Testing the prospects of protests

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard that tuition fees are getting raised again by something referred to as a CoSSS fee. Standing for vague ideas such as “security and sustainability,” the name is a politically neutral term that’s supposed to be as inoffensive as possible — its only purpose being to quickly raise revenue through a route that the government can pretend isn’t “tuition,” which the province itself placed legal obstacles against increasing by more than a set amount yearly.

Predictably, while preparing to resort to the same methods that have failed for as long as students have been against increasing tuition, there are those who have declared that this recent increase is something to be fought against tooth and nail. Not literally — actually doing anything meaningful against the increase would be too much work — but you can expect a rally or two where those that have free time will carry a placard, or maybe shout some slogans.

So props to them — at least they’re keeping tradition alive. It sometimes seems that the only real traditions left anymore are Harper proroguing Parliament after Christmas and the Vice President (External) of the hour carrying out a lame and under-attended anti-tuition campaign. The campaign itself, however, always results in little embarrassment for those involved — in later years — when they reflect on the different ways they wasted time at university.

The only real consolation from this year’s effort, the “Stop the Gap” price-tag campaign — which I’m sure will send shivers down Stelmach and Samarasekera’s spines should they ever notice it — is that it’s somehow marginally better than Grant Macewan’s University’s attempt at playing with the big boys. Their Student’s Association actually thought it was a revolutionary idea to bake little anti-tuition notes into a giant fortune cookie. This symbolizes that the government is eating students’ souls. Or, uh, something. But nothing says “student discontent” like a good fortune cookie.

When you reflect on it, you have to wonder what the point of many of the recent “protests” has been. From the student anti-tuition protests to the anti-prorogation protests, you’d have to be completely delusional to think they’d actually stand a chance at accomplishing anything. I did my protest circuit. Last year, one of my SU-involved friends convinced me to attend the Restricted Access red scarf demonstration. I came to campus early one morning, walked up and down the freezing block with 85 other students for 15 minutes, then promptly got back in my car and headed home. Even with the warmth of the red scarves, the last place any sane person wanted to be was out in the elements.

Yet what irked me the most is that while we were marching up and down in the cold, the powers-that-be drove right by in their cars, assumed we were celebrating a Lister dodgeball victory, and carried right onwards to their meeting where they raised tuition again with nary a thought to the shivering protesters. Maybe, in our semi-frozen state, we thought we were making a difference. The results show otherwise.

The only thing that we can learn from this is that it’s time to try something more tangible if we really want to get results. I’m a political science major, and one thing we do is study the way other countries deal with political decision making — when young people in many other countries try to reach their governments by making hundreds of red scarves, they’re used as masks against tear-gas assaults. And to be fair, this method at least gets government recognition. By sending soldiers to deal with rioters, any Middle Eastern government dealing with dissent has recognized protesters in a more obvious way than the Albertan government will ever notice Edmonton’s university students tossing their cookie.

What we must learn from those shenanigans overseas is that the only way to convince someone to take you seriously is by blocking the streets with angry young people burning banners and tires. Edmonton’s last example of this cultural norm — the Whyte Avenue Oilers riots, back when they actually used to win games — got the city both national attention and provided locals with a great outdoor party atmosphere.

So to student activists: stop pretending that this method of behaviour is actually going anywhere, because it’s not — if you actually care and want to make yourselves heard, you can always riot. And if you’re not going to, stop pretending that fortune cookies or price tags are actually going to change people’s minds; your time would be better spent working a second job and saving up for when the University inevitably ignores student concerns and increases tuition again next year.