February 26 2010
Communist Students: Who we are, what we do
Manchester communist students recently visited the University of Central Lancashire (February 4) to give an introductory talk to the Student Left Network (SLN) http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=204639314096&ref=ts on CS and what as an organisation we do. The talk given by myself and I briefly outlined our core politics while mentioning many of the campaigns that CS has been involved in such as Hands off the People of Iran, Stop the War, Anti-Cuts campaigns, LGBT rights and many more. As already mentioned the talk was only brief as comrades from CS who attended felt it was important to have a more open session in which any questions posed by comrades from SLN could and would be answered and that there would be plenty of time to do so. Needless to say this proved successful as the discussions went on for over an hour after the initial introduction.
The discussions ranged from issues such as the recent attacks on higher education to talks about the BNP and EDL and the best way of combating the rise of such nationalist and racist organisations. Many of the comrades from SLN present were certainly not advocates of a blanket no platform policy but were in agreement that the rise of groups like the BNP and EDL did present a big question for the left and how best to organise to combat such groups. One of the main talking points from the discussion was the government attacks on higher education. CS has been involved in the recent job cuts campaign ongoing at Manchester Metropolitan University and members from SLN were keen to hear us talk about the campaign and how things were progressing. It seems that across the board now students are preparing for the worst as the government sharpens its knife over higher education. Many of the comrades from SLN talked about how the current labour governement had shown a complete disregard for humanities subjects such as politics, history and philosophy instead promoting its favourite subject business. The proposed raising of tuition fees was also briefly discussed as CS comrades backed up our firm belief in free education for all.
Of the other topics discussed one of the more interesting was CS's opposition to the recently created MEN's society at Manchester University. Our involvement in the campaign was briefly mentioned in the introduction talk and one of the comrades from the SLN was interested in our opposition believing like many others that it surely could be a good thing to have a men's representative on campus. Comrade Caitriona Rylance was quick to discuss the problems of the group with the comrade mainly about its strange beginnings notably reinforcing many of the stereotypes men constantly have tried to wear off i.e. beard growing and muscle man competitions and also its strange claims that men were now in some way oppressed and women were not. One of the other comrades present from SLN was quick to point that it was parallel to starting a white society which was one of the anti mens societies key criticisms of the group. Whether the debate was fully resolved remains to be seen but the openess of the talk meant all parties were heard which can only be a good thing when dealing with such things.
Many other things were discussed including Hands off the people of Iran which was seemingly met with enthusiasm by all SLN comrades and some talked about attending the dayschool on the 13th February at Manchester University. Some asked about our education aspect and the reading of left texts and Manchester CS's recent revolutionary series on France which we explained and talked about our belief in strong self education within the organisation. Other issues were talked about including CS's leading role in the postal strikes and our firm belief that under no circumstances should students become scabs.
On the whole the meeting with the SLN was extremely refreshing;it shows that when no visible political parties and groups are on campus like the situation at Uclan, people who share political beliefs can come together to discuss their ideas and invite people to present their own political beliefs. I am sure that not all members of SLN would call themselves communists but their willingness to allow groups like CS to come and share our views is an extremely positive attitude and says a lot about the groups democratic credentials. In as much it shows the belief in building bridges between universities and how in these troubled times of education cuts that unless we stand together in solidarity to oppose such measures we are destined to fail.
By Liam Conway
