Friday night saw this year’s Children in Need live show. But you wouldn’t have known that on campus. All anyone seems to be talking about is the loss of 24 hour portering. Amid all the talk of an assault on Hes Hall, I’ve heard nothing about Pudsey. I haven’t seen anyone in a ridiculous costume or doing a ridiculous dance to raise sponsorship money. Those of you who have the drive to organise things have missed a trick. I once signed up to the York Nudist Society (it turned out to be a hoax… unfortunately) out of pity for the guys with the clipboard. You could have easily got some money out of me.
There was, instead, a very impressive/annoying protest, depending on your point of view, in support of the porters on Friday. Tim Ngwena was at the forefront, megaphone and drum in hand, and some catchy protest songs were sung. A substantial number of people joined in. But how many of the protesters there that day to shout at Jane Grenville used the rest of their free time to raise any money for Sir Terry?
Portergate is, admittedly, the biggest threat to the campus status quo at the moment. It deserved a protest at some point, no matter your view on how effective a method it will turn out to be. Protest is, however, divisive. Last week we could have all pulled together, either raising money individually or under the RAG banner, for a deserving cause. It’s easy to get annoyed and rail against the need for porters when a protest blocks your route or breaks your concentration. But if the raucous singing had been a sponsorship drive for Pudsey who wouldn’t have, if not joined in, at least smiled and put some change in the bucket?
The nature of campus life is to recognise the split between what we do here and what happens in the rest of the world. I, often without realising the significance, refer to my non-student next door neighbours as the ‘real people’ with ‘real lives.’ Without intending to, I belittle us as students as I succumb to the opinion that nothing we do at university has any bearing on the ‘real’ world. It’s all tied up with that ridiculous ‘bloody students should just get a job and pay taxes like the rest of us’ mentality that many people with jobs hold. I am undoubtedly against this. But is the way to change this view to be found protesting a very campus-based problem at the one time of year when we could be putting those condescending workers to shame? The one skill university teaches everyone is how to dress up like an idiot. Why shouldn’t we use that skill to actually give something back to society?
No, I didn’t organise any Children in Need fundraising events. But I didn’t organise any portering Protests either. Perhaps a let-up in the civil action at this stage would damage the campaign irreparably. But if we focus solely on campus problems like this, no matter their severity, we continue to embody an insular student mentality when we could actually make a difference for once.
Can’t raise money for CiN under RAG – it’d be illegal as CiN aren’t a RAG beneficiary (Nouse did a front page on this last year), but perhaps you should be a bit aware of your other media societies – YSTV put on a CiN event (as they do every year) and played safely inside the guidelines by not actually doing any fundraising directly but encouraging individuals to donate.
I think Chris just means that RAG don’t seem to be particularly active this year or the last apart from ‘RAG’ week and a couple of hitches. Giving should be an all year round thing and not something that pops up in week 5 term 2.
I see what you are saying, but being active on campus isn’t some small pot of action, anyone can do something if they are so inclined.
“Those of you who have the drive to organise things” – these people are campaigning for things they care about, they are not beholden to the whims of others.
The real problem is general apathy and a tendency to sit by complacently and not get involved – If you want to make a difference, you can get involved and do it. Don’t criticise other people for working hard on issues that affect them if you aren’t prepared to do things yourself.
I look forward to seeing your campus activity in the future Chris!
The protest was on Thursday not Friday, there was no clash with CiN.