Students for a Democratic Society are on the move at UBC. Their secret is perpetual action and constant outreach. This is one of the most vibrant campus activism movements in English North America.
On the last day of their week-long Resisting the University conference they called for a demonstration. Nearly one hundred students gathered on the Knoll (the last free-access grassy and treed spot on the UBC campus) with banners and signs and megaphones in hand. 
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Below are photos of this spontaneous act of resistance.
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They marched to the registrar’s offices to demand no tuition.
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They marched to the central library to protest the military propaganda of its lobby.
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They marched to the president’s office to demand a hearing. He was off campus.
.They barged into the BOG/Senate boardroom to interrupt a planning meeting and to be heard.
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They promised that board meeting would be interrupted until students had a democratic voice in campus “development”. They rejected the empty talk of unelected board members and resolved to save the campus from appointed corporate stooges.
.They went to the construction site where their campus is being torn up without student consent.
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They stopped the bulldozers for a brief moment of sanity.
.And they took the Knoll.
.I can report that the SDS and the Wreath Underground are strong tiles in a mosaic of resistance that is emerging on the UBC campus.
.As they prepare to act directly on the economic levers that illegitimately transform a stolen campus, as they gauge the effectiveness of their strategies, and measure the risks they are willing to take to be in solidarity with the victims of the machine, one can sense that things are going to change.
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One can sense that this is a school for activists who will be liberated from the pathology of pacifism to enter life in defence of the dying.
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SDS slogan: "I say STUDENTS. You say: POWER."
Free(d) Public Space - Enjoy
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I was fortunate to attend most of the presentations at the Resisting the University with the UBC SDS. Although there are only two of them, Rancourt and Noble's ideas surrounded and illuminated the whole conference which was well attended with many excellent presentations.
ReplyDeleteFrom the coverup of genocidal practices in residential schools to the sale of campus land to multinational corporations and high-end condo developers we learned that the SDS and the Wreath Underground have a lot of issues to confront at UBC and a lot of ways to confront them. We showed last week that we are up to the task.
But there is more:
While we are gaining support among fellow students, faculty and staff we realize that with 2010 just around the corner we have a responsibility to collaborate with activists from all over Canada who will come here to help stop the games from taking place on this stolen ground. An olympic hockey rink is now approaching completion on the UBC campus. 2010 will be a showcase for the state of the art in suppression of freedom. We must foil them. If we can begin to coordinate our efforts now we can surely shut it down. Please contact UBC SDS if you are interested in any of our activities.
Special thanks to Denis and all of our speakers last week ~ Resistance is fertile!