For Green Universities: Insurgent campuses for sustainability
Lisbeth Latham
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| Climate Strike Berlin |
The events of the past few years have repeatedly demonstrated that our planet faces an existential crisis generated by the way our currently existing social systems, dominated by capitalism, have sought to maximise economic growth at the expense of human need and the capacity of the planet to sustain and maintain the biosphere. Urgent action is needed now. This is a reality which has driven millions of people to mobilise to demand action to correct course. However, this action has been slow at best, as capital and its representatives in government continue to prioritise ever-expanding profits over existence itself, in the delusion that they can save themselves whilst destroying the planet. There has never been a more pressing need to transform our societies in order to save both ourselves and the planet. The question is, how can we turn back the neoliberal and capitalist offensive of the past five decades which has seen defeat after defeat of social movements? The reality is, there are no simple solutions, but we are seeing glimpses of what is possible based on the heroic mobilisations of students globally via the Fridays for Future actions initiated by Greta Thunberg in 2018 combined with a broad range of environmental action, and the rapid efforts to transition away from a carbon-based economy.
Urgent need for climate action and capitals continue resistance
The past few years have seen the acceleration of the climate crisis, with record temperatures, record averages, mass melting events, and ever more frequent extreme weather events. This acceleration has highlighted the urgency of heeding the dire warnings outlined in repeated international climate reports that we are fast running out of time to halt or reverse runaway climate change that will threaten the existence of not just human life, but all life on the planet. Despite this, wide sections of capital and their representatives in governments have refused to take sufficient action to address this crisis, but actively seek to deny the necessity for such action.
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| Greta Thunberg outside the Riksdag |
Student Strikes for Climate
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| Climate Strike Santiago, Chile |
Limits of student strikes
As important as the student strikes have been in building and renewing the strength and confidence of the climate movement in the face of the very real dangers we face - student strikes at both high school and university level have serious limitations which have been repeatedly demonstrated in the experience of student mobilisations internationally is that as student mobilisation increase in size, frequency, and intensity of action particularly if and when they progress to an extended strike, the student strike tactic tends to act to weaken rather than strengthen the power of the student movement. This is because student organisation tends to be centred on their places of study. In extended strikes, students are no longer at school or university, and the mobilisations will tend to dissipate over time as a consequence of students being separated from the institution.
Drawing on this observation, and the concrete experience of the global student radicalisation most notably in Yugoslavia, Western Europe, and the Americas, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (an international Trotskyist organisation) developed a political strategy based not just on student strikes, but on the occupation and transformation of schools and universities into centres of political struggle and organisation through which the struggle can be transmitted and built in the broader community. They dubbed this strategy the “Red University Strategy” - drawing inspiration for the name from the Yugoslav Students’ demand for red universities.
Central to the strategy is not just about students operating individually and collectively as tribunes for an alternative vision of society but also transforming the character of their institutions of learning and their role within society, making them the centres for societal transformation. This is not just about enabling students to protest, or using art studios (and now IT facilities and studios) create campaign material to build the movement - but transforming the curriculum itself to support the envisioning and construction of an alternative society. In our current context this means the development of technology and production practices that will enable us to respond to the challenges of saving the planet.
In seeking this transformation we need to recognise that such a transformation represented a significant break in power relations and class character of learning institutions in capitalist societies, this has become all the more the case in the context of neoliberal late capitalism. Schools and universities operate as transmission belts of pro-capitalist ideas, but more importantly, they reproduce capitalist notions of control and capitalist reproduction. While this is most immediately recognisable in the role they play in the preparation of students to take their place in the workforce of the capitalist economy, but equally importantly the commodification of not just education but also research. This has seen universities as operating in ever-increasing corporatised ways. This has disempowered and alienated both students and university workers. This has occurred as Universities have both massified to provide an ever-increasing number degree qualified workers as governments have sought to shift the cost of education onto students
In order for students to be able to engage in the political struggle in an ongoing way, it is necessary to transform education from a system aimed at achieving “job-ready” graduates but instead encourages the capacity of students to engage critically not just in their chosen fields but in broader society. In doing so, we must break the disciplinary power of university administrations. An objective which is also in the interest of university workers, enabling them to break key components of discipline and control over their working lives.
In addition, transforming universities requires a fundamental transformation of the funding processes in Universities along two key lines. The first is a shift in the conception of education from a commodified individual good, which individual students pay for, which is central to the neoliberal conception of education, and back into a social good supported collectively by society via the payment of taxes, particularly the taxing of the rich and corporations.
Equally important is the reconception of the role of university research both within institutions and within the broader society. Within Australia, government funding priorities have sought to emphasise the role of research to find and develop ideas, technologies, techniques which “boost our comparative advantages and our Boosting the commercial returns from research”. This has led not only a shift away from pure research for the sake of benefiting our understanding and may lead to yet unknown practical applications, but also in developing prioritising funding relationships between universities and businesses - which means research and other university work will prioritise the direct making of corporate profits and maintaining these relationships. While problematic at the best of times, when the majority of major corporations are intimately connected with environmental destruction it is particularly problematic.
