?The headline of the www.guardian.co.tt news story last Sunday read "UWI students: Remove Queen as Commonwealth head." It ran for 434 words; the comments that followed ran for about 6,000 words. That volume speaks volumes. In my six years at UWI, as both student and staff, I'd documented a dismay in my On Campus column, asking: "Can UWI students ever get it right? Can UWI students ever surprise us by behaving like university students?" (Guardian, April 20, 2008). It too often appeared that, in their ivory tower of erudition and sophistication, UWI students made fools of themselves. And they did this in very public ways under the guise of maturity and wisdom.
There were election protests every single year: voter-padding, bobol, "I smell a Rat" and other stupidness. There was the day students chained themselves to the gates which, given that I've forgotten why they did it, shows the kind of impression it made. There was the mini-riot when students were barred from parking on campus. And there was the drunken mob scene when boys went running from Babylon during an illegal "sound off" at a blinging car show. At almost every point, students called in the media, which was more than happy to cover their ridiculous stories.
Frog queen
This most recent story spoke of a group of students at a U We Speak oral performance event on November 18. The students conveyed their support for St Vincent Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves' referendum to remove the Queen of England as that country's head of state. Students spoke about the symbolism of imperialism and the legacy of colonialism that lingers as Queen Elizabeth II remains British Commonwealth figurehead. That's the first issue. While there is certainly merit to such a cause, there is the veneer of history majors gone wild. They further stated they weren't "irreverent" about it: "We not telling the woman to go home," said one student, respectfully. Yet, posters of a frog wearing a crown and smoking a pipe with the words, "Crapaud smoke all a we pipe," were pasted on the pillars of the Humanities Undercroft. That's the second issue: making mockery of a serious issue.
The next issue centres on the comments posted on the Guardian Web site, encapsulated by one reader's statement: "Their choice of priority in selecting a cause to invest their time and energy raises some very serious questions." Does it take some national crisis for students to react to the things that are most important? Well, I dare say, T&T has long been in crisis: poverty, crime, government accountability, behaviour of politicians environmental degradation, industrial threats, civil liberties, archaic legislation, minority and women rights, child labour, education, public sector corruption, juvenile delinquency, human trafficking, prevalence of illicit drugs, poor work ethic, nation-building, labour standards, public infrastructure...
This is not to diminish the significance of the work some UWI students have done: religious groups spending time in orphanages, environmental groups cleaning up the beaches, and civil groups educating on HIV/Aids prevention and gender rights. But these are but pockets of activism on a campus teeming with about 16,000 students–nearly a quarter increase from my enrolment to my departure. Surely, something of greater significance and on a grander scale can be accomplished.
Environment makes man?
Which brings me to the final issue. In discussing my last column with one of my favourite UWI people, a fiery medical student now based at Mona, I said there was little difference–in work ethics, culture, group relations and national pride–between UWI students and the wider public. My buddy's retort was thought-provoking: "UWI should not be a product of its environment, but rather the environment should be a product of UWI. "The fact that the reverse is the case is evidence that UWI is failing the nation and region." Indeed, throughout history, students have been the generators of civic and political change, their universities the machines that produced such catalysts.
From 1815, when students joined the Urburschenschaft movement for democratic change in Germany, to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, and right up to this year's election protests in Iran, where a 26-year-old Oxford student was shot to death, university students are the ones who aimed to change their environment–for the better. As a part of the academic tradition, I know the real value of research and scholarship. It is to make the world a better place: to discover problems and find their solutions. It is to use the knowledge gained within hallowed halls to spread information, spawn change and revolutionise static environments.
And there is little value if the only ones who feel this deep in their marrow constitute mere pockets on sprawling campuses, pick the least important causes or just don't know how to go about doing it right.
Without this insight and inspiration, university student activists will appear to be nothing more than rebels without a cause.
