[ELECTRON] Glasgow University (Scotland) Occupation: The Free Hetherington, details

[Thomas Coles]

*please circulate if you wish to.
Dear Friends,*

on the 1st of February students in Glasgow occupied the old Hetherington
Research Club at 13 University Gardens (a student union closed down 12
months prior after the University of Glasgow stopped funding it amid chaos,
this Saturday 19th is the one year anniversary) in order to reopen the space
for students, staff and the wider community.

We have called this the' Free Hetherington'. We would love your messages of
solidarity, support, and visits if you can!

*See:*
http://www.facebook.com/FreeHetherington
http://freehetherington.wordpress.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/glasgowoccupied
http://www.facebook.com/glasgowcuts

Media Phone (24/7): 0751 160 4425
Landline (daytime): 0141 339 3765
glasgowoccupation at gmail.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/politicsshow/, to be featured on Sunday 20th February
12:00, BBC One.


*Media:*
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/university-to-press-ahead-with-cuts-despite-protest-1.1085622?localLinksEnabled=false
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/feb/16/glasgow-university-protest-proposed-cuts
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/228790-glasgow-university-student-in-demo-against-20m-cuts/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12467789

*What is happening*

We have received an amazing level of support already, in terms of food and
other donations, and especially in the form of people's time. We have
developed a system of decision making that attempts to allow people to
participate in the Free Hetherington without requiring it to dominate their
time and energies. We have achieved freedom of access, granted by the
University on the basis that we 'do not cause any disruption to the
education of other students'.

*We have done the exact opposite.* We have contacted and improved the
education of many thousands of people, and tried to help them in their
struggle to live their lives. Since the 1st February (16 days and counting,
we are prepared to be here indefinitely) we have invited professors to
lecture based on their *research interests*, rather than on what the corrupt
funding systems and ideologies prevalent in today's Universities promote. We
are run on a commitment to safer spaces, as a non-commercial venue. We are
open, and active.

*We have run*:

   - A constant supply of free tea and (good) coffee
   - Free dinner for all every evening
   - Weekly pub quizzes
   - Weekly poetry readings
   - Free film showings: Buffy double-bill, The Battle of Algiers, Wall-E,
   Dawn of the Dead, The Baader Meinhof Complex, Videogrammes of a Revolution
   (Harun Farocki), London (Patrick Keiller)

*Talks, lectures and sessions on:*

   - Q&A by Mike Prysner (US Iraq Veteran, now an anti-war campaigner)
   - The Ethics of Private Property
   - Readings by A L Kennedy (Novelist and Comedian)
   - Legal Awareness Training
   - Massage Swaps
   - The Abolition of Work
   - Wikileaks, Karl Marx and You
   - Greg Philo (The Glasgow Media Group) on the debt crisis and a wealth
   tax
   - Introduction  to Consensus Decision Making
   - How to Make Vegan Cupcakes
   - An Introduction to Transhumanism
   - First Aid Training
   - The Psychology of Will
   - Knitting Workship
   - Medical Ethics
   - The Nature of the Universe
   - The Politics of Space
   - Zen and the Art of Uni Maintenance
   - Ask a Non-monogamist
   - Basque Political Prisoners
   - Yoga classes!
   - Vegan Pancakes
   - The Ethics of Direct Action
   - Mad women and boys with Huzzas: Public Protest in 18th Century Scotland

*Upcoming:*

   - 1968 - Popular Uprisings Across Europe
   - Communications and Marketing for Activists Part 1: Listening
   - Fighting Poverty and Grassroots Community Politics
   - Anarcho Curiosity Shoppe
   - Where did the debt come from? Whose problem is it?


More information

*Base for Campaigning*

We have spent the fortnight campaigning tirelessly against cuts to services.
Not only to student services, jobs, staff or courses, but also to libraries,
public services and the welfare state across the nation. We have continued
to build contacts made since last year with the other institutions across
Glasgow, such as Caledonian University, Strathclyde University and Glasgow
City Colleges. We have been heavily involved with Glasgow Against Education
Cuts <http://glasgowagainsteducationcuts.wordpress.com/>
(facebook<http://www.facebook.com/glasgowcuts>),
a umbrella group within the city for coordinating action, tactics and
information. We have made contact with other groups across the country and
the world. This is not a single issue protest - though the destruction of
the 50-year-old institution of the Hetherington Research Club was a vicious
cut that we aim to rectify - it is about the entire shape of the society we
wish to live in. It is about producing a new culture where we reject the
idea that anyone should have obscene amounts more than they could ever use,
while others have less than they need to survive.


