Since I’ll hopefully be leaving Bloomsbury at some point after about 7 years of involvement in various struggles (cleaners campaigns at UCL/Senate House/Birkbeck/SOAS; anti-fees movements; occupations at UCL/Birkbeck/SOAS; Cops off Campus; a few UCU and Unison strikes) I thought I’d put together some notes on organising in different places. These can be rejected or shared, or maintained for future activists. They are not intended to cast aspersions on activists, or to lay blame for the myriad failures we have suffered in attempting to make the university bareable. I am of course to blame too. They are more just tips to think about when organising in these places. But they are also broadly negative because obviously the many failures mean things need to change. So I’ll start with SOAS and I will try to do ones for Birkbeck, UCL, and Senate House in the coming weeks.
1) THE GREATEST DIFFICULTY OF ORGANISING AT SOAS ARISES FROM THE FALSE BELIEF AMONGST STUDENTS THAT THEY ARE THE MOST RADICAL. “Radical” is definitely the student style at SOAS and a significant part of the student body considers itself to be radical. This often takes the form of comparisons with other universities, such as UCL, KCL, or LSE. But this leads to a great deal of complacency. Often SOAS activists falsely believe what they are doing to be considerably more out there and effective than any other student body. Meanwhile in reality activism is less disruptive and less effective. For example student occupations in SOAS tend not to be very disruptive. There is little history of direct action on campus. Very often disputes between students and management are mediated through formal channels of the students union. Many students who consider themselves “radical” will still cross picket lines. Much of the time students’ belief in their own radicalism constantly stops them taking part in more effective actions or activism, believing already that they are doing enough because they consider themselves being radical while doing nothing.
2) SOAS HAS THE MOST AUTHORITARIAN STUDENT BODY IN BLOOMSBURY. More than in other any university in Bloomsbury the students in SOAS display a widespread tendency towards authoritarianism, or submission to, and identification with authority. SOAS students, more than any others in Bloomsbury, identify with their university. They have done this even when the university has shown itself to be racist, corrupt, and behaving against the interest of the students. In general they are worried about challenging senior management, or any type of action that might disrupt the steady running of the university. SOAS students also care more about the Students’ Union and its ideas than any other university in London. In recent years this has often been favourable, as Student Union sabbatical officers have often been on the far left. Nonetheless there is a danger here. Perhaps the most significant evidence of authoritarianism is that SOAS students themselves are the greatest victims of SOAS marketing itself as a radical university and community (despite the reality of high fees, intrusive security, poor working conditions, enormous course cuts, etc.) Another significant aspect of the submissive/authoritarianism of SOAS students is the frequent conviction of the radicalism of their teachers, despite the school’s faculty being often composed of quant-heavy social scientists who occasionally dress up their work with Latour or Habermas, and middle of the road liberal Foucauldians.
3) THE STUDENT BODY’S AUTHORITARIANISM WORKS ITS WAY OUT AS AN OBSESSION WITH THE “SOAS COMMUNITY.” These are two words that can be heard a lot on campus. They signify a unified idea of the student body, masking the differences in opinion and material conditions of students (the “SOAS community” is normally led by confident undergraduates who don’t have to work long hours alongside uni work, do not have other responsibilities, and don’t live too far away.) It would be a great benefit to challenging the management of SOAS if the myth of the SOAS community were completely destroyed. Often the term is used by more liberal students to condemn more radical action. That is not to say that the more radical action is without problems (more often than not it has many), but the SOAS community in general would rather not risk it, than to do something and make mistakes.
Things have changed a little though. A few years back a lot of the left politics in SOAS was Leninist. This played on the student body’s submissive/authoritarianism, and left organising on campus was done through the bludgeoning wills of “strong leaders.” The dissolution of that rubbish does leave some new possibilities open.
4) MANY STUDENTS THINK THAT IT IS ENOUGH BELIEVE THE RIGHT THING. Often SOAS students believe that the radicalism of their thought translates immediately into effective politics. For each generation of students this is proved wrong. It remains the only university in Bloomsbury with barriers on the door and no-one has done a thing about it in a decade. I am hopeful though that the currently popular “decolonising our minds” talks will at some point be converted into actually “decolonising our spaces.” For the moment, though, quotations of Fanon in the bar are inversely proportional to the chance of decolonial violence entering the building that still says “Oriental” above the door.
5) GENUINELY DISRUPTIVE ACTION IS DIFFICULT TO MOBILISE AT SOAS. In general although the student body at SOAS is willing to be angry about things (such as the widespread support on paper for the cleaners campaign) but will withdraw from genuinely disruptive action, with the exception of extreme situations. Even then, those people in management will get away with sacking and deporting members of staff and be able to stay in their roles without being questioned too much by students.
Most frequently SOAS students will involve themselves in activism as though it is charity work. Few will set up campaigns (sometimes because of a feeling of risk of condemnation by other students or the students union.) In general SOAS students like to be presented by with campaigns that have been set up by someone else, which are already established, or which market themselves to them like Comic Relief. This means that any kind of spontaneous action from the wider student body is hard to achieve apart from rallies and vigils.
6) THE MOST PROMISING ACTION IN RECENT YEARS HAS COME FROM CLEANERS AND FRACTIONAL ACADEMIC STAFF. In the past few years important struggles have been fought by Cleaners (Justice 4 Cleaners) and fractional staff (Fractionals for Fair Play.) The UNISON branch is also excellent, and unlike in Senate House, where the cleaners split from UNISON after the union screwed them over, the decent far left politics of the branch has stopped this happening at SOAS. In general victories have been won by disruptive action. Support amongst the faculty and student body have been mixed. In general very few students will actually take part in actions or protests to support the cleaners (which in general win them better conditions and pay), while many will pledge allegiance and do nothing (which wins nothing much.) In general, due to the authoritarian nature of the student body, and the radicalism of low paid staff, people who are interested in being involved in struggles at SOAS should consider entirely disengaging from student politics and becoming involved only in the struggles of low paid workers on campus. Until a significant change takes place amongst the student body they are likely to politically lie far to the right of the cleaners and the fractional staff. Meanwhile, there are activists to be found, who should also be encouraged to be involved in genuinely radical struggles. They might not find them immediately in the SOAS community where they inevitably arrive.
That said, with the waning of the old Leninism that was popular at SOAS, there seems to be a big increase in decolonial, black, feminist, and queer politics in the chatter on campus. Whether that will be converted into attacking or transforming bits of the university will have to be seen. It hasn’t happened yet, but lets hope it does. That said, the fact that more SOAS students want to listen to academics than will turn out to support poorly paid Latin American cleaning staff doesn’t seem a promising sign.