I thought I would have been content observing this year’s SFSS election cycle from the sidelines, satisfied that the general tenor of the campaign would be beneficial to the student community as a whole. However, recent developments have prompted me to speak out about an alarming entity that has burst into the political scene, like a beast lying in wait in the fog.
Most of you by now have seen the posters of a new slate called Renew SFU, which serves out ready-made slogans about “diversity” and “going to the students”. Such sloganeering would not be so bad (and in fact pretty standard) if they didn’t paper over some very ugly aspects of what it is they really stand for: a reversion to the outdated left-wing politics of the previous decades that has so hampered our society’s ability to function the past.
Renew SFU claims to value diversity of opinion. That’s a very strange claim to make when one comprises a slate, the very existence of which implies some kind of coherence (dare I say, unity) of views and ideology. Furthermore, if Renew were really as diverse as it claims to be, it would draw on students from many different sectors of the university.
In reality, it seems that most of their political base is found within the Sociology and Anthropology Student Union and the Labour Studies Student Union, which, if SFU’s data is up to date, represent less than 300 declared majors (In contrast, the student unions who support Build SFU, a favourite target of Renew, represent over 4,000 declared majors).
Renew SFU says that the Build SFU project was forced upon students from the top down by an unaccountable board of directors. My first reaction to this is to wonder whether they are talking about the actual SFSS or merely a fantasy version they have concocted in their minds. The board of directors is, in fact, the most accountable governing body in the whole SFSS, since the entire undergraduate student population elects them. Certainly, they are more accountable than 11th-year undergrads like the labour studies forum representative who, by the very nature of his appointment, only serves the particular interests of a small portion of the larger student community.
In fact, if you actually bother to read the SFSS constitution (which I have, several times), you will note that the board is, by law and by fact, the sole representative of the interests of all SFU undergraduates. Perhaps Renew’s ‘progressive’ ideals are too rarefied to be committed to a legal document.
Renew SFU claims that it will rebuild trust in our student institutions. I wonder how they are supposed to do that, given who they are and what they represent. Renew SFU is not representative of the members of the SFSS but are, in fact, a small clique of activists with homogenous views that are unhappy with the daring, bold trend of having regular, apolitical students (which comprise the vast majority of undergrads) take charge of an institution in which they, the privileged “progressive” class, have long had a stranglehold.
They believe that experience in radical activism that the vast majority of students do not care about counts as solid credentials in university relations. They don’t seem to bother with standards concerning conflict of interest: witness how their IRO candidate proudly declares his previous employment with Out on Campus, which is run by the SFSS. Somehow I don’t think having an employer representative with such blatantly close ties to his employees is going to work out too well for student interests.
They don’t even seem keen on basic logic: their treasurer candidate cleverly puts forward his arts education and commitment to “avoid blaming workers” as being superior to “business-minded” approaches, since apparently cow-towing to union interests is so much more important than making sure students as getting the most from their fees.
Despite first impressions, I have no particular delight in penning such a negative screed about a particular group of people, but I feel that it is necessary given what is at stake: independent, capable, ideology-free governance in a form of government that sees so little of it.
So, I say again: don’t vote for radical politics. Don’t vote for false ‘progressivism’ as opposed to the real progress we have made in the past few years. Don’t vote for Renew, and keep the SFSS yours.
