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.’

save preference

Comments (13 of 13)

Well...

by yoyoyooy

Sat Apr 17, 2004 20:56

...it didnt look great to be honest. There was like 20 or so people at the Belfield FM thingy when I was sitting at the lake and nothing much seemed to be happening. But it was a start, it was intimadating to go over as it was theusual lefite crowd and a newcomer would feel odd.

fair points

by antrophe

Sat Apr 17, 2004 21:10

At least there was an attempt to open it up, there was plenty more heads at lake two. It started too early, but at least now we've made a start, next september have a whopper of one.

What authority?

by Ocean

Sat Apr 17, 2004 22:13

I'd recognise that prose style anywhere, nice one.

I especially like the pointers about dealing with private security: authority doesn't exist unless it is recognised. When we question it, it dissapears.

Ocean

could have done with more thud thud thud and less twang twang twang

by Conor - SAucd/Not relavant for this post

Sun Apr 18, 2004 14:50

only made it along for 10 mins myself, before heading off to the free social space formally known as the palace. woops.

good idea though . everyone who went to tir na og seemed to enjoy it, and bar some combat student partol, unicare seemed not to be too pushed.-)

"authority doesn't exist unless it is recognised. When we question it, it dissapears"

by Cathy

Sun Apr 18, 2004 17:19

"authority doesn't exist unless it is recognised. When we question it, it dissapears", nonsence! Question it & you land yourself in shit, ya muppet!

Those UCD security lads have authority from the college to remove you from the campus. If they have trouble doing so they'll call the Guards, question the authority of the guards at your peril. The Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 states:
Section 8: Failure to comply with direction of member of Garda Siochana
(1) Where a member of the Garda Siochana finds a person in a public place and suspects with reasonable cause, that such person--
(a) is or has been acting in a manner contrary to the provisions of section 4,5,6,7, or 9 or
(b) without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, is acting in a manner which consists of loitering in a public place in circumstances, which may include the company of other persons, that give rise to a reasonable apprehension for the safety of persons or the safety of property or for the maintenance of the public peace,
the member may direct the person so suspected to do either or both of the following, that is to say:
(i) desist from acting in such a manner, and
(ii) leave immediately the vicinity of the place concerned in a peaceable or orderly manner.

(2) It shall be an offence for any person, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, to fail to comply with a direction given by a member of the Garda Siochana under this section.
(3) A person who is guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £500 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both.

BTW:

Section 5: Disorderly conduct in public place
(1) It shall be an offence for any person in a public place to engage in offensive conduct -
(a) between the hours of 12 o'clock midnight and 7 o'clock in the morning next following, or
(b) at any other time, after having been requested by a member of the Garda Siochana to desist.
(2) A person who is guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £500.
(3) In this section "offensive conduct" means any unreasonable behaviour which, having regard to all the circumstances, is likely to cause serious offence or annoyance to any person who is, or might reasonably be expected to be, aware of such behaviour.

Section 6: Threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour in a public place
(1) It shall be an offence for any person in a public place to use or engage in any threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or being reckless as to whether a breach of the peace may be occasioned.
(2) A person who is guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £500 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months or to both.

This is the law, whether you recognise it or not, it won't disappear!

Got it?

Fuck them and THEIR law

by Starstruck - UCD Left

Sun Apr 18, 2004 17:34

Thats some nice copying and pasting there Cathy.
Yes indeed it is the law and as a Law student myself i understand the need for uniformity in legal process to maintain law and order in a nation.
However UCD campus is private property and as such is independent in many ways from the state.
Services can invite the Guards in should they beleive the actions of those people involved to be of a threatening nature either to other people or no public order on campus.
As someone who was at the event all day i can inform you that services did indeed threaten to call the Guards but reached the obvious conclusion that we were no threat and were just a 120 or so students enjoying OUR campus i a peaceful and jovial manner.
By the way the law is flawed.We live in a country where the rich get richer,the poor get poorer,we turn away people looking for a better life and support the slaughter of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East and have an economic system that helps maintain massive poverty in the majority of countries in the world.
Oh and cops beat peaceful protesters who are exercising their democratic rights as enshrined in that legal document that underlines the law you seem to hold so highly-the constitution.

photos

by reeuq - .

Sun Apr 18, 2004 19:33

Authority, Law and Legitimacy

Sun Apr 18, 2004 22:24

Hey Cathy,

What I said is quite accurate. Authority doesn't exist unless it is recognised. Since you reject this entirely I will endeavour to further your understanding of the issues involved.

>nonsence! Question it [authority] & you land
>yourself in shit, ya muppet!

The first noticeable thing here is your flippant attempt at character assassination, this is THE OLDEST rhetorical device that may be employed when someone wishes to 'dodge the question' in argument or debate. I won't dwell on this, since it is ultimately beneath us both, save to say: you don't know me and your presumption to judge me is nothing other than groundless egoism.

An authority is the ability to command others. Authority functions on the assumption that those it commands are willing to consent to those commands. The consent of the commanded manufactures the authority. When we question authority we are really questioning its legitimacy. We are denying its right to command and by doing so we deprive it of the consent it needs to function. Without consent, the commands of authority are not carried out. In this situation the authority has no ability to command and is therefore no longer an authority. This knowledge of how authority really works is the basis of civil disobedience.

When we realise that authority is simply the mirror image of our own consent we come to understand its true form. The phantom of "Authority" is unmasked and in its place we find the threat of violence. I assume that this violence is what you meant when you said:

>nonsence! Question it [authority] & you land
>yourself in shit, ya muppet!