As important as the student strikes have been in building and renewing the strength and confidence of the climate movement in the face of the very real dangers we face - student strikes at both high school and university level have serious limitations which have been repeatedly demonstrated in the experience of student mobilisations internationally is that as student mobilisation increase in size, frequency, and intensity of action particularly if and when they progress to an extended strike, the student strike tactic tends to act to weaken rather than strengthen the power of the student movement. This is because student organisation tends to be centred on their places of study. In extended strikes, students are no longer at school or university, and the mobilisations will tend to dissipate over time as a consequence of students being separated from the institution.
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| 1968 Student Protests Belgrade, Paris, Rio |
Drawing on this observation, and the concrete experience of the global student radicalisation most notably in Yugoslavia, Western Europe, and the Americas, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (an international Trotskyist organisation) developed a political strategy based not just on student strikes, but on the occupation and transformation of schools and universities into centres of political struggle and organisation through which the struggle can be transmitted and built in the broader community. They dubbed this strategy the “Red University Strategy” - drawing inspiration for the name from the Yugoslav Students’ demand for red universities.
Central to the strategy is not just about students operating individually and collectively as tribunes for an alternative vision of society but also transforming the character of their institutions of learning and their role within society, making them the centres for societal transformation. This is not just about enabling students to protest, or using art studios (and now IT facilities and studios) create campaign material to build the movement - but transforming the curriculum itself to support the envisioning and construction of an alternative society. In our current context this means the development of technology and production practices that will enable us to respond to the challenges of saving the planet.
In seeking this transformation we need to recognise that such a transformation represented a significant break in power relations and class character of learning institutions in capitalist societies, this has become all the more the case in the context of neoliberal late capitalism. Schools and universities operate as transmission belts of pro-capitalist ideas, but more importantly, they reproduce capitalist notions of control and capitalist reproduction. While this is most immediately recognisable in the role they play in the preparation of students to take their place in the workforce of the capitalist economy, but equally importantly the commodification of not just education but also research. This has seen universities as operating in ever-increasing corporatised ways. This has disempowered and alienated both students and university workers. This has occurred as Universities have both massified to provide an ever-increasing number degree qualified workers as governments have sought to shift the cost of education onto students
In order for students to be able to engage in the political struggle in an ongoing way, it is necessary to transform education from a system aimed at achieving “job-ready” graduates but instead encourages the capacity of students to engage critically not just in their chosen fields but in broader society. In doing so, we must break the disciplinary power of university administrations. An objective which is also in the interest of university workers, enabling them to break key components of discipline and control over their working lives.
In addition, transforming universities requires a fundamental transformation of the funding processes in Universities along two key lines. The first is a shift in the conception of education from a commodified individual good, which individual students pay for, which is central to the neoliberal conception of education, and back into a social good supported collectively by society via the payment of taxes, particularly the taxing of the rich and corporations.
Equally important is the reconception of the role of university research both within institutions and within the broader society. Within Australia, government funding priorities have sought to emphasise the role of research to find and develop ideas, technologies, techniques which “boost our comparative advantages and our Boosting the commercial returns from research”. This has led not only a shift away from pure research for the sake of benefiting our understanding and may lead to yet unknown practical applications, but also in developing prioritising funding relationships between universities and businesses - which means research and other university work will prioritise the direct making of corporate profits and maintaining these relationships. While problematic at the best of times, when the majority of major corporations are intimately connected with environmental destruction it is particularly problematic.
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| General Assembly, University of Grenoble 2019 |
So what would a “Green University” look like?
The first thing is that it would need to be controlled by students and staff in sharp contrast to the current dynamics which places power primarily in the hands of unelected senior administrators and university councils/senates dominated by senior executives drawn from the corporate world. This student/staff control should be exercised via mass popular assemblies of staff and students which are a common feature of mass student and staff mobilisations in much of the world, most notably France. Such a body is not simply seeking to be given a say by university management, but instead an assertion of power against university management and the right of staff and students to control and direct the university and an assertion of the right of working people to guide society more broadly.
A Green University would see its obligation not just to make itself more sustainable as an institution, but to help transform society to meet the challenge of the climate crisis. In practical terms, this means seeking to infuse the curriculums with a full understanding of the challenges facing us and prioritising critical engagement with these problems where the addressing of these problems is prioritised over profit. It also means prioritising and supporting research aimed at addressing the climate crisis both within and between institutions - not with the aim of commodifying or monetising that research but instead enabling humanity to respond to the crisis so we can collectively save the planet.
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| Campus Blockade, University of Strasbourg, 1999 |
How do we get there?
The reality is that we do not have a movement with the confidence and organisational capacity to currently conduct this struggle with confidence - and we have not had such a movement for decades. Such a movement will not just materialise based on us wishing it into existence. The challenge is to expand and build the capacity of the movement as it exists today. This includes normalising and expanding the existing movement based on building not just concern about the depth and extent of the climate crisis, but by building people’s confidence that via a combination of social mobilisation and practical social action we can address and effectively respond to the current crisis. That such action will require both a change in individual and community consumption but more importantly will require placing pressure on both governments and corporations to act in our collective interests rather than private profit and if they will not do so force them to do so via collective action. A central aspect of this would include:
- Promote at every opportunity organising opportunities that build the capacity and confidence of people to mobilise and that we could win;
- Concentrate on specific demands leading to greater demand, which may currently feel achievable, as the more limited demands are achieved and the movement grows in confidence;
- Build the organs of popular power within institutions based on general assemblies of students and staff;
- Social security payments at a liveable level to support students studying;
- Free universal access to university education, with no time limit or age limit to access;
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