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UNIVERSITY" OF PRINCE EDWARD \ISLAND

NOVEMBER 7, 1969a"?

THE LIBERAL TONGUE-LASHlNG; IT’S, BACKLASH‘

By Ron Thompson Canadian University Press

In October, 1968, Graham Spry, former ambassador to Saskatchewan House in Lon- don and a respected name in Canadian communic a ti o n s theory, was granted an hon- ourary doctorate by the fall convocation of the Univer- sity of Saskatchewan, Regina campus.

In his address to the con- vocees and audience, he ex- pressed his fears at the strik— ing similarities he perceived between modern North Am-

erican student radicals and

Nazi youth of the thirties.

Minutes later, a student at

[that convocation refused! his

degree, asking to speak in re- buttal to Spry’s remarks. The chancellor refused to allow it.

“Oh, my God,” said a wo- man in the faculty wives’ section after the student had removed his robe and left, “I was afraid he was going to set fire to his robes.”

There were no such illus- ions among the administra— tors on the stage.

Their only worry was that

they would probably have to call in the police to remove

By David Carr

What are we doing at university? Why are we here? Are we using any of our own ideas or thoughts? Are we getting a 4-year course in regulations? Are we doing anything but re- gurgitating in class and on an exam paper that we read from a book or hear a pro- fessor say? How far in life can we go without using an original thought or answer- ing any of our own ques- tions?

It would seem this year at U.P.E.I. we are starting from nothing, aiming now- here and‘ getting nowhere. We are in a veritable cess- pool existence — of our own making! Education can serve no purpose if we nev- er have or use an original idea or thought. Ask your- self honestly —— ‘How long

original thought or idea?” It need not be anything pro- found but just original! Has it been a day, a week, a month? — have you ever

has it been since I had an'

A Question Of Conscience

really considered the ques- tion? If no one on the fac- ulty has inspired some thought, we, as a student body, are in bad shape and are getting nowhere at all in facing the realities and questions we must face in everyday life outside the university atmosphere.

If you have had an orig- inal idea ask yourself — “Could I express it in class?” If the answer is “no” then you should ask yourself “Why Not?” If the answer is “Yes, but I never express them anyway” you should question your reason for re- maining at university. You have never left high school!

University should be an experience which goes both ways —— giving and taking— and if it is all taking and no giving you are wasting both your time and the uni- versity’s time by remaining here.

i

l This does not only go for“

class work but for the over- all picture this year. The apathetic rate, if read on a meter, would probably push the needle over the top. Even if the interest only went as far as class work we would certainly realize a far less apathetic rate. We are not facing ourselves honestly and we, as stud- ents, are not asking the fac- ulty the question that most affect us in our lives. Every- one here seems to be search- ing for a reason for remain- ing at university — espec ially this one. The answer to this question is very easy — you are responsible for your own reasons and you can only find the answers within yourselves. Do not allow others the privilege of elitism by cutting you off before you have a chance to express yourselves and try for once to maintain a sense of honour and prestige with- in yourselves as students and it will bring more res- pect to both yourseif and your university than you can imagine.

The Campu

sbank closes in

5 minutes and this idiot’s got to

prove himself!

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the student.

It was the beginning on an ideological debate that was only slowly to become con- cretized.

Nine months later, in Sat- urday Night In ago. 2 in e, George Woodcock, author of a number of books on anarch- ism, authored an a r t i c l e which raised again many of Spry’s fears.

Documenting several exam- ples of similar critiques by many western leftists, Wood- cock wrote, “In Canada we are not far behind the rest of the world in a type of ac- tivism which pretends to be libertarian bu t is in action authoritarian and in prospect totalitarian.

“Like academic freedom, fair play is unrecognized by authoritarian activists.”

He defined fascism for the purposed of his argument. “Fascism is not conservatism . . .nor is a police state neces sarily a fascist state. . .Fas- cism is in fact a radical movement aimed at social transformation.”

Two months later the de- bate continued in the letters column of Saturday night.

Woodcock says in a letter to the magazine, “I am not implying anyone/can at pre- sent be termed a fascist; I am talking about tendencies and! threats.”

Virtuain every article or program in the mass media has raised the spectre of “extremism” in coverage of thet problem of ‘student un- res .’

CANADIANS? MILITANT?

Since the fire in the Sir George Williams computer, even Newsweek has seen fit

to consider “Canadian stud-l

ents . . . among the most mili- tant in the world,”——a mereiy parenthetical comment in a report on student unrest in the U.S.

But almost every univer- sity and college administra- tor in the country is by now on record as ‘in favor of change’ so long as it is ach- ieved through ‘the proper channels’ — that they like students to be ‘concerned with change, so long as they aren’t extremists-J

In this context, all the terms are applicable any- where, because they remain undefined.

, For instance, the chancel— lor of Carleton University, Lester Pearson, talk of the need for change and the dan- gers of extremism; although extremism is hardly descrip- tive of the situation at Car- elton.

At Carleton, ‘ra'dlicalism’ is at the stage'of a student at- tempt to get a petition to ask the senate to set up a

committee to look into over-

crowding in the university.

Yet Pearson sees fit to warn against extremists, and Davidson Dunton, the admin- istration, president, al- ready been established as the sole person who can give the directive to the police to come onto the the campus.

-At any rate, this past year has seen the creation of a new label in student ‘politics’ ——the moderates.

COPS ON CAMPUS

1968-69 also saw two inci- dents that were firsts for Canadian campuses — at Si- mon Fraser University on the west coast and the Univer- sity of New Brunswick on the east, the RCMP were called on campus to remove and ar- rest protesting students.

Perhaps that is the func- tion of the ‘liberay philoso- pher’ in this society —— a sym- miotic relationship that al- lows him to retain a position on the fence, edging away from taking a stance, while the society feeds off his rhe- toric to create a climate for

repression.

The rhetoric of ‘anti-demo cratic disruption’ creeps into the press statements of the ‘liberal’ administrator.

And when confrontation occurs, the issues are shoved! under the table. I

When a charge of racism is raised at Sir George Wil- liams University, and over the year escalates to an oc- cupation and a d e s troy e (1 computer, the problem is seen merely as one of control. A new discipline code is intro- ducted which outlaws all dis- sen .

It somehow follows, in that kind of an atmosphere, fulll the rhetoric of disorder and anarchy, using a logic which defines the strongest dissent around as dangerous extrem- ism, th‘art Simon Fraser would work out the way it has. '

This time it is the depart- ment of political science, so-v ciology and anthropology, trying to shock off an ad— ministrative trusteeshizp im- posed over the summer which resulted in the probation, de- motion or firing of eleven

PSA faculty. v

Students and faculty evenh tually voted to strike. Facul- ty said they were on strike but that they would teach a class ._ if only one student wanted it held. ‘

But the rhetoric in the air. was against them. The Can-' adian Association of Univer-» 'sity Teachers, the university faculty lobby, was going to have no part of such “emo- tion-laden atmosphere of con- frontation and strike.”

Strand, right on cue, called the whole thing “threat” and “coercion” — it was depriv- ing students of their rights (although nearly 700 PSA students had voted for the strike) —— and said the uni- versity could not operate un- der such conditions;

A week later nine profs had been suspended pending. their dismissal. Now they fear only a court injunction to keep them off campus.

Only eight months ago, such an injunction resulted in a demonstration that ended in a police raid.

And, well, if the police are there, that just about proves that the students really are, ' if not fascists, then tending that way.