Freshers Week Fallout
Private Lives
It's probably not for a newspaper to make moral judgements about whether or not someone's privacy has been breached by another newspaper or by a student society. Nevertheless someone ought to stand up for a student's (or indeed any person's) fundamental right to keep their political views to themselves, should they so choose. This right is one which has been denied a member of our university this week and is one which the Oxford Student and all students ought to feel inclined to reassert. A SAFE agent showed incompetence above and beyond the call of duty. A news journalist pushed press standards beyond what is acceptable. Between them they victimised an unknowing and innocent party who was happily travelling through freshers' week unaware that his name and political affiliations were fast becoming common currency not only amongst the friends of a loose-tongued society official, but also on Fleet Street. The Oxford Student didn't want to print a story about student journalism gone wrong or even anything that might damage the fight for equal access to education. All we want is a level playing field for all Oxford's students. Even the famous ones.
Join the queue
Autumn of Finals, nothing like it. Two solid months of dining out at the Randolph courtesy the corporate Milkround.
Mentioning the Milkround to a finalists elicits Show me the Money! or Utter Comtempt: How could you sell your soul out to the evil corporate culture, my friend? How can you pay me that much just for signing on?
At one end some students appear to have a remarkable complex about the annual sell-out. It's the opposite of all we've spent years down the bar trying to achieve. All those years lifting pints and partying. All that time spent on worthy pursuits like the May-Day mosh pit or poncing into Formal Hall. All those years of tough talk and easy choices.
How could you think give this up for anything as ignoble as real work?
At the other end just think of the money. Just think of being able to blow the price of a Summer Ball on an evening out, then dropping fifty quid on the taxi home. Just think of earning more in a month than in three years of student debt. Just think of having a positive bank balance.
Well as they said at Interview, life's never easy. Welcome to your future. Welcome to the Milkround. But before munching on that next canape consider; who's being milked and who's doing the milking?
Mad as a march here?
Another march and another low turnout. Nothing but credit can be given to the activists who managed to turn out at least 500 people (yes, 500 - The Times's 350 figure was, like much of their reporting, far too conservative) to another protest against the creeping tide of university fees. But there's something that the fees protest just hasn't seemed to grasp. Marches aren't the most effective tool in the protester's repetoire. In fact, as any follower of Oxford's anti-fees movement could tell you, they're probably the least effective. The occupation of exam schools. The blight of fee non-payers. The party atmosphere surrounding the whole campaign. These are the things that have got people involved and strengthened the fight. If there are still people in Oxford who think free university education isn't a lost cause, then they need to take stock of their position. If marches won't work, what will?
The only real answer to that question lies in activism. It doesn't matter if most Oxford students don't care about the fees campaign. It's probably true to say that most Oxford students don't care that much about the British Government - but we don't say that Tony Blair is unnecessary or that he doesn't make a difference (well...). It is dedicated people who spend their time doing the less glamorous jobs - writing letters, organising meetings, talking to individuals - that make the difference between a flash-in-the-pan media show and a steady, growing movement.
Anti-fees campaigners don't need to go to any more mass meetings of eight people. They don't need to make any more banners. All they need is someone to come forward with a reasonable plan of action. Soon.
7th Oct 1999