After eight days of occupation, management have conceded to our demands. We have seen a mass movement spring up around the occupation – staff, students and faculty have come out in strength this last week to fiercely oppose the summary suspensions of six students, and the continued threat to Sussex.
Yesterday an 850-strong Emergency general meeting proved that we, the students, have no confidence in the VCEG. We, the students, have spoken.
The occupation became far more than a symbolic opposition; it was a positive and exciting space in its own right – which has embodied our vision of what Sussex can, what Sussex should be, and of what we want from our education.
The strike today, the Senate meeting yesterday; these ratify our position – we the sussex community are united against management and their ‘proposals for change’. This result proves that a sustained movement; built with a diversity of tactics, skills and perspectives, can achieve concrete results.
We will not stop here.
This has been the first of a series of victories to come at Sussex – the first of a series of victories nationally, internationally.
We have left A2 in perfect condition, and are now going out to join the UCU strike rally. Next term will see more action, more fighting cuts; management on the run.
We leave for the holidays in a position of strength. There is much work yet to do.
Till next term,
Stop the Cuts
I’ve just come from the campus rally and it was great to see the A2 occupation end with a clear victory; I feel immensely proud of you, our students (and I’m sure I’m not the only one). Throughout the occupation, you exemplified what a university should be about: open doors, open minds and open dialogue.
Personally, I think we now have to try and persuade the management to follow your example and rejoin the university community, by taking part in a civilised dialogue based on mutual respect instead of seeking confrontation.
The whole university community now needs to engage in some urgent and serious consultation about how we’re going to work together to deal with the government cuts. I hope that lifting the suspensions is a sign that management are realising they need to stop acting as if academic staff and students as the enemy.
In solidarity, Jim
I’m so proud of what we did this week. Thank you everyone for making A2 such an important place. Can’t wait for next term.
Lots and lots of love. x
Guys we rock so hard. I am group proud to the max – well done team. And what a team! We had dozens of super organised, mega motivated people all self directing oursleves towards this victory. Our strength was in our self-management – big meetings for group decisions, and individuals seizing responsibility for actual tasks both in and out of those meetings. I feel basically like we’re family.
Next term we get ‘serious’.
I am ridiculously tired, yet ridiculously proud. Dan is right. What we achieved was amazing, but the way we went about achieving it has made me feel especially happy. Wham, Mary Poppins, and Adorno. Family indeed. Somebody take the microphone from me please.
Big up Stop the Cuts… we’ve shown ourselves that we are not fighting for a naive ideal – we are fighting for something tangible. US, staff and students, made it tangible this last week. We can work together, in all our diversity of opinion, and if management can’t work with US, then they will not be part of US.
Those students that are driving this campaign, and the staff that supported and inspired US – you are incredible.
It’s been emotional
One love,
One US.
Ditto Dan,
Now lets get serious you know…
*LOVE*
Great job guys! I’m only sorry I missed the Wham and Mary Poppins. Now get some sleep and write those dissertations.
Yours in admiration, Pam
“We leave for the holidays in a position of strength.”
Yes, it’s funny how all this stuff ends when the holidays roll around, hmm?
Chere ‘Comment’er,
actually I’m flooded by sadness and pride. But – ‘funny’ – here’s the thing. One thing that was thrilling and profound about this process was the way it cut across the university community as a whole – an open letter put it best:
‘”You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you.” (Emerson, ‘Walden’)
‘I would say: You make this lecture hall a very attractive spot. You only need sit still long enough, and all you neighbours, all those that consider themselves part of the community of Sussex should come in turn to see you.’
Well – Easter’s a time of nomadic movement, returns to families and straining after term-paper deadlines. It’s a migration. But it ends, too: there are so many of us waiting for it to end.
BIS DANN.
[...] Victory statement Defend Sussex blog [...]
I’d like to echo what my colleagues Jim and Pam have already said. You have been strong in your values, strong in acting democratically, strong in truly cooperating. That is the way forward, for everybody. May your example make ripples.
I am sure you are exhausted. So yes, take a rest and then carry on with what you have to do.
All the very best,
Marie-Benedicte
“Rise like lions after slumber,
in unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to Earth like dew,
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
YE ARE MANY – THEY ARE FEW”
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Fantastic work all of you! Faculty in American Studies and English are tremendously proud of you, and honored to be your lecturers in the coming terms.
You’ve taught us a lot.
best,
–daniel
Of course we left before the holidays – the Sussex Six were reinstated, the goal we had in mind when we occupied.
I can only reiterate what has already been said here. The compulsion I felt to become more involved in this movement after March 3rd has been solidified by what I have seen, learnt and been part of these last two weeks.
I have seen that it is possible to mobilise and unite students in a matter of days; for me the EGM was an incredible moment, and we need to continue to do this next term. I am positive we can fight these top-down, aggressive management tactics here at our wonderful University; and nationally. We must protect what we hold dear, what we deem to be true and just, and we must do so now!
I have masses of respect (and admiration) for all involved. Most importantly THANK YOU to everyone who gave some time, in whatever way, to help and encourage.
In Solidarity… Jess xxxxxxxxxxxxx
‘Adorno’ – someone’s making a bad joke. Adorno thought that the rise of instrumental reason, which gives things importance only insofar as they’re useful for some other good, was among the most insidious and hateful characteristics of our time.
Whatever goal ‘we had in mind when we occupied’ the content rapidly outstripped that first intention. Anyone who can’t see that needs to look again. Anyone who’s opposed to that needs to reflect a bit. WHAT WAS PROFOUND WAS NOT GETTING THE SIX REINSTATED. WHAT WAS PROFOUND WAS THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN EQUALS IN A FOREST-CLEARING, AND THE SADNESS AND HOPE EXPRESSED BY COLLEAGUE AFTER COLLEAGUE.
I and my colleagues at Warwick salute your spirit, your courage, your strategic thinking, and your wit. The use you made of your university’s buildings and the spaces was inspired.
It is great to see that Sussex traditions survive!
Warmest congratulations,
Louise
I am so proud to be a student of Sussex this week.
Well done to everybody involved, you should be extremely proud of yourselves. I echo Billy’s comment I am very proud to be a Sussex Student.
All the naysayers that this type of action doesn’t achieve anything really need to think about that.
The movement is attracting national political and media attention. Onwards and upwards.
There’s a lot of self congratulation here, and ‘proud of you’ comment and talk of victories here and elsewhere and management listening. You have made no victory, the proposals are going ahead and the sussex six still face a discipline action which will have sanctions attached to it if they are found to be in breach of the Uni rules. It is as if you are fighting a foe in the mirror rather than something real.
VoR, I don’t think you understand what has happened since the Sussex House occupation. Management tried to crush the Stop the Cuts Campaign by making an example of the Sussex Six, and by criminalising protest. They could easily have succeeded, and then the campaign would have disappeared – of course people were worried they’d be suspended next, or even taken to court (breaching the High Court injunction is an imprisonable offence!), and contrary to management propaganda, those involved in the campaign aren’t mindless ‘professional protesters’ wanting to sacrifice themselves, but mostly students who care about education, including their own.
So when several hundred students and education workers defied the High Court injunction we showed how collective direct action and our solidarity are stronger than management scare tactics. The occupation of A2 also has the support of a lot of education workers, who were shocked to see our campus suddenly transformed into a place where riot police assault students. On the whole the situation has changed a lot, and it is clear that management will not be able to use repression against those who oppose the cuts. I’m sure VCs all over the country – and anti-cuts campaigns – will have taken note.
What is more important is that the campaign has matured. Before the 6 were suspended, the campaign was slowly weakening for a variety of reasons – there was too much empty sloganeering, too much going through the lefty motions of holding weekly demos etc., too little reflection. This has completely changed during the last two weeks of term. A lot more people have come along and taken part in the campaign, the consciousness of those who take part has changed substantially. This is obvious in the strength of the UCU strike and the fact that a completely unprecedented 850+ students came together to express no confidence in VCEG at 48h notice.
We’ve won round two and are ready for round three when we will defeat the cuts. Solidarity between students and striking workers will be key.
The main purpose has been lost if somehow a small change in the way a particular VC reacts to that type of direct action is claimed as a victory requiring three paragraphs of text. It is interesting how the campaign went from support for the 115 staff affected to the ‘Sussex Six’ with nary a pause. I do know all of this action (how could anyone have missed it). But you have not won the war, so claiming some sort of fantastic victory is wrong. It WAS about the staff wasn’t it? What I don’t buy is the idea that because people AGREE with you, you have actually changed something material. ‘Yes, I agree with you, it’s terrible isn’t it’ ‘ Yes, isn’t it’.
Until you have more than 850 students (and a puzzlement why in front of the BBC cameras this was claimed as 950) as against the thousands at Sussex, I think you’ll be perceived as noisy rather than as effective as you imagine yourselves to be.
The statement above refers to the success of the occupation of Arts A2.
Although a part of the Stop The Cuts campaign (although the campaign should not be seen as one homogenous group as the ‘you’ keeps implying – there were many people working for the campaign outside of the occupation too that week), the occupation had the sole demand and focus of reinstating the Six suspended students and would not have happened other than in response to this. It would not have been realistic or advantageous to try to mould this action to fit all of our objectives. We suddenly had an additional problem to deal with (the suspensions) which required a different sort of solidarity action.
Of course this doesn’t mean that the campaign had changed focus from one to the other as you infer. We talked about this in depth in the first meeting when deciding upon what our demands should be.
In the objective of not allowing management to victimise the random 6 students and intimidate the campaign into inaction(the only objective) we were completely successful, hence the declaration of victory. Getting people to agree with us was also never the objective, but this happily happened of its own accord (or rather, people agreed with the occupation and its principles and voiced their agreement). In fact, the occupation had quite a number of corollary successes which will impact upon the fight against cuts in an indirect way, e.g. galvanising broad support, allowing the campaign to form more of a cohesive community than had been possible with demos and meetings, giving us space to discuss tactics etc., increased student-staff/worker engagement and so on. We are under no impression that the occupation was a victory against the cuts – it wasn’t meant to be, but its still going to count as a step along the way. And we haven’t been idle – we are already preparing for next term!
Finally – the 950 figure is because 850 students came to the EGM and voted no confidence in the management (save a very small few) and another 100 were waiting outside the door unable to get in. This is a record turn-out for any meeting of students on campus in decades. Many others couldn’t come but expressed support (the same with the occupation). Its really not unrealistic to say that this staff-student battle against cuts now has massive cross-campus support, even if there are a myriad of different ideas concerning how the battle might be fought. Perhaps if you are among those seeking to fight you could come and lend us some of yours, rather than deprecating other people’s work and maintaining an ‘us’/'them’ attitude?
VoR you seem to be incapable of understanding anything but your misguided point of view. You clearly don’t know much about what’s happening on campus. Let me try again. Formally, the demand of the A2 lecture theater occupation was the unconditional re-instatement of the 6 – the occupation achieved that, hence it’s a victory. Simple, right?
Beyond that, we didn’t just survive the management attempt to crush us, we grew massively in breadth and in depth – that’s an important victory, for us at Sussex, and for the anti-cuts movement all over the country. The strike, and the UCU motion supporting the 6 also showed that staff and students will support each other against management attacks. The rest is for next term – don’t worry, we certainly have not forgotten what our aims are.
Your comment about the 850 shows that you have no clue about how these things work. How many students have to come to a meeting before you will accept it as valid? Maybe you should get up from your computer and venture into the real world?
(I didn’t see the BBC thing, but as far as I know there were 850 in Mandela Hall, but something like 100 had to be turned away)
oops, cross post with ‘active student’
VoR – it would be really helpful if you let us know what you think we should have done instead? What is your perspective? Are you in favour of management plans ? Are you one of those who think management will ‘listen’ to us if only we ask nicely? Do you think we should have let management victimise our 6 fellow students, and allowed them to get away with a completely unprecedented overreaction of deploying riot cops and engineering a fake ‘hostage situation’? Do you have any ideas or believe in anything that you might want to contribute? Do you just come here to moan and troll? I’m genuinely interested in what you think should have been done differently.