cohesion, or whatever, are fallacious and demoralising to the extreme once they become internalised in University culture.
These are the arguments that need to be made. But arguments are not enough. Such has the top down movement towards the free market model taken on a life of its own, politicians and University administrators no longer want to have an argument. For politicians liberalising tuition fees is simply what has to be done; the only problem is sneaking it past the electorate, or tarting it up with enough social democratic window dressing to make it palatable.
This is why we should support student occupations unequivocally demanding the right to free education. Let us hope it will also heralds the start of a real fight here in the UK, when the next government (Tory or Labour) will almost certainly push for caps to be lifted on tuition fees.
Nathan Coombs is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, and co-editor of the Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies.
