Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Free University of Berlin

June 2012 Last Wednesday (June 6) the Presidential Boad (Präsidium) of the Free University (FU) of Berlin temporarily looked like a besieged fortress: Several hundred students rushed to the entrance to get inside the building. Reason for the siege is a new framework of examination regulations, which the Presidential Board drafted without the inclusion of […]

Left Voice

June 16, 2012
Facebook Twitter Share

June 2012

Last Wednesday (June 6) the Presidential Boad (Präsidium) of the Free University (FU) of Berlin temporarily looked like a besieged fortress: Several hundred students rushed to the entrance to get inside the building. Reason for the siege is a new framework of examination regulations, which the Presidential Board drafted without the inclusion of student committees. This framework includes that examinations can only be repeated twice and that students can be forced to attend compulsory consultation sessions from the third semester onwards. Michael Beron of the student representative body (AStA) sees in this framework an attempt to generate “an enormous pressure to perform and conform”.

To discuss this issue around 700 students gathered for a general assembly last Wednesday. They passed a letter directed at the university administration demanding round table talks. They also wanted to hand this letter over personally through a demonstration. But when the blinds were pulled down and the doors locked at the Presidential Board, medieval scenes accured. During these at least one student was injured by ‘security staff’. “This is already the third time this semester, that people who make demands therefore get punshed in the face”, said a student through a megaphone. Already in November the university president Peter-André Alt let 70 students who occupied a lecture hall to be evicted by police after only a few hours.

In the end a discussion with representatives of the Presidential Board, who consider themself to be ‘ready for talks’, did take place. But they rejected the participation in talks on a round table as well as any other specific suggestion for proper talks. During that opporunity also the university chancellor Peter Lange admitted that when he was a student the pressure to perform was significantly lower. But according to him times have changed – at other universities such restrictive measures exist as well.

With these remarks they clearly state that the new framework of examination regulations is indeed part of an overall social process – pressure to perform, insecurity and top-down control spread even further within the world of employment than inside the academy: precariousness, worsening of working conditions, decreasing of wages, Hartz IV (reforms on temporary benefits for unemployed), and so on. Since for example an increasing number of subcontract workers are employed in the canteen, who don’t have a staff council representative body or anything similar, the boards are also being undermined for the workers at the university. Therefore we can’t restrict our protest to take place only at the university. Only if all those affected by this process – students, workers, unemployed – resist this together, we can generate enough pressure to have our demands met.

Although representatives of the presidential board claimed to be ‘ready for talks’ at the last moment, this could not deceive one of the fundamentally undemocratic character of the university. This is not just about professors having the absolute majority of votes – like in a feudal society (“we are all equal, but they are more equal than we are”, that’s how a student paraphrased Orwell during the rally). One problem with such a ‘dialogue’ is also that students need to sacrifice their increasingly declining free time for such discussions, while the bureaucrats are being paid to attend them. They can converse endlessly, while pushing their plans in the backroom.

A further advantage the representatives of the Presidential Board enjoy is their long-time experience – they know better how student protests work. Student rights were never won through negotiations with those in power. Also the suspension of compulsory attendance at universities in Berlin was the result of strikes and occupations in the year 2009-10; tuition fees could be pushed back again due to students blocking highways and occupying railway stations; even now we, at the FU, needed a militant demonstration joined by hundreds of students to push the Presidential Board to talk to us in the first place.

That’s why the struggle to prevent the implementation of the new framework of examination regulations will not just take place within the boards, but it takes a political fight, which exerts a lot of pressure on the university Presidential Board through rallies, strikes and occupations. On June 20 the Academic Senate of the FU (which is dominated by an absolute majority of professors) is suppose to make a decision on the draft.

originally published by Wladek Flakin, “Waffen der Kritik”, June 9th 2012 on de.indymedia.org
translated by Mo ~

Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

Archive

The Unknown Paths of the Late Marx

An interview with Marcello Musto about the last decade of Marx's life.

Marcello Musto

February 27, 2022

The Critical Left in Cuba

Frank García Hernández discusses the political and economic situation in Cuba and the path out of the current crisis.

Frank García Hernández

February 27, 2022

Nancy Fraser and Counterhegemony

A presentation from the Fourth International Marxist Feminist Conference.

Josefina L. Martínez

February 27, 2022

Who is Anasse Kazib?

Meet the Trotskyist railway worker running for president of France.

Left Voice

February 27, 2022

MOST RECENT

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024