We are a generation, but we don't seem to want to change, to make a difference, to rock the boat; we are overly content, and this may be because our lives are comfortable.
I was reading a poem the other day by James K. Baxter, A Small Ode on Mixed Flatting. It was responding to the 1967 decision by then University of Otago vice-chancellor Robin Williams to ban the practice of mixed flatting among students, presumably fuelled by a deep-set fear of the leaders of tomorrow engaging in any kind of promiscuous behaviour (the now-universally accepted crew-and-screw mantra had evidently bypassed the former vice-chancellor).
At the time of writing, Baxter was the Burns Fellow at the university, and in his poem Baxter channels the spirit of Dunedin's favourite bard for a few lines:'''O that I had the strength/To slip yon lassie half a length!/Apollo! Venus! Bless my ballocks!/Where are the games, the hugs, the frolics?/Have you forgotten that your city/Was founded well in bastardry/And half your elders (God be thankit)/Were born the wrong side of the blanket?'''
There was outrage at Otago University when Dr Williams made this decision. Inherent rights of choice were being impinged. Adults were being treated like children.
A stirring call to arms from the student body followed.
'''Get out of mixed flats' demand'', shouted the front page of Critic, accompanied by a statement of the vice-chancellor's policy and a stirring editorial: ''What should concern the students is the administration's intrusion into their homes, supplanting the authority of their consciences and their parents, and using the excuse of academic progress to justify an attempt at boarding school regimentation.''
Pamphlets were distributed among the student populace which screamed their message loud and clear, that the students' rights were being encroached upon and this was unacceptable. Sleep-ins were organised. A mock play comparing the vice-chancellor with Adolf Hitler was written and premiered. Even the Burns Fellow, a man in his 40s employed by the university, was moved to satirise the situation and the actions of the hierarchy in verse. The student response was swift, uncompromising, and ultimately successful. People power prevailed.
In May of last year the Budget was announced. It included a blanket cutting of student allowances for all postgraduate students and an increase to the repayment threshold for students with outstanding loans.
In response, 400 students at Auckland University organised a protest, blocking off Queen St, and when quizzed about the protest at a business meeting, Finance Minister Bill English made the following remarks:''Yes, there's a protest movement out there but who's really listening to them? ... They need some Greeks to show them how to do it ... It gets reported, mainly because it blocked the traffic ... [but] who's listening?''
Now, I may be over-idealising the politically conscious Otago University of the past, but it shocked me that this outrageously condescending statement didn't stir up more uproar among the university body. Twenty years ago, Otago University students went so far as to occupy the university clocktower in protest against fee hikes.
Today, to put it bluntly, we don't seem to care. The apathy with which most students seem to view all aspects of student politics is disconcerting, and - in case certain students happen to be reading this (and I know they do - I was in Critic's ODT Watch last week), I regrettably include myself in this apathetic group.
We have lost touch with our collective tertiary identity. We are in a beautifully grey area as far as our lives are concerned: no longer children, but free from the realities and responsibilities of adulthood. We are a generation, but we don't seem to want to change, to make a difference, to rock the boat; we are overly content, and this may be because our lives are comfortable, that nothing really needs to change, but I don't think so. Today, a student allowance is enough to pay for rent, power and food; nothing more. Many of the flats that we live in are, to be honest, completely unfit for humans - and I would invite those who contend this point to spend a mid-August week in my old room at 174 Dundas St.
There are still issues that affect us as students. They may not be as dramatic as the protests around the mixed flatting ban or the fee riots of the 1990s, but things as they stand are far from the student Mecca Dunedin is often portrayed to be.
Our existence is somewhat hedonistic, and this means that we at times ignore facets that don't necessarily bring pleasure, but allow us to function, to think, to develop and evolve. We need to care more about ourselves, to get assertive and, when necessary, to get angry. We need to rediscover our spirit, and when that happens, perhaps then, people will listen.
- Emile Donovan is a Dunedin student.
