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Maybe I'm being stupid, but I really don't see the point in the current student strikes. That is, I know what they're doing them for, but I am fairly certain they're counter-productive.
From the 2006 summer semester on, we will have to pay tuition fees of 500€ per semester. To improve the educational standard (yeah, right). As studying was, up to now, more or less free of cost (except for the solidarity fee of a bit above 100€), students aren't happy with that. Me neither. It's disgusting to raise tuition fees as a means of paying for the budget gaps and debts of the state. I'd understand it (though I'd still be unhappy) if they really were using the money for the universities. But letting us pay because our politicians were unable? Disgusting. And I get really, really sick whenever I hear stupid stuff like "Well, you shouldn't worry about it, your family can pay it, and that means you've got less competition" (Grandmother and mother; fine, but what about my friends whom I'd like to have around? Are you going to pay their fees, too?) or "500€ for half a year, that's not too much considering that the average mobile phone bill of a German student lies at about 500€ a month" (a quote from the statistics everyone seems to love; well, strangely I need about 25€ for my mobile phone for a fucking half-year). Yes, I know that other countries have far higher tuition fees. I daresay those fees go to the universities, though, and not to the state. I'm not fucking studying to rehabilitate the state finances.
That said, I still don't see the point of the strikes. The strikes - meaning that lecture halls are blocked and lectures cancelled - are executed only by the students of the philosophical faculty. The philosophical faculty happens to be the most unproductive faculty by default. No one gives a fuck, really, whether the students of philosophy, anthropology, middle high German literature, linguistics or the like go on strike. To have an effective strike, you must produce something. Preferably something that society will miss when it's running out. If the medical students, the business students or the law students would stop studying - well, at some point society might need new doctors, business administrates or lawyers. The only obviously useful result of the philosophical faculty are teachers; but education is, alas, an underfed child anyway. All others are unspecialized, which is what humanity is all about really, but unfortunately, it's not exactly called-for.
Where is the point in wasting the last but one semester of lectures free of charge? Yes, summer is always a good time for a revolution, but this isn't, nor can it be, a revolution. This is a softened-down protest thing, nominally a revolution because revolutions make you feel good, make you feel like you can control things and move the world and change your stars; but the cause is far too trite. Every generation wants their revolution and their heroes, but neither "Monday demonstrations" against the Hartz IV reforms nor "student revolts" against tuition fees (good grief, is it only money that brings us to the streets nowadays?) are worth glorifying.
That still wouldn't vex me much - the strikes hardly concern me, as the Japanese institute is far enough away from the main campus so nothing is being blocked there, and the one English lecture and the one Anthro seminar, oh well - if the people organizing the strikes weren't so obnoxious.
Bearing in mind that I tend towards the left side of the political spectrum, and that I am a mad idealist anyway, I still can't stand these people. They're so far on the left they're almost coming out on the right side again. I believe that it feels good to be a revolutionary; but even revolutionaries shouldn't throw all common sense away. No politician is going to change anything just because the philosophical students don't go to their lectures anymore. On the contrary; the fact that these students can afford to just skip their lectures will confirm their belief that all students are useless, lazy creatures who can just as well pay for the priviledge of being permitted their useless, lazy existence. You do not prove that you are a serious student by going on strike. A 24-hour non-stop lecture in front of the parliament, that would be a meaningful demonstration. But that wouldn't work, because all those revolutionaries are individualists, and the group effort and hard work that would have to go into that sort of campain is not the sort of thing they're willing to do. That's another thing that is wrong with this: You can't have a revolution if your revolutionaries are, for the main part, selfish individualists who squabble amonst themselves about what to do because no one is willing to take orders, and no one truly able to give them ("Um, maybe we should walk through the city now to spread our message?" - "YOU aren't to tell me ANYTHING! I stay here."). If your will to fight for freedom (freedom of charge, in this context) stops at the point of having to do more than sit around and celebrate your individual coolness, if it stops at having to listen to others who might have better ideas, then your so-called revolution is doomed anyway.
