“GO HOME, DAVID”: An epistle to David Willetts

http://www.defendeducation.co.uk/go-home-d...-david-willetts

 

This text was collectively performed using a “people’s mic” in Lady Mitchell Hall, in place of the planned talk by David Willetts. Willetts was bundled off stage and students continue to occupy the space where he was meant to speak.

 

Dear David Willetts/

The future does not belong to you./ This is an epistle/ which is addressed to you./ But it is written/ for those who will come after us./ Why?/ Because we do not respect your right/ to occupy the platform this evening./ Your name/ is anathema to us./ You are not a welcome guest/ because you come with a knife/ concealed beneath your cloak./ Behind your toothy smiles,/ we have already seen/ the fixed gaze of the hired assassin./ You have transgressed/ against all codes of hospitality./ That is why/ we interrupt your performance tonight./

 

Because nothing is up for debate here./ Your mind is made up./ You are not for turning./ All your questioners have been planted./ So we, too, have planted ourselves/ in your audience./ We stole in quietly,/ without much fanfare/– because we know your tactics./ But now that we are here,/ we will not wait to be told/ before we speak./

You have professed your commitment/ to the religion of choice/ but you leave us with no choice./ You are a man/ who believes in the market/ and in the power of competition/ to drive up quality./ But look to the world around you:/ your gods have failed./ They were capricious gods/ and we do not mourn them,/ nor do we seek new ones.

 

Fools that we are,/ we took you at your word:/ so we are clambering into the driving seat/ because your steering is uncomfortable to us/ and your destination/ is not one of our choosing.

 

Even the very metaphor betrays you./ So let us begin/ by activating the emergency brake:/ the University is no motor vehicle,/ to be souped up,/ ideologically re-tuned,/ intellectually re-fitted,/ cosmetically re-sprayed,/ and then sent out onto the highway,/ like some gaudy engine of the ‘knowledge economy’,/ emitting noxious filth/ and polluting the air./ The road itself is narrow;/ your eyes are fixed on a vanishing horizon/ which you will never quite reach./ You have picked a route/ which skirts carefully around/ all redoubts of human warmth and solidarity./ Look elsewhere for your metaphors, David./ We have no desire/ to be put into the driving seat./ There are chairs enough in our libraries –/ would that there were more libraries –/ and these are the only seats of learning/ that we would wish to know./ We will not used/ by you./ We do not wish to ‘rate’ our teachers;/ we wish to learn from them./ We are not consumers./ We are students –/ and we will stand with our teachers/ on their picket lines.

 

Your soulless vision of efficiency;/ your mechanistic frameworks of ‘excellence’;/ your chummy invitation/ to hop on board/ and serve the needs of the Economy:/ all of this makes it clear to us/ that you have set out from a false premise,/ because guess what, David:/ you cannot quantify knowledge./ Your craven desperation to do so/ tells us only one thing:/ you are trying to discipline us,/ but we will not be disciplined,/ because we are schooled/ in a different kind of pedagogy./ You cannot steal our honey, David./ It will go sour for you./You can process all the information/ that you wish/ but your project is doomed to fail./ We thought we should let you know –/ out of kindness, mainly./ If you want to make us/ the processors of the information/ that is useful to you;/ if you want to smother/ the capacity for critical thought:/ so be it./ We understand that you do not like/ to be told that you are wrong./ So we understand/ that you do not want us to think/ too rigorously, or critically./ So go on:/ lobotomise us./ Tell us that we are beyond the pale./ Make us over/ into the drones and ciphers/ of your economy./ Your world will be the poorer./ We will continue to nourish our traditions/ in the crevices and dark corners/ that you forget/ and that you cannot touch./

 

It is almost inappropriate/ to lay out to you/ the terms of your own wrongness./ But has it not occurred to you/ that the ‘vocation’ of scholarship/ far from leading to a profession/ may in fact preclude it?/ Or is it that you more of a capital calf/ than you are letting on? / Is it that the Brave New World/ you are trying to inaugurate/ will, in fact, preclude scholarship?/

