Reclaim The Campus Party In UCD

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Saturday April 17, 2004 20:45 by Drop E Not Bombs Collective/ UCD Society of the Spectacle/

Yesterday, at twelve beside the lake in UCD, while bleak grey clouds gathered overhead, a ‘Reclaim the Campus’ banner was unfurled at the Belfield FM kiosk.

Minutes later something of stereo come sound system was produced, with beats provided a reasonably small group gathered and proceeded towards Tony O’Reilly Hall, in an ensemble of color, music and cans, they were there to make a point; the reclamation of campus, making a political point in the face of UCD authorities out of one of the lowest common denominators in entertainment; cans and open space. Something the college is increasingly loathe to tolerate.

Traditionally the last day of term in UCD sees a momentary release of energy from students who driven mad by the sudden bouts of sun and minds numbed by the library, have increasingly resorted to abandoning study. Instead, weather depending there suddenly appears what is taking on all the vestiges of a mini festival in its own rights. As one student described after last year, ‘the campus looked like it had been raped and pillaged by Vikings.’ This year again, the end of college year was celebrated with a rather spontaneous out door party.

There had been murmurings of a Reclaim the Campus event to take place to coincide with a proposed UCD Ball that was to be hosted by the Students’ Union. Rumors that it was to be a black tie affair, and with ticket prices to rival a day at Witness, reclaiming the campus increasingly gained currency. The Ball, it seems was eventually cancelled. Yet at about three O’clock on Thursday, posters and flyers for an event began to appear around campus. At about three o’clock the following day, upwards of 120 people were thankful rain clouds had dispersed and were drinking at the party’s culmination point beside what is known as ‘Lake Two/Tir Na Og’, a green field, split in two by a lake crossed by a small foot bridge, at the back of the Vet Building.

Unlike yesterday, entertainment usually comes at a price in UCD. That several of the ‘Spinnies’ should show up just as RTC was starting said it all, a rapid blur of pink mini cars and fake tans, a circus regularly making their way into UCD to flock Spin Fm/98fm for teenagers, shite cds and even more shite nights out. Where we are charged for both space and the spectacle. The idea that we are free in our leisure time is indeed a fallacy, in the face of the increasing dependency on consumption rather than gathering in gaffs, fields or any free space to produce entertainment.

A precedent has been set that implies we do ‘nothing’ with our time unless it is confined to the spaces that are allocated to us for the consumption of our preferred forms of expression, relaxation, and enjoyment. Where boundaries are clearly set, yet willingly accepted. Access to them is determined by a barrage of factors; economic (just how fucked can you afford to get?), cultural (without shoes? Not tonight son...). They are also legal; closing times, age restrictions, and the many other interferences in how culture is organised for us. The designation and licensing of who controls these spaces and opens them up is also constricted, legally and economically. A process that is steadily becoming more complex. For a state that claims it’s responsibilities should whither away in terms of preserving services which attempt to provide some basis to material comfort, transport, health and education.

There is a sharp escalation in how it seeks to control and regulate the excesses of an entertainments industry that seeks to cater towards a general desire for escape. It governs over a society and structure that pushes us towards weekend lapses into drunken oblivion but at the same time finds it difficult to tolerate this. The behavior of youth becomes designated as anti-social, yet these are perhaps the most social acts of all; acts produced by the ordering of our society. Legislation designed to quell anti-social behavior such as mandatory ID cards, drug laws and public order open up the possibilities of aiding state repression against politicized elements.

The state of affairs in UCD is no different, it has become impossible to find anybody on campus who has not experienced needless harassment from blokes standing around in Blue Tops, who occasionally scour around the campus in patrol vans looking for cans to confiscate. Yet, these are the same blokes who took upwards of twenty five minutes to respond when a student was found dead at the back of the library. UCD Services exist outside the democratic structures of the college, security in UCD being provided by a hired private company. Which inevitably draws with it all the faults of private companies; lack of accountability, shoddy service and the prime concern being the profit motive. Increasingly, services have provided the backbone of increased repression at on campus protests.

This writers last experience with someone from services at a protest entailed me being flung over a fence, to hop myself quite badly on the ground. There was recently even one absurd occasion when the SU Executive were blocked from entering a room in the STUDENT CENTRE that they had booked because a state minister was in the same building. Increasingly, services, as body with no civil authority are exceeding their role. And as recent protests have shown increasingly police are being called on campus to deal with protests, backed up of course by services.

At twelve, four blokes from services were waiting at the Belfield FM kiosk, despite keeping on eye on the early stages of the party they only moved against it at lake two around four o’clock, giving us 30 minutes to move or face cops being invited on campus. We declined, and the cops never materialized. Services returned in one or two jeeps on several occasions to survey the party, once taking several photos from hill as a tactic to intimidate the gathered students. Despite this harassment, there was still twenty students to be found at four am, sitting around a campfire.

The idea of reclaiming a campus, extends beyond the day to day relationship between security and students. If there is a private security firm pushing its weight around UCD, then one can only beg to wonder what the hell kind of role private investors will play if the current administration has its way. Rooted behind Hugh Brady’s talk of the new UCD is a very different value system to that held by most UCD students, if recent elections and referendum are anything to go by.

The following is the text of ‘Why Reclaim the Campus?’ a leaflet that was circulated to those who gathered at the lake.

‘Despite all their bullshit about the ‘student experience’ the college authorities have only shown intention to contribute to its erosion.

Allowing private franchises to exploit their monopolies on campus, leaving us with rip off books, over priced food and broke. They have shown themselves unwilling to challenge the state over education cutbacks, only going back on the library after student action. Increasingly they allow private interests to intrude in funding, leaving us with the ‘Dunne’s Stores Theatre’ and faculties which resemble Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. Where there are purposefully no social spaces apart from those in private cafes and outlets.

Tony O’Reilly Hall is a prime example. The only use students get, is on their first day where the president greets us with rhetoric about how great UCD is and on their last when we graduate from the degree factory. The Student Centre is no different, purposefully dumped right at the back of the college, ensuring the student body’s alienation from it. With their support for moves to open UCD up for private investment, and increased reference to students as ‘costumers’, it seems education is too being distorted into a commodity and with it collapses the student experience and the whole idea of education as something of social value.

Hiding behind a rhetoric of social inclusion the authorities refuse to promote a public education system funded through proper taxation. Inequality does not begin at the college door, but in the community, primary and second level but the state refuses to deal with its failures here. Instead it proposes privatization and fees. As community on campus collapses due to the erosion of public space at the hands of the private sector, well then so will the quality of education collapse at the hands of private interest.

As the critical university is swept aside for one more concerned with the interests of business. This is our campus, we want more public space and the right to be there with out harassment from private security firms.

This is our education, we want the democratization of how it is run and of the decisions that affect our lives.

This is our campus, and this is a free party which makes that point. .

If services come and try to break the party up then;

1. Remember this is your campus and they as a private security firm have no right to tell you what to do.
2. Always act in groups at and leaving the party. Unity is Strength.
3. If they ask for your student card, just say No. If they threaten you or harass you, ask them to state where they get their authority.
4. If they continue to harass you, report them.’