Last week, Sydney Uni played host to Condoleezza Rice, who spoke to a crowd of select students and university administration at the Conservatorium of Music. Up to 80 students, who felt that the visit by a key supporter of the war had to be met with resistance, gathered at less than 24 hours notice to protest Rice's presence.
Condoleezza Rice is one of the key figures within the Bush Administration, named by Forbes magazine as the most powerful woman in the world. In both her current role as US Secretary of State, and until 2005 as National Security Advisor, Rice has been directly involved and an outspoken supporter of the US invasion of Iraq. This invasion and ongoing occupation has resulted in the death of up to 180,000 innocent Iraqis, an occupation Rice insists on continuing in the name of 'democracy', despite the fact that 80 percent of Iraqis democratically demand an immediate withdrawal of US (and Australian) troops.
By 1pm on Thursday, an initial 40 students had gathered outside the Con, already cordoned off by police. Rather than the usual mix of musos and academics, the campus was instead overrun by riot police, horses, and dog squads. Numbers swelled as protestors were joined by Con students, kicked off their campus to make way for Rice. Protestors linked arms, chanted anti-war slogans, and peacefully made it known that the uni was a student space, not one for Rice and her war-mongering agenda.
Things heated up when Piers Akerman, from the Daily Telegraph, attempted to break his way through the student line, despite the fact that many other attendants had managed to enter the Con by simply walking around the protestor's picket line. What was reported by the mainstream media as students "pushing and jostling" Akerman was in fact a case of Akerman himself using every pound to push and jostle through the students, trampling one protestor in the process.
This was the excuse the police needed. They surged into protest, knocking over students, and forcing them back by 20 metres. A peaceful assembly was thus turned into a violent and intimidating police attack. Several students were reportedly punched by officers, and one female student reported being sexually harassed. 6 students were arrested, including two students from the Con, one of whom was on crutches at the protest, and the other who showed her dissent simply by dancing. How either of them was seriously meant to have 'hindered police', the offence they and the others have been charged with, appears uncertain.
Inside, all was not quiet either, with three students ejected from the hall for heckling. Rice's response was to claim she was glad to see democracry was alive and well at Austrralian universities, and that it "is now alive at the… university of Baghdad as well". This, despite the fact that those students voicing their opinion at the event were silenced.
But perhaps we should ask what the university administration was doing by inviting Rice onto campus? Students have consistently expressed their opposition to the Iraq war, and yet Sydney Uni sees it appropriate to play host to Rice, responsible for the death of so many Iraqis. For one day, the Con essentially became a no-go zone for the uninvited. Students' classes were cancelled, and those there studying and rehearsing were told to leave. One Con student remarked that the university administration saw his campus 'not as a university but as a function room … the concern is profit - education and the needs of students are sidelined'.
For the past decade, the Vice Chancellor has become progressively more dismissive of student opinions. Those students who oppose his vision for the university are met not with dialogue, but police. In 2000, the Student Centre was occupied for 7 hours when frustration at the administration's indifference to student demands boiled over. The occupation ended late that night when students were evicted by police and dogs. In 2004, the University cut the Nursing Faculty. Rather than engage with students' opposition, the university ordered a complete police lock-down of the Quad and University Senate meeting. Similarly, last year's anti-VSU campaign saw undercover police invited on-campus to arrest activists in an attempt to silence the campaign. Last Thursday was yet another sign that the Vice Chancellor does not concern himself with student demands – that's a job for the police!
Thursday's events highlight the need to fight VSU. In a political atmosphere where police do not hesitate to violently silence voices of dissent within the community, it is only through collective strength that students can have any influence. Be it fighting against HECS increases, or the US occupation of Iraq, VSU attempts to silence students, just as the police attempted to silence students last Thursday.
The lesson we can draw from the Con protest is that it is not only the government's agenda, but that of our own university administration, that must be challenged. In the case of last week, the needs of the Con students took backseat, as the administration sought to reaffirm their status by playing host to the world's most powerful woman. We as students need the SRC, the only body which actually represents OUR interests, to make sure that uni exists for the benefit of students - not for Rice, not for any other pro-war propagandist. That is why students must once again fight against VSU, and demand full-funding of the SRC from the university administration.
By James Robertson and Paul Ferris
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