Still, if that's your sort of thing, by all means do it. But don't force everyone else to take part; AND, if someone dares to point out the flaws in your ideologies, the errors in your plans, the illogicality of your actions, or has some actually reasonable ideas about what one might do or whom one might ask, then at least listen without booing, and by all means don't throw garbage at them. Because that's just childish, dear Serious Student. About as childish as demanding the legal prohibition of tuition fees, coupled with a BAföG raise, coupled with whatever other bonusses for students you may have thought up. It's wrong to demand the darning of budget gaps from students, but it's unreasonable to demand more money from a state that so obviously doesn't have it, too. And if you're afraid of people disagreeing with you, don't fucking drag your sublime and noble plans in front of a plenum.
Your cause may be right, but the way you fight for it sucks. If you had charisma and brainpower and powers of persuasion, you might make up for it. But you don't. But I really can't stand people whose sole job is trouble-making, and who more or less pick whatever cause is currently opportune just for the sake of resisting (because even being against nuclear power all the time gets boring eventually). That's not revolution, dear Serious Student, that is revolting. And it still only helps to confirm the politicians in their prejudices.
Yes, I know revolutions have a cool feeling about them. And a catchphrase like "summer of resistance" makes me feel all warm inside, yes, and makes me want to take part, yes, and makes me want to tell proud stories of my glory days at the barricades to my grandchildren, yes. But if the "summer of resistance" is but a façade for a few ego-tripping communists, then, sorry, I'll have to pass. I'll go to my lectures, then, and try to get as much as possible out of this last but one cost-free semester, instead of wasting it for your pointless strike.
Something is rotten if your revolution makes me feel like Finarfin.
You know what else makes me sick? That all these discussions sound as though Germans felt like they were the poor, suppressed inhabitants of some poor Third World country. WTF, people.
- - -
( Studentenstreiks; lang und konterrevolutionär. Ihr wurdet gewarnt. )
- - -
From the 2006 summer semester on, we will have to pay tuition fees of 500€ per semester. To improve the educational standard (yeah, right). As studying was, up to now, more or less free of cost (except for the solidarity fee of a bit above 100€), students aren't happy with that. Me neither. It's disgusting to raise tuition fees as a means of paying for the budget gaps and debts of the state. I'd understand it (though I'd still be unhappy) if they really were using the money for the universities. But letting us pay because our politicians were unable? Disgusting. And I get really, really sick whenever I hear stupid stuff like "Well, you shouldn't worry about it, your family can pay it, and that means you've got less competition" (Grandmother and mother; fine, but what about my friends whom I'd like to have around? Are you going to pay their fees, too?) or "500€ for half a year, that's not too much considering that the average mobile phone bill of a German student lies at about 500€ a month" (a quote from the statistics everyone seems to love; well, strangely I need about 25€ for my mobile phone for a fucking half-year). Yes, I know that other countries have far higher tuition fees. I daresay those fees go to the universities, though, and not to the state. I'm not fucking studying to rehabilitate the state finances.
That said, I still don't see the point of the strikes. The strikes - meaning that lecture halls are blocked and lectures cancelled - are executed only by the students of the philosophical faculty. The philosophical faculty happens to be the most unproductive faculty by default. No one gives a fuck, really, whether the students of philosophy, anthropology, middle high German literature, linguistics or the like go on strike. To have an effective strike, you must produce something. Preferably something that society will miss when it's running out. If the medical students, the business students or the law students would stop studying - well, at some point society might need new doctors, business administrates or lawyers. The only obviously useful result of the philosophical faculty are teachers; but education is, alas, an underfed child anyway. All others are unspecialized, which is what humanity is all about really, but unfortunately, it's not exactly called-for.
Where is the point in wasting the last but one semester of lectures free of charge? Yes, summer is always a good time for a revolution, but this isn't, nor can it be, a revolution. This is a softened-down protest thing, nominally a revolution because revolutions make you feel good, make you feel like you can control things and move the world and change your stars; but the cause is far too trite. Every generation wants their revolution and their heroes, but neither "Monday demonstrations" against the Hartz IV reforms nor "student revolts" against tuition fees (good grief, is it only money that brings us to the streets nowadays?) are worth glorifying.
That still wouldn't vex me much - the strikes hardly concern me, as the Japanese institute is far enough away from the main campus so nothing is being blocked there, and the one English lecture and the one Anthro seminar, oh well - if the people organizing the strikes weren't so obnoxious.
Bearing in mind that I tend towards the left side of the political spectrum, and that I am a mad idealist anyway, I still can't stand these people. They're so far on the left they're almost coming out on the right side again. I believe that it feels good to be a revolutionary; but even revolutionaries shouldn't throw all common sense away. No politician is going to change anything just because the philosophical students don't go to their lectures anymore. On the contrary; the fact that these students can afford to just skip their lectures will confirm their belief that all students are useless, lazy creatures who can just as well pay for the priviledge of being permitted their useless, lazy existence. You do not prove that you are a serious student by going on strike. A 24-hour non-stop lecture in front of the parliament, that would be a meaningful demonstration. But that wouldn't work, because all those revolutionaries are individualists, and the group effort and hard work that would have to go into that sort of campain is not the sort of thing they're willing to do. That's another thing that is wrong with this: You can't have a revolution if your revolutionaries are, for the main part, selfish individualists who squabble amonst themselves about what to do because no one is willing to take orders, and no one truly able to give them ("Um, maybe we should walk through the city now to spread our message?" - "YOU aren't to tell me ANYTHING! I stay here."). If your will to fight for freedom (freedom of charge, in this context) stops at the point of having to do more than sit around and celebrate your individual coolness, if it stops at having to listen to others who might have better ideas, then your so-called revolution is doomed anyway.
Still, if that's your sort of thing, by all means do it. But don't force everyone else to take part; AND, if someone dares to point out the flaws in your ideologies, the errors in your plans, the illogicality of your actions, or has some actually reasonable ideas about what one might do or whom one might ask, then at least listen without booing, and by all means don't throw garbage at them. Because that's just childish, dear Serious Student. About as childish as demanding the legal prohibition of tuition fees, coupled with a BAföG raise, coupled with whatever other bonusses for students you may have thought up. It's wrong to demand the darning of budget gaps from students, but it's unreasonable to demand more money from a state that so obviously doesn't have it, too. And if you're afraid of people disagreeing with you, don't fucking drag your sublime and noble plans in front of a plenum.
Your cause may be right, but the way you fight for it sucks. If you had charisma and brainpower and powers of persuasion, you might make up for it. But you don't. But I really can't stand people whose sole job is trouble-making, and who more or less pick whatever cause is currently opportune just for the sake of resisting (because even being against nuclear power all the time gets boring eventually). That's not revolution, dear Serious Student, that is revolting. And it still only helps to confirm the politicians in their prejudices.
Yes, I know revolutions have a cool feeling about them. And a catchphrase like "summer of resistance" makes me feel all warm inside, yes, and makes me want to take part, yes, and makes me want to tell proud stories of my glory days at the barricades to my grandchildren, yes. But if the "summer of resistance" is but a façade for a few ego-tripping communists, then, sorry, I'll have to pass. I'll go to my lectures, then, and try to get as much as possible out of this last but one cost-free semester, instead of wasting it for your pointless strike.
Something is rotten if your revolution makes me feel like Finarfin.
You know what else makes me sick? That all these discussions sound as though Germans felt like they were the poor, suppressed inhabitants of some poor Third World country. WTF, people.
- - -
( Studentenstreiks; lang und konterrevolutionär. Ihr wurdet gewarnt. )
- - -