*The situation here in Glasgow is the future (or the hidden now) of other
institutions*

On the day that the University (9th February) announced £3m of cuts we
acted. We began to inform students and staff of the details:

   - Nursing (axed),
   - Anthropology (merged with history),
   - Social Work (axed),
   - The Department of Adult and Continuing Education ('DACE', axed) and
   - every Modern Language apart from French and Spanish, including the
   highly rated Slavonics programme (under review),
   - the centre for Research into Drug Misuse (under review).

That day the Free Hetherington approached every other elected student
representative, every affected course, and made the case that we cannot
fight these cuts alone. That these students and staff should have been
informed via the media, rather than directly by Senior Management, shows
their cynicism, callousness and the secret manner in which they are
preparing to force through these changes. Their previous attempts, particularly
on the 9th of November<http://www.glasgowguardian.co.uk/news/academics-in-revolt/>,
to reduce the influence of academics to the benefit of 'lay' (business)
interests shows a systematic preparation to go against the wishes of those
providing and receiving education at this university. Over the past years
retiring academics have not been replaced, courses have been wound down,
staff workloads have increased. None of this began with the financial
crisis, but the crisis gives a useful cover for what has been an extended
attack on services.

*Spreading Information*

On the 11th of February we helped promote and run a rally of over 350
students to discuss and inform on these issues. At a time when the
University is running at a £7m a year surplus - and has wasted £13m on a
white-elephant computer project - these cuts represent nothing other than a
full-scale ideological attack on Universities' place in the community. The
market fetishism shown by our Principal, Anton Muscatelli, and his desire to
apply 'competition' rather than 'collaboration' at every level of academic
life, is a destruction of all the greatest achievements of academia. The
removal of modern languages, to pick one of many, risks producing a nation
of 'morons': uncritical, unable to contextualize their place in the world,
and easier to manage.

*Organising Action*

On the 16th of February more than 2000 students
marched<http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/feb/16/glasgow-university-protest-proposed-cuts>on
the governing body of the Glasgow Uni, the Court, to make their voices
heard. Every speaker supported each others' departments, many showed
dissatisfaction with the undemocratic 'consultation' offered, and the crowd
supported the UCU (University and College Union), and industrial action,
should it become inevitable. The Court still passed its opening of a
consultation process, one that is undemocratic, unaccountable, and will not
discuss the pet projects of the unelected, non-academic senior management -
it will merely allow staff and students to 'vent', or perhaps influence
which courses already selected by management will be hit hardest. Most
likely the opinions and ideas raised - of staff, students, alumni, and the
community of West of Scotland - will be ignored.

In fact, one of the direct results of this march was that, 2 days later, the
cash-strapped University advertised its need for a PR company - on a one
year contract<http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2011/02/18/18819-glasgow-university-to-appoint-one-year-pr-contract/>
.


*A New Vision of an Old Idea*

This occupation is not just a protest<http://freehetherington.wordpress.com/>,
it is productive, it is an attempt to build in the middle of our campus a
real living version of what we think education should be. Not for financial
profit, but for intellectual excellence, not for the elite, but for its
community - a global community. Not for business, but for society.

*What next?*

We will engage with the University, but we will not capitulate to their
request for us to be pragmatic, not while they keep their pet projects and
wages funded, not while they collaborate with businesses that refuse to pay
their taxes, banks that avoid theirs, and politicians that won't keep their
promises. It is not institutions that teach us, it is the people we find at
them - the University is only a venue, if it acts against education we must
act against it. If the University has been captured by other interests, it
must be recaptured. Our struggle is your struggle, and wherever you fight it
you should demand that which those against you term 'impossible'. Only then,
and by refusing to capitulate, will you make it not only possible, but
inevitable.


More applicable than ever: Be realistic, demand the impossible.

*In solidarity,

The Free Hetherington*
glasgowoccupation at gmail.com




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