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Anti-intellectual behaviour of university students -
Part iv:
Deliberate creation of chaotic events
Prof. Shantha K. Hennayake
Another subtle strategy practiced by the student union and its
leaders to achieve its dominance is the deliberate creation of chaos in
the University.
As the country knows well by now, creating chaos and thriving on
commotions thus created both in the Universities and the country at
large has been the hallmark of JVP politics since 1971.
The JVP ideology is fundamentally conflict driven and reactive. So is
the JVP student politics in the University. A peaceful and
intellectually challenging and thriving environment is a fundamental
anathema for the student union and its supporters as it can only survive
under crisis and intellectually muted environment.
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Taking to the streets- a result of manupulation |
Peaceful and intellectual environment according to the student union
and its leaders is a submission to authorities who are either
capitalists, the imperialists, western stooges, conspirators against the
student movements, and even traitors of the students. For the student
union and its leaders who are mostly anti-intellectual in ideology, the
University is non-productive, socially irrelevant and waste of time. For
the student union leaders who feel more at home in protests, agitations
and demonstration, the vibrant and tranquil intellectual environment of
the University is a mismatch. One of the most recent posters at the
University summarized the JVP perception of knowledge. The English
translation of the last line of a verse written in elephant sized
letters on a large notice board which has become the sole property of
the student union reads “what is the use of reading books”! This
summarizes the student union’s vision of higher education in modern
world which according to everyone else but JVP is moving towards a
“Knowledge society”, and not a communist society that Lenin, Stalin,
Castro, Mao Tse-tung dreamt several decades ago.
Chaos and crisis provide them with opportunities to protest, agitate,
demonstrate, boycott classes, desecrate the University premises, take
teachers and University authorities as prisoners, assault students
opposing them, herd the supporters to protest marches in Colombo against
the national authorities. The chaos and crisis create opportunities for
the student union to become rebels who could take on the University
authorities, represent the “suppressed university students”, speak on
behalf of the student rights and against the “authoritative dictatorial
rule” of the university authorities and champion the cause of the
student movement of the country in the eyes of the larger student body.
Simply continuing chaos and crisis is needed for the union’s survival
legitimacy.
Let me be specific and tell you how the student union create,
manipulates and win through the chaos. Let me take the well publicized
crisis that was created by the student union over the naming of the
newest hall of residence at Peradeniya as the Sir Ivor Jennings Hall. No
one could really make a case against naming a student residential hall
after Sir Ivor Jennings, the founder of the University of Peradeniya,
and its first Vice-Chancellor. Partly due to ignorance and foolishness
and partly due to the need to create a crisis situation during a period
of relative calm at the University, the union and its leaders decided to
unceremoniously and disgracefully pull down the name plaque of Sir Ivor
Jennings, and replace it with a mediocre Tamil JVP student leader whose
name was not known outside the student union. With this illegal, unruly
mob activity, the union and its supporters have now created a crisis.
Having created the crisis, the union has won the round one against the
University.
The union knew well in advance, this incident will lead to
disciplinary actions by the University and some of the student leaders
will be punished. (Incidentally it was a well known tactic by the
student unions to create situations where some students will be punished
and then to demand those punishment be removed. In fact most students
who are hailed heroes of the student movement were in fact either
innocent by-standers who got caught in the crisis or those who were
guilty of violating the University rules and regulations not to mention
the law of the land).
Once, the punishments were meted out through the university
disciplinary system, now the union organized a series of protests,
marches, agitations, demonstrations, token strikes, fasting and the
union defined style of satyagrahas, arguing that the students were
unreasonably punished by inefficient, biased, and authoritative rulers.
By organizing these events and mustering the students to take part in
these various forms of destructive activities, the union has won the
round two against the University. The union is now silent over the
actual offences committed by the student leaders, no matter how grave,
destructive and disruptive they are, but continue to pressurize, threat
and intimidate the university authorities to either drop or reduce the
charges and punishments.
Often due to external and internal pressure to keep the Universities
functioning smoothly, the authorities are compelled to soften the
punishments sometimes to the extent of making meaningless. The student
union now celebrates this as one their hard fought victories on behalf
of the students’ movement against the “unjust and authoritative”
university authorities. With this, the union has won round three against
the University authorities and thus the union also won the game. They
come out as the victorious leaders of the student movement who are
committed to fight for the student rights against the unreasonable
rulers.
The chaos and the crisis has now elevated the student union to a new
level with renewed legitimacy to represent the students and gained new
strength to fight against the “unjust” university authorities. This way
every chaos and crisis the student union masterminds ensures the desired
result for the union. Unfortunately, every such act undermines the
authority of the university on the one hand and objective of university
education on the other and pull the students down to the deepest abyss
of intellectual life. At the end of this cycle of crises, the name
plaque of Sir Ivor Jennigs was re-erected but the student union had
already made the best use of the crisis for its own political advantage.
The issue was never about taking down the name plaque of Sir Ivor
Jennings. It was all about creating a crisis and Sir Ivor Jennings name
plaque happened to be conveniently located for the calculating student
union looking for a crisis.
What the student union and its leaders want is not students who spend
most of their time in the library or the laboratory but the students who
dig holes on the ground to put up flag posts, climb trees to hang
banners, apply paste on wall and boards to put up posters, participate
in protest marches for and on behalf of the student unions, signing and
shouting slogans against the University authorities and national level
non-JVP politicians. What the student union wants is not the peace and
tranquility of an intellectual environment where students excel in
critical thinking and question the dogma, but a place of conflict,
disharmony, chaos and fear where the students simply allow the union to
have its own agenda even though it is against their larger interests.
What the student union wants is not an informed student body capable of
challenging the student union both on logic and argument as well as
facts and reality.
The student union and leaders are shrewdly aware that their own brand
of idealistic and hollow political philosophy of communism cannot stand
up to modern day practical or theoretical challenge. The hypocrisy of
the student union leaders who sip Coca Cola under the portrait of Lenin
in the student canteen is amply proven by their own behaviour!. What the
student union leaders want is for the entire university community,
students, and teachers, administrators to accept and submit to their
hegemony. Sadly the student union has been winning at the same rate at
which the quality of our universities were losing. The two is negatively
correlated.
Undermining rules and regulations
It is almost unimaginable but true that the student union and leaders
want to transform the students into criminals and law breakers. In fact
the University at the hands of the student union has become an
anti-social mill which brings in decent, intelligent, law abiding young
men and women and puts out paper qualified socially misfits and
undesirable group of gangs willing to break laws indiscriminately. The
exact opposite of what Sir Ivor Jennings dreamt of. The student union
and its leaders are primarily responsible for this pathetic and heinous
transformation.
The student union practises a kind of politics that fundamentally
hates and despises peace, calm, democracy and the rule of law. The
student union ideology borne in the Marxist philosophy of conflict
preaches that the existing University structure is not capable of
looking after the welfare of students and thus the union has to be on
guard to ensure their rights and welfare are taken care of by the
authorities. Sadly, the knowledge of Marxism among today’s student
leaders is extremely shallow and limited to rhetorically popular
political statements. The rules, regulations and by laws of the
University are imposed on students, according to the student union,
essentially to undermine and curtail the students rights and freedoms.
Thus, the student union and its leaders have devised elaborate and
intricate programs to undermine university rules and regulations as well
as law of the land.
The fundamental base for the disrespect for law starts with the
premise that national law enforcement agencies have no role to play
inside the University premises. This tradition may have started in the
past because the university culture thrives through argument and
disagreement and challenging the establishment and the intellectuals at
the University (both students and Faculty) can engage in these without
harming the other. Thus, there is really no need for policing the highly
disciplined good natured and intellectually higher beings at the
University. The student union and its leaders of modern day Sri Lankan
Universities have reinterpreted this freedom at the University to mean
an entirely a different thing.
What is happening today is just as the LTTE believes that Sri Lankan
laws do not apply in Kilinochchi and the words of the leader becomes the
law, the student union and its leaders also tend to believe that normal
law of the country does not apply within the University premises and
their words become the law. The union is always right and the University
authorities are always wrong. The union never breaks the law, they only
protect the rights of the students. They never defy the authority, they
just rise against injustice. Using these kind of jargon, the Union and
its leaders have turned out to become a bunch of lawless hooligans
disrupting the decorum and the smooth functioning of the University. By
pushing the other students to defy the authorities and break the laws of
the University, the union has become legally recognized body engaging in
illegal and criminal activities. To be continued
(The writer is attached to the Department of Geography, University
of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.) |