We have tasted companionship/ in a way that you cannot know./ We have a singleness of heart./ And, unlike you,/ we none of us believe/ that any of our possessions are our own./ You will not find us/ in any of your statistical surveys;/ our ‘student experience’ cannot be measured/ by your instruments./ Woe to every scorner and mocker/ who collects wealth/ and counts it./ We are both measurably younger/ and immeasurably older/ than you./ You have already lost./ You have lost the initiative./ You have lost the debate./ You have lost your sense of decorum./

 

We are closer than you think./ So it does not surprise us/ that you are worried./ You can try to intimidate us;/ you can threaten to shoot us/ with rubber bullets;/ you can arrest us;/ you can imprison us;/ you can criminalise our dissent;/ you can blight a hundred thousand lives,/ slowly, and one-by-one,/ but you cannot break us/ because we are more resolute,/ more numerous,/ and more determined than you./ And we are closer than you think./ So it does not surprise us/ that you are scared./ It is not that you lack our confidence –/ you never had it –/ the nub of the issue is this:/ you do not have confidence in yourself./Go home, David./ And learn your gods anew.

 

Beautiful... This brings a tear of joy to the eye of an Old Marxist... The young are doing us proud... :wub:

Students begin wave of occupations to back public sector strikes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/n...P=FBCNETTXT9038

 

Students are planning a wave of campus occupations and protests in the run-up to nationwide strikes next week, the Guardian has learned.

 

Occupations called by the student group National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) ahead of the trade union day of action on 30 November have already happened at Birmingham and Cambridge universities.

 

Higher education minister David Willetts had to abandon a speech on the Idea of University on Tuesday night after students heckled him from the stage and began occupying Cambridge's largest lecture hall.

 

The occupations, in opposition to the government's white paper on education reform, which would formalise the £9,000 rise in tuition fees, are expected to break out across the country.

 

NCAFC said that occupied lecture halls and buildings would act as bases for students to plan further action backing strikes by about 3 million public sector workers – expected to be the biggest day of industrial action since the winter of discontent in 1979.

 

The group's co-founder, Michael Chessum, said: "It's all terribly unpredictable. We may well see actions and occupations popping up all other the country today and in the coming week."

 

In front of an audience of more than a hundred, Willetts was forced to sit in a corner of the stage of Lady Mitchell Hall, as students read out a prepared statement.

 

Student James Jackson said activists from Cambridge Defend Education read out a prepared statement which was repeated sentence by sentence by other demonstrators in the audience – a technique used by Occupy activists.

 

Making reference to recent student protests in which the Metropolitan police said baton rounds could be used to prevent disorder, the statement said: "You can threaten to shoot us with rubber bullets; you can arrest us; you can imprison us; you can criminalise our dissent; you can blight a hundred thousand lives … but you cannot break us because we are more resolute, more numerous, and more determined than you … Go home, David."

 

After sitting on the stage, they eventually forced the minister's departure.

 

"At first Willetts seemed to want to carry on," Jackson said. "After the second minute he sat in a corner then [the organisers] closed the blinds on him, still waiting for us to stop and leave. When we didn't, I think he decided it was time for him to go and so he just left."

 

Jackson, 21, who is reading art history, said that after Willetts' departure the group occupied the hall and were now receiving support from academics who were bringing them food and supplies.

 

Silkie Carlo, 22, studying psychology, who was also part of the action said : "Cambridge is serious about defending education. Particularly from an institution that is seen as upper middle class, the most privileged students, it's important that we understand that the rise in fees affect us and the progress of the university. We don't want to study in that kind of place."

 

In the early hours of Wedenesday, Birmingham students occupied an abandoned gatehouse on the northern edge of their campus, where they plan to hold a series of lectures.

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HA, HA, HA.....

 

David Willetts - two brains, no sense.... -_-

If he got heckled at Cambridge imagine what the reception would have been elsewhere :lol:

If he got heckled at Cambridge imagine what the reception would have been elsewhere :lol:

 

He'd've been shot at South Bank Uni.... :lol: :lol: