Help needed in organizing

[Chom]

First post and urgent! I have been thinking about joining this community earlier but now is really the time.

OKAY, so there have been massive demonstrations around Europe recently because of the un-democratic introduction of a new educative system (EEES, Bologne Process) that is basically lead by lobby groups formed by companies like Nestlé, Total, Phillips, Shell, Siemens... and others, forming the European Round Table of Industrialists. They present it to us, the students, as a system that will improve and agilize movement of students in the European Union, but a close study reveals strong intentions of huge privatization, elitization and merchantilisation of all public universities in Europe.
There's a plan to begin the implant of it in the year 2010, so people are demonstrating now to get the truth about it out to public discussion and reconstruction.

There's a demonstration in Madrid, Spain, going on where students lock themselves in the universities. It will spread to other universities in the city the 8th of May. I live in right-wing controlled Valencia, to the east of Spain. I am not part of any student organization or delegation or assembly. Most student delegates have no idea or don't care ab-so-lutely about all this. How can I help at least to get some ideas spread about this demonstration (the 8th of may) and try to organise something without having good enough representation in any studentish organism (since here in Valencia there are almost none)?

[manic expression]

I don't exactly know the political organizations in Valencia, but I would think the PSOE or PCE have some contacts there.

Anyway, what I do when I don't have too much support is try to publish pamphlets about the issue. This raises awareness, shows people your beliefs and gets people interested. If you have access to a printer, just create a pamphlet and put it all around your university.

Also, just ask around, you may find people interested in helping out.

Good luck.

[joe_the_red]

Signs and posters. Advertise everywhere people go: Universities, Bars, coffee shops... anywhere and everywhere. Have a specific day and time set up, and then be there. Eventually people will show up. Have a discussion plan, too. Be careful though, you don't want opposition people to show up with just you. Make sure your meeting place is a public place. -Joe

[Chom]

I'm trying to contact student syndicates, but they are organised in dosens of groups and are quite weak. The goal is to get people to find out by themselves about this EU-plan to privatise universities on a mass scale, since we don't get much info through media. And of course, the student assembly that was formed in Madrid has achieved quite a lot, so people must start something over here. PSOE is way too inn for the privatisation (never thought this would happen) and PCE is practically dead and hated in Valencia.

Altough I'm not good at sloganering or anything, I guess posters and such will wake up someone...

[joe_the_red]

You need to make sure people know what is going on. Make the title of the poster say something like "Education In Trouble". This is a major problem. Privatisation IS capitalism. You just need to go out there and talk to as many people as you can. Show up at some of the other groups' meetings to talk about uniting for this cause and setting up some meetings that all of the groups can join in on. Then do what you can to work against privatisation, and show everyone that your position is either no privatisation, or withdrawal for your country from the European Union. You should try to work for that anyways. If there are successful movements in a lot of countries for withdrawal from the European Union, maybe (hopefully) it will disband. Good luck. -Joe

[Chom]

Okay, so I'm here with more news from the front.

I felt kinda hopeless when I knew there were going to be demonstrations in Madrid and Barcelona and other places in Spain, so I sent a mails to several student syndicates here in Valencia to ask them if they know about this and if they plan to do something. No answer recieved till this day.

So a couple of days later I went to my faculty and saw a poster. It was talking about that a small student assembly had just been formed here in Valencia and that they were joining the nation-wide demonstration that was about to happen thursday 8th. They were going to do a sitdown in front of my faculty. So I went there the 8th, and like 20-30 people showed up. Quite sad really, when in Madrid over 300 people gathered, occupying the faculties, the classes and putting up huge signs everywhere. Anyways, the guy that was leading the thing here wouldn't let himself down, so he grabbed the megaphone and started shouting. We then had a minute of silence for the death of public education in Europe, and the guy started shouting again. Suddently, he asked us if we should go where the administrative section of the university is, and we all agreed. We went into the administrative building, all of us shouting and the ecco came back and forth, people looking out of their offices, security guards getting confused.... So we went up the stairs to where the directors are, and they finally got out to talk with us. I got a leading position in throwing arguments against them when talking about the economic structures concerned (that do have strong relations with the ERT and the WTO through GATT and GATS), so I left them quite nervous and without counterarguments. They've promised us a meeting to discuss about the Bologne Process, but we all know when such meeting is going to take place, don't we? NEVER.

So, we went out, quite content over the things done. But I didn't feel complete. Action had to be taken. So a too simple act came to my head: get up in class the next day, ask for the teachers microphone and start talking about the next demonstrations we're organizing on monday and tuesday on other university campus, but this time only here in Valencia. And I got a few people interested, I've sent mails all over the place, insisted on people finding out the truth about this project and so on. I would've gone on talking with other groups and classes at other levels of my faculty, but at my faculty, and my university for that matter, you have to ask the teachers for permission, which is quite hard to get unless you know them. I talked with one that I know is a bit leftist, so he let me do it. But the rest of the classes are quite impossible. Also thought of getting panphlets done and things like that, but people really treat it as if it was simple comercial propaganda. So it's not easy. Giving talks is something that I enjoy and I tend to be clear when speaking out, but I don't have time, I'm stuffed with class projects to do and exams are creeping up on me, so I'm losing time. I've also contacted a leftist internationalist marxist group, heavily composed by students, and I know the group leader and asked him to give out the message to the students about the demonstrations on monday and tuesday.

I'm doing the best I can. Let's hope we gather some people and open others minds about this.


What do you think?

[joe_the_red]

You are making progress. This sort of thing is a long process. Maybe other places have more people, but the more information you spread, the more it will grow. You just have to stay devoted. It is a good job. -Joe