Well then. It appears that Samuel Gaus, the chap standing for NUS president as the representative of the now infamous Inanimate Carbon Rod campaign, was a better speech writer than he was a speech maker. In a hustings address to the NUS conference reminiscent of Gil Scott-Heron’s jazz poetry anthem “The Revolution will not be televised” Gaus delivered line after line on what the rod will not do and does not stand for. The inference was clear as to who was supposed to be the antithesis of the rod’s policies; The CV fluffing NUS “elected” bureaucrats, unaccountable to and unrepresentative of those they pertain to represent. Despite his occasional stuttering and spluttering, it was a hugely effective piece of rabble rousing.
It was something of the bizarre to finally get a glimpse of “the man behind the rod”. With colorful badges adorning his black trenchcoat, shoulder length hair and thick rimmed glasses he looked somewhat familiar to me, although that’s probably because he looks exactly like everyone who’s previously tried to flog me a copy of The Socialist Worker.
Gaus withdrew from the running after his speech, citing that he had made his point and that there were “good people in the NUS”. However, what is perhaps most startling about the Inanimate Carbon Rod campaign is it’s truly wide reaching impact. Although Gaus own political inclinations were clear, he talks of student occupations and rails against fees, alluding to being kettled by police during the 2010 protests, his campaign has stirred up widespread discontent with the NUS from across the student populace at large. From Radical lefties to Tory Boys and even terminally jaded contrarians like me, the Rod has earned a strong underground base of support, and many of those will have no desire to let this grass roots outpouring of displeasure end with Gaus.
At York anti-NUS feeling is at an all-time high, with calls for YUSU to leave the union now a frequent occurrence. Again this support comes from across the political spectrum and a broad range of groups. Many see the national student leadership as a collection of faceless automatons, accused of being stooges to either the Labour Party, or the political elite in general, depending on what side of the fence you’re on.
The motley band of radicals on Left and Right who rallied around Gaus’ campaign broadly represent a wider feeling of inaction and underrepresentation in the NUS, and we have good grounds to feel that way. So often in student politics do our representatives feel like a grasping, careerist, oleaginous bunch of shysters. A lot of them come across as a tad inhuman and on occasion thoroughly odd. It seems frequently as if whatever it is there doing, it’s not actually for you. It’s an attempt to impress a ppc selection committee or the directors of a think tank.
On a broader level, the Inanimate Carbon Rod is part of an expression of what’s been a lingering background feeling in politics for some time now. That at least a rod, bereft of thought or action, does not claim to be bettering the lives of students, the rod does not have delusions of benevolence, it does not and indeed cannot lie to us, it cannot seek to silence us or impose its will upon us. It is a carbon rod, and it makes no attempt to be anything else. The rod is honest, and the feeling is that, is at least some kind of improvement.
There was an old quote I once heard about Margaret Thatcher which was allegedly said by some punk rocker or something in the early 80s (To be honest with you I’d be interested to know which one, none of the member of Crass of The Exploited came across to me as natural Thatcherite’s). The quote goes “Better the Iron Lady than those cardboard men”. Well, perhaps better an Inanimate Carbon Rod than those cardboard student leaders.
On a side note, the person eventually elected the new president of the NUS, Toni Pearce, a firm establishment favorite, will be the first NUS head to have not attended University, coming from a purely further education background. Shortly after being elected, Pearce articulated a view that she didn’t believe in University, stating that “The idea of taking three years out of your life, full-time, when you can’t earn much money . . . just to get yourself into debt? It’s just not attractive to me”. Here’s a thought exercise for you. Imagine if the National Union of Journalists elected a new president. Imagine if just after being elected that president made a statement that they believed newspapers, which many would argue convincingly to be the union’s flagship industry, to be a load of decadent, old cobblers and a waste of time and money.
Go figure.
Whilst I always have admired you and your attire, I must be honest and suggest you are rather missing the point of the Rod’s whole campaign: without actually competing in the election, Gaus has quite brilliantly left students’ unions seriously considering the NUS’ representation and whether it does the best job it can. By focusing on what the Rod would not do, Gaus helped us all agree that the next president should not be just another politician, but a voice for students with a real plan of action.
You are of course right, and that is the impression I got when I watched the speech.
The title and excerpt of this article (which I don’t choose) seems to suggest that this is me telling what the Rod campaign was about and what Gaus was trying to achieve. When in fact what I was trying suggest was the opposite. I was attempting to articulate what the Rod seemed to mean to a lot of people, including me, regardless of what the Rod campaign was actually about, which as you say was different. I feel like the Rod seemed to become a totemic symbol of anyone who was pissed off with the NUS and student politics in general, and could in fact even be seen to be symbolic of people’s issues with national politics, the old idea that maybe an inanimate object would be better than what we have.
Maybe I didn’t explain that very well or maybe it’s just the name of the article, but I hope that clarifies what I meant.
It certainly does clarify and I wholeheartedly agree :-)
I think that any one familiar with my politics will be able to figure my take on Toni Pearce and the rest of the NOLS crowd elected earlier this week… I might even be in the process of writing them up.
However, I think your being incredibly unfair on her background Tom.
FE students are by far the largest constituent segment of the NUS’ membership, when you consider that over 500 college’s SUs affiliate to the National union and their are only 130, or so, universities (a fact I would have thought those who argue the NUS is a confederation of individual SUs as opposed to a union of students, would be keen to note) in the country I think its fair to say that the majority of the 7million students the NUS claims to represent are in FE, rather than HE institutions, studying a whole range of courses from basic English and Maths, through vocational courses, to external university’s degrees. As such your NUJ example seems very insulting and could be construed as quite snobbish.
Surely a better analogy of this years NUS Presidential contest would be if the NUJ was offered the choice between a national journalists writing for the Times, the Morning Star, Private Eye and Political Scrapbook. The Private Eye journo drops out leaving 2 candidates from established media and one from new media. The new media candidates then wins, for a variety of reasons…
I think most people would say fair enough, especially if the new media candidate was experienced as Toni Pearce undoubtedly is. Unless of course you think that “new media” is somehow unworthy and everything printed online is by definition crap, as opposed to just different and equally valid on its own self-defining terms.
I don’t suppose Tom Davies can get through a single article without taking a cheap shot at someone’s dress sense?
It got a little dull a while ago… try a bit of variety with your jokes maybe?
Though this article is an improvement on the pile of rubbish you wrote about the right of universities to ban protests.