A year or two back as part of an uncompleted WSM project to produce a pamphlet on student struggles I wrote up my recollections of those I was involved in at the end of the 1980’s. This pretty much was all from memory as outside of a few photos I hadn’t held on to very much from that period. Probably because of this I was asked to speak on this topic at a conference organised by the latest generation of student radicals. These are the notes from my talk.
A year or two back as part of an uncompleted WSM project to produce a pamphlet on student struggles I wrote up my recollections of those I was involved in at the end of the 1980’s. This pretty much was all from memory as outside of a few photos I hadn’t held on to very much from that period. Probably because of this I was asked to speak on this topic at a conference organised by the latest generation of student radicals. These are the notes from my talk.
These speaking notes largely draw on the longer piece I wrote ‘Dublin student activism at the end of the 1980’s‘ although there are some extra fragments of information and parts are rewritten for this specific event. There were four speakers in all and the public section followed a private decision making session in the morning. I recorded the public talks and may be putting the audio of some of them online soon.
Speaking notes
A key problem of student struggles in Ireland is that apart from the Student Unions there is no ongoing organisation or way of passing lessons learned from one generation to the next. Today with indymedia, blogs and websites creating some sort of informal archive of some of what happened it’s not as bad as it used to be. But from my period of activism in the second half of the 1980’s almost no record remains outside of one published online 18 months ago.
But when you look into it the experiences I had over 20 years ago and the experiences you are having today are startling similar. On a trivial level sometime I think in 1988 I was battered by a group of cops who broke my glasses and bloodied my nose about 20m down from the modern entrance to the Department of Finance – I’m guessing many of you had a similar experience some months back. It’s a while back so I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure the now Inspector Keenan (that really huge senior cop who runs most policing of demonstrations on the south side) was one of that group, but back then he was close to the start of his career. This is also a warning that while lessons and experience may be lost on our side they are not necessarly so in the ranks of the Garda, something to keep in mind if your tempted to retry some of out tactical innovations from back then.
What else is similar? Well the 1980’s were a period of recession and mass unemployment in Ireland with around a third of school leaver migrating abroad to find work. Electorally we had a mirror image of what is happening today, the crisis had hit under a Fine Gael / Labour coalition and in 1987 Fianna Fail won the general election under the slogan "Health Cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped." Yet once in power Charles Haughey delivered his infamous ‘We are all living beyond our means’ address to the nation and the new government started to implement the most savage round of cuts so far.
Education was one of the sectors targeted both for cuts and at 3rd level for massive double digit hikes in university fees. There were, as always, a good number of wealthy students whose parents would hardly notice these increases but there was broad layer for whom these increases would mean real pain and for many an early end to their formal education. Many students in other words had a real personal interest in fighting the cuts.
The similarities didn’t end there. Organised resistance from the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and most of the local Student Unions tended to follow a naïve lobbying pattern. Mass demonstrations, which would attract thousands of students, would be held early in each academic year but the main purpose of these was establishing the credentials of the USI officers who would then ‘negotiate’ with government. Students were told that this was the way to proceed; that militant action would only be forthcoming after the government had been shown not to be seriously negotiating. Any early action would be premature and discredit the student’s movement but of course by the point in the year that it became clear negotiations were going nowhere it would be too close to the exams to engage in the supposadely postponed militant action
Mass assemblies
One of the major differences in some colleges was the decision making process that existed for the student body. At the time the union in TCD had a functioning mass democratic form of decision making through Assemblies. These were mass meetings that any students could attend, speak and vote at and were at that time the highest decision making body of the union. This meant their decisions could not be over ruled by any other mechanism. This provided radicals with a defined process to bring forward policies, which if passed by the assembled students the union would be required to implement.
The ultra democratic nature of the assembly meant that even the right within the student body was forced to turn up and attempt to argue its case. Controversial assemblies could see considerable preparatory postering and leafleting for days in advance as the different sides attempted to mobilize students to come along and support their proposals. This not only made the events very visible on the campus, a process helped by the fact the right also had to counter mobilize, but it had a central role in building a sense that individual students actually had a say in important decision making process and thus breaking down the ‘othering’ of the union. The mass meeting nature of the gathering made radical ideas easy to argue, students felt a power in the numbers present that was lacking at other times. Within the college as well as assemblies we used occupations to build the movement and win demands
In these actions there were various but limited links made with the workers involved who for one reason or another shared some common interests on these issues. During the East Chapel occupation, which was in the run up to Christmas the security, had their own arguments with college and were also keen on the overtime. So they turned a blind eye to many of the individual actions that made the sustained occupation possible. Likewise the Library staff was against the cut back in hours that early closure represented and our direct action in keeping the libraries open mean of course that they continued to work normal hours.
Action off campus
Militant actions outside the college grounds were organized along two general lines. The first was to argue through the structures of USI for the calling of mass demonstrations and the organization of sudden spectacular actions, principally the physical occupation of the offices of the government parties and the premises of the Education department itself on Molesworth Street.
The occupations, normally involving a couple of dozen activists from a number of colleges, would be secretive by necessity but generally timed to happen in advance of and thus build for the large mass demonstrations. This aspect is important, militant minority stunts on their own can’t really win anything but they can be a central part of not only building as mass movement but also ‘upping the anti’ within that movement to one that goes beyond passive demonstrations. They were also important in terms of building trust and experience between the most committed activists who would be the people taking the initiative and literally leading the charge when to came to mass action.
Escalation of demonstrations
At the time the most militant section of the student movement was concentrated in TCD. The strategy coming out of TCD was to try and escalate the mass demonstrations which were intended to be passive ‘march and listen to USI speakers events’ into something altogether more heated. If the TCD banner could be got at the front of the march we would increase the pace and then literally charge the Dail (parliament building) when it came into sight. Initially this strategy worked well as both the police and the USI leadership were unprepared and it results in extensive scuffles at the gates of the Dail with on one occasion armed army personnel emerging as students started to get over the fences and through the gates.
This quickly became less effective as the USI leadership took more care to position stewards and national officers at the head of the march and as the Gardai built bigger and more substantial barricades across the streets that approached the Dail. Mass arrests were also used, on one occasion over a dozen of us were arrested and transported to Pearse street police station. Hundreds of students arrived outside and tried to get into the building, one of them having his arm broken as motorbike police repelled them from the doors.
On the morning of a large USI march we discovered that Haughey was to open a new wing of the national art gallery later that afternoon. Without giving away what was intended the march was leafleted and students asked to attend a mass meeting in Trinity as soon as it ended. Details were revealed at this and in small groups around 200 students headed up to the art gallery and went in. By the time the staff realized something was up there was well over 150 of us in the building, we occupied the entrance lobby and chained all the doors shut.
I think the movement of that period was a significant part of the reason fees were abolished but at least as importantly it was a training ground for a layer of activists who kept their radical politics after they left college and many of whom remain active today. Economic conditions meant many were forced to migrate, while putting my notes together I realised that the last time I met some of them was on the streets of Prague a decade ago during the anti-IMF riots. This is the broader context of the struggle against fees, something which for many of you already is or will become a life long struggle for a better world.
by Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter )