OCR Text |
Show l! 7 FORBETTER Jy BoFjHixson umpus couldn't function better with students running their own government. But to " mean anything, that reorganization would have to be in the structure itself the ASSU Constitution and not just some new committee, com-mittee, some new program or some new president. What we are faced with year after year is a government of the few, by the few and basically for the few. We have a small group of about 60 or 70 politcally minded students doing for us what we should be doing ourselves. Thus estranged from the political process, apathy follows naturally. Then, of course, periodically, we get scolded for our unconcern. The office holders blame the studentbocly for a disease built into the very system they so naively protect. It's all a grand trick. Tell them it's their problem and that leaves you free to operate unmolested in your own private sanctuary of political deceit. Whether student officials are aware or not of what they are doing is not the proper concern. It's the system that's wrong. And until we change it we will continue con-tinue to suffer the consequences of an ill-conceived, inept answer to student government. Nevertheless, this doesn't release student leaders from criticism. As long as they continue to perpetuate per-petuate the fraud of an unjust sytem, they remain culpable. As long as they hold up student apathy as a decoy for a structural disease, they are guilty. As long as each new administreation leaves unchallenged the misdirected assumptions of an unfit constitution, con-stitution, they demand opposition. op-position. Next time: an alternative. Student government is a hoax. It is a poorly conceived structure '" protected by a cunning facade. For five years this writer has observed and participated in the , traditional campus elections held ' during the bleakness of winter quarter. And for five years the I same basic complaints have been I tossed out by students and juggled about by candidates. ' The recurring, ever-present problem prob-lem agreed upon almost all 8 parties is the one of student participation and involvement in B campus government. Take a look at any campaign speech or il: debate and you will find continuous con-tinuous reference to the problem ail of student apathy and the proposed solutions for increased pf..stuclent participation. Every candidate jumps on this perennial, peren-nial, latent issue and voices ,0,: his concern for its partial or final resolution. The typical argument follows this pattern. For one reason or another students are apathetic. It is either their own fault or that of the previous administration. Therefore the answer is a new administrative outlook, one that I rr: will concentrate diligently on opening up new channels of communication and new programs for student input. I In short, the problem is defined in numan terms it is a sickness of ?ither the students, the govern- onc-nent officers or both. 3ut here is where we must take 3r:ssue with the proverbial debate jn student involvement in ASSU government. Let's examine the myth of student apathy. It is firmly suggested that the core problem, here, is not one of human failure, but one of structural design. The disease is not to be found in either the ranks of a particular administration or in the collection of students they purport to serve. The disease is structurally built into the organization itself! Student apathy towards campus affairs is allowed, fostered and perpetuated per-petuated by the continued use of ' a falsely based system of student government. By design, ASSU government is a miniature replication of the same basic pattern of government know as our American version of a representative, democratic system. The American political operation is a "representative" form of government. Hut how and why did America choose or come up with this system of politics? Why did the original citizens of this nation progressively abandon the direct involvement system of everybody actively participating for themselves in local and national affairs? Why did they change, instead, to an increasingly "representative" form of involvement? in-volvement? What social conditions con-ditions urged the adoption of a representative system of national government? Without going into detail a few' answers can be readily supplied to these questions. Basically, it was a matter of convenience and efficiency. Due to the exploding increase in the population, the geographical expansion westward and relatively unadvanced communications it was natural to move away from direct participation par-ticipation in politics and turn over more of the political business to elected officials. The theory was to choose good people for office and let them do for you what would be difficult and impractical to do for you rself. Political representation, then, became a means for combating or counteracting the mounting demands of an ever-complex, ever-complicated society. But what does this have to do with University politics? No doubt the first organizers of student stu-dent government on this campus felt logically inclined to model their infant government after that of their matured national counterpart executive, legislative, legisla-tive, judiciary. The social arrangement of this campus, however, bears slight resemblance to the larger society it is fashioned after. Our campus is geographically confined. It has a relatively small population and communication is a minor problem in comparison to the country as a whole. In other words, the problems that gave rise to "representation" on the national level are absent at the level of the University community. com-munity. There is no good reason why, with a little reorganization, this |