I may be subjected to violence, but such violence can never be legitimised. There's nothing that I can do that would ever give someone the right to commit an act of violence against my person. If someone claims that they may legitimately commit an act of violence against me because of the behaviour I exhibit they are synonymous with a rapist who claims 'she was asking for it'. Such a defence is untenable since it denies the agency of the aggressor, their choice in determining their own actions.

Moving on you said:
>Those UCD security lads have authority from
>the college to remove you from the campus.

What you're trying to do here is to find a reason for UCD students to consent to being commanded by these goons and hence generate an authority for them. I reject the "authority" of the college in the same way that I reject the "authority" of the goons in the first place. A college is nothing without its students, we are the reason for its existence. Students are both its raw material and its product. This co-dependency means that the students are, in short, one and the same as the college. Students therefore have as much legitimacy in challenging college regulations as the college has in generating them.

Apart from the draconian nature of the public order act, which generates internal contradictions to the argument made by legality in defence of itself (through its dependence on the subjective value judgements of individual police officers), I'm sure you'll notice that UCD is in fact outside the general scope of this piece of legislation. The Public Order Act specifically refers to public places. Where the act applies to private property, such as the subsection on trespassing (section 13), we can safely assume that being a student in the college would provide "reasonable excuse" for being there.

The Public Order Act is often employed as a stick to beat and harass those who have done no wrong with. This applies equally to the police who use it to trump up a charge to take "undesirables" off the street and to Cathy's cut and paste deployment here of it as a weapon. Despite these tendencies it is worth remembering that section 8 of the Public Order Act is only supposed to be used by a guard in the pursuit of his duties… interfering with harmless recreation hardly applies.

>This is the law, whether you recognise it or
>not, it won't disappear!

It may be the law, but it doesn't apply, and if it did that wouldn't make it right.

>Got it?

Indeed.

Ocean

Jynweythek

by VenusInFur - Drop E Not Bombs Collective

Mon Apr 19, 2004 21:42

dropenotbombs at hotmail dot com

Well comrades, hope all your heads are now deep in the books following what was a very successful party. We managed to 'mobilise' 100+ students at a days notice, offering an alternative to the holes that are the bars on campus students where students are subject to extortionate prices. Services reluctance to disperse us students demonstrated how powerless they are when the broadest layer of students gather en masse. A good day was had by all, none more than this grinning idiot, whose unfortunately named 'super hit mix' kicked proceedings on the way under the shadow of those teeny boppy corporate whores from spin fm. Stick that up your hole El Presidente Hugh Brady!

So where to from now?

The Drop E Not Bombs Collective is a free party organisation, born out of a desire to raise public awareness about the criminilisation of our lifestyles and the celebration of our resistance. We're just a couple of tits who were plain bored and who got off our arses to do something about it. Ingenuity and Imagination is our motto.

We advocate DIY culture, which is people annoyed with the system and deciding to do it themselves. It relies on people doing things for nothing, whose only reward is personal satisfaction and seeing others having a good time. We wanna knock the extortion out of our lives. We're freedom fighters, challenging the laws that fear rave culture. The only freedom the state advocates is freedom to exploit, freedom to make a profit, freedom to siphon people into pubs and clubs rather than fields and abandoned warehouses.

With this in mind, the Collective is launching a zine for those in the rave fraternity and those interested in getting involved. Surprisingly enough, 'Drop E Not Bombs' is gonna be the title, and as the name suggests, it will be unashamedly left-wing and will focus on all aspects of rave culture( the music, its participants, the law, MDMA.....).

The first issue is planned for late May and we want as many people as possible to contribute articles. But more than that we want people in turn to get off their arses and get involved with the collective with a view to organising an event in late summer. Plans are underway to get a yahoo group up and running with a mailing list, but in the mean time you can contact us at our e-mail address.

PS: Great report J, and nice photos too reeuq! Diggidy Diggidy!

haahhaahhah

by jimbo

Tue Apr 20, 2004 13:34

i'm glad the commies in UCD had such a 'great day out' maybe now you could get back to your studies along with the rest of the student body!!

That the name then?

Tue Apr 20, 2004 13:46

Not too sure about that one lads.What happ[ened to RTC....
If we want a mass movement it would surely be advisable not to alienate those among the student body who might not be so open minded.
We gotta get them into it before we can open their minds...
And since when was E symbolic of the left-wing....
anywho the Lake 2 has been returned to its original state.
Next year we should aim to demolish the Conway shitstitute and Reclaim the Lake 2

Clarification Comrade

by VenusInFurs - Drop E Not Bombs Collective

Tue Apr 20, 2004 15:33

UCD

Nah Starstruck, the Drop E Not Bombs Collective support Reclaim The Campus, which is a movement rather than an organisation. We as an organisation represented a significant minority of the students who helped build the event, but we don't wanna just limit our actions to UCD campus. Let me assure you, we ain't doing a SWP on the thing :-) Reclaim The Campus is not our front, no-one owns the franchise!

Come With Us, And Leave Your World Behind

Tue Apr 20, 2004 21:50

Yep, the Collective is on-line. Woo Hoo! The yahoo group is still in its infancy, but it's getting there. This thread and the event notice are in the the Files section, as are the above photos are in the Photos section. Nothing new there I hear ye say! But i also have other files uploaded, and if anyone has any other photos please do send them to me. And I know there are more cos i saw loads of you trigger happy snappers!

Just click on the link below and away ya go!

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Comments (13 of 13)