(If the font for this comes out very tiny on your browser, many apologies. I’m pressed for time and have no idea how to start fixing it – maybe Mike knows what to do!)
NSPIRG held a rather unusual sort of press conference this morning. They refused to have a question period, decreeing that this press conference was a time to focus on the positive, and disengage from the divisive rhetoric that has been plaguing the debate these past few weeks. Ben Wedge did some live-blogging of the event on the Stop NSPIRG website, so if you want an agenda of what happened when, that might be worth checking out. I have a few thoughts on the proceedings, and unlike NSPIRG this morning, I’ll even leave the comments section open for debate.
First of all, isn’t it a little hypocritical for a group that claims to be the champion of dialogue and free speech on campus to hold a press conference in which no one can ask questions? Yes, I appreciated the comedic value of not being able to ask questions at an hour long press conference in which every single candidate told me that NSPIRG was the last great hope for free speech at Dalhousie university, but I’m not sure that was the reaction that NSPIRG was going for. Also, there was an amazing similarity between the “diverse opinions” they championed at the press conference today. One moment that brought a very big smile to my face was when Megan Leslie declared that we need dissent and debate for democracy, and claimed that the House of Commons is an awful place because dissenting questions are often silenced. Was she actually that oblivious to the nature of the event she was speaking at, or was she perhaps speaking to us live via some sort of futuristic CNN holograph?
Next, I have to say, for an event that was supposedly taking the high road and focusing on the positive aspects of NSPIRG, they sure spent a lot of time talking trash about their opponents – not that they seemed to have a solid idea of who these opponents were, exactly. Most seemed convinced that this was a Conservative conspiracy of some sort, though they often differed on the details. Megan Leslie was repulsed by the idea of political agents meddling in student union activities (unlike, say, an NDP MP flying in from Ottawa to act as the keynote speaker of a rally in favour of a supposedly non-partisan student group) but she seemed somewhat uncertain as to who these conspirators were, beyond their slavish loyalty to Harper and their sexist beliefs.
Many echoed this sentiment, but El Jones took a slightly different approach. Jones, a spoken word artist, directed her attacks against the clearly racist DSU, which hates people who look like her, apparently. It was unclear if the racists in question were DSU councillors, or just students of the DSU in general, but her message was direct: you hate me and want to destroy all non-white cultures, so please continue to support NSPIRG – that way maybe you won’t be punished quite as long in hell.
Given that one of the central charges levelled against the imagined Conservative fiends masterminding this evil plot is that they are dealing in misinformation and deception, the speakers themselves might have benefited from some basic research into the issue themselves – you know, beyond the pamphlets NSPIRG gave them. If they’d even given people a chance to ask questions, maybe some of us might have even been able to mention that the Stop NSPIRG campaign is a grassroots coalition consisting of members of all political stripes, or that we are concerned with accountability, not trying to ruin the lives of young immigrant lesbian single mothers who read Marx.
After listening to all of the speakers, there is one big question that I wished I could have asked. There seemed to be a unanimous consent in the room that if the evil sexist, racist, Conservative conspirators succeeded in stripping NSPIRG of its levy, Dalhousie students would somehow lose their capacity to think critically or express diverse opinions.
Why? Is critical thinking on campus really promoted by throwing large amounts of student money at unnecessary staff members who do next to nothing to facilitate freedom of thought at Dalhousie university – and, in the case of at least one of the current paid staff, actively encourage a culture of screaming at each other rather than engaging in debate?
This is a crucial aspect of the debate, and it was completely ignored at the press conference. For an hour straight, NSPIRG advocates attempted to hammer home the message that they represented all that was good and pure on campus, and that if NSPIRG was to cease functioning in exactly the way that it does now, diversity of opinion and social awareness on Dalhousie campus would wither up and die before our eyes. Again…why?
I think that it is safe to say that the bulk of support for the Stop NSPIRG movement comes from people who are fed up with the antics and structure of NSPIRG, not from opponents of social justice/community relations. Many of us feel that, were NSPIRG to lose its levy, its members would be forced to do some soul searching so that they could come back with a package that was more appealing to students. For arguments sake, wouldn’t a $60,000 levy dedicated exclusively to providing grants for student/community projects go a lot further towards promoting our role in the community? Such an arrangement could easily function with a non-partisan, volunteer board of directors who considered the grant requests on a regular basis, and it would likely please a number of the people I’ve talked to who feel that the NSPIRG levy primarily goes to hiring two protestors in residence.
I’m fast running out of time to post this, so I’ll shut up for now. Feel free to call me a Conservative monster – if NSPIRG keeps up the great work, I might yet turn into one. I may have voted NDP consistently since 2003, but I’ll likely be living near campus the next time an election rolls around, and I sure as hell won’t be voting for a representative that can’t be bothered to do some basic research before taking a very public stance and embarrassing both herself and her party. That’s just me exercising the power of critical thinking.
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