The On the Idea of Communism conference being hosted by Zizek's department and Birkbeck college has attracted more that a murmur of criticism over the £100 (£45 if you are a Birkbeck student) entrance fee.
I couldn't believe we didn't get a single vote against-not even a snigger from the Tories about 1) communism, 2) education not being for the masses or 3) educational institutions needing to cover their costs by charging.
The motion resolved to challenge Birkbeck and for the SU exec to back any action that may result if the mass intellect is not listened to.
As far as I know none of the speakers are getting paid. Having organised fundraisers in the Logan Hall before and only charging £7 entrance I am fully aware of the cost of hiring said hall. If we say that 50% of the 933 attendees are paying £45, and allocate £1,000 speaker expenses per speaker, by my generous calculations Bbk will be making around £45,000. And that's without even taking into consideration the money made from undoubtable postconference book deal.
We understand that goverment cutbacks have left these institutions with massive financial holes but it should not be us who are paying for their crisis. They could at least offer some concessions to those who really cant afford it.
Rejoicing in our smoking area I was talking about peoples plans to disrupt the conference. It turned out that I was chatting to someone from the Zizek department. Ooops!
Whilst I am totally in favour of direct action under most circumstances (being the first uni to occupy and having a hand in the Queen Mary occupation, occupying NUS stage at conference and BBC HQ's), I am not in favour of storming the stage at this prestigious 'left-wing' conference. Not only is it not a good idea to attack the left, which, even though we would be critising Birkbeck, is how it would appear, but I would prefer positive action to come out of our protests.
So, it is on this basis that we are proposing for academics to take affirmitive action. We call all academics to commit to allowing their publications to be available online for free.
We would like to invite participants of the Communism conference to attend our Internet for Activists conference where we will be launching the Free Our Books Campaign.
1 comment:
I'm with you until the last bit about academics allowing their work to be available online for free. In fact, I'm with you there too, except that I think you're mistaken in thinking this is something within the power of academics to do. Perhaps superstar academics like Zizek et al. could do this, but for most academics, our jobs depend on publications in restricted, peer-reviewed information conduits – international journals and books with major academic publishers. The publishers of such volumes will not allow academics to post material online for free – our contracts do not allow it.
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