i regret that i am now where i wanted and intended to be today,especially following my particular invitation.i will not bore comrades with a detailed explanation;suffice to say deteriorating health and disability,combined with it being"just one of those weekends"contributed.
i was only aware at all that the Conference was about to take place a few days ago,although i have been aware for some months of the existence of the Revolutionary Socialist Students,at least since i learned,that they were the phoenix that arose from the fire of the crisis inside the SWP in late 2012-early 2013.I also detect that there are students from other revolutionary socialist currents along with their might i call tem parent organisations too.For what my opinion is worth,i think this is entirely healthy and hope that the organisation will continue to involve and actively organise many from a variety of revolutionary socialist traditions.I consider it is not just necessary that socialists talk to each other in such difficult times,because i really do believe that if we do not then,if we do not stand together,we will fall apart.Not that unity or working together should be at any price,but i have begun to think that a multi-thread organisation is to be positively welcomed,and that we must seek new or at least renewed ways to talk to and work together.
i cannot know if there is anything special or particular to my invitation to attend,which makes my regret particular as i have been unable to attend.i want to note the welcoming and open attitude of whoever is behind the page/invitation of facebook and the website,as well as to particular comrades who contacted me to reinforce that welcome and to provide further information.
i think the invitation arose out of some comments i made that i intended to write a piece on what i see and experience as a deep-laid and indeed increasing level of disrespect in the media,in what passes for public debate and i'm almost certain amongst our so-called political class,and particularly unfortunately amongst too many older people.
i feel particularly strongly about this.i had a"good",though i do not mean privileged upbringing,and grew up feeling that i wanted to both share and spread that experience,as i saw from quite young that mine was not the sort of experience i saw or learned about happening around me.All of that was one influence which led me to spend around 40 years as a social worker.i like to think i have always continued and developed an at least open attitude to young people.i became a student at a polytechnic when i was 19 years old and undertook a degree alongside a professional qualification over 4 years.Whilst the experience was not perfect,both at the time and particularly now i look back and consider it to have been a fantastic experience,during the better time of the post-war "social contract"which might be said to have been overarched by the "welfare state"-with all its very real faults and problems,but which for too many years now,is not being renegotiated-but is being emptied,thrown away and destroyed.
i am now approaching 60 years old,and have been early medically retired for some 18 months.i like to
think i am still i touch with m open attitude,if not with the minutiae and detail of their lives,although i am also the father of two young daughters both of whom have or are about to enter tertiary education,with all its problems for them and indeed for us.
we have struggled together with the variety of complexities around student finance.i watch my eldest daughter deal with both having to work whilst undertaking study at a level well beyond what was required of me some 40 years ago.
These are all things i can write about in more detail and effect,i hope at another time.
Now my youngest is about to start,but her difficulties are not just repeats of earlier experience,nor a reflection that the two of them are undertaking very different courses.
My youngest daughter is going to her second choice university.As results came out,i heard not just the usual stories,more of which in a moment but several other,frankly disturbing accounts.These include that having had the"opportunity"to resit,to improve grades over their A level and other course programmes,"the regime"(i refuse to call it a government)had used the opportunity,in fact to further downgrade where retakes on say one paper/course allowed/instructed exam boards to remark and regrade and prior achievement by a student.Where instructions specifically to mark down some courses,this effectively makes any retake or further effort counterproductive.i also heard of occassions when students had surpassed grades required only to find offers of places withdrawn.
When my daughter visited a certain university,prospective new students were given promise of accommodation.That promise was repeated in several places and forms.Until the place had actually been offered!The promise has been broken,which has caused my daughter considerable distress and anxiety,and us as a family a whole range of further difficulties.Whilst we think we have resolved this it leads me to ask and surmise
*.How much of this is going on?
*.The university will still charge its full fees,and it has broken its contract/promise!It seems we live even more in a society where the ordinary amongst us have less recourse set against a greater expectation of our own compliance alongside the reality that"they"make the laws/rules,change them whenever and as they wish and both without penalty let alone expectation that they comply or even that the law applies to them.
*.This also leaves students,families and carers even more powerless.The students themselves are being further marginalised and discounted,and rendered even more precarious(as per precariat).This is before they actually start their courses or studentships?So where is the NUS or the NUSS or indeed any campaign in this?
For what it is worth,our family have started talking about militant action and occupation to make its stick!
Last but not least,is the general issue that every year when results come out,whatever school and other students do they face negative press for not working hard enough or for exams being too easy,so that students can never see themselves as a group in a positive light,even if their individual performance is excellent.This to me,is shameful.To this add,the more recent coverage of"grade inflation",although i am certain the issue may or may ot have been present for longer.
i do not know whether any of this is within the compass of concerns of the wider student body,let alone in the mix of campaigns of the student bodies union(the NUS).i intend to explore further,so would welcome any help or comments.i am particularly exercised by the disrespect shown to young people which clearly has material consequences.
To return to wider issues;simply to say,i honour the initiative of the Revolutionary Socialist Students.In so far as the initiative has come from SWSS members who either resigned or were expelled from the SWP,it is impressive that they have not simply at least partially recovered from that damaging experience but have gone on,i am sure with others to establish a new ititiative it seems virtually without the support of a wider,parent body eg SP and Socialist Students,labour Party and what in my day was NOLS/National Organisation of Labour Students,Communist Students or indeed SWSS!i cannot pass up the opportuntity to make the jibe that SWSS has indeed shown itself to be a"swizz",in which many must feel cheated by being treated as a stage army who count for nothing.
That is neither my experience nor my attitude.Whilst students because of their role and place in the wider society may not be able to be the motor and determinant of either class warfare or socialist society,they can certainly be the detonators as they showed once more in 2010,and being realistic about the possibilities is no reflection on the talent or energies that any successful road to socialism needs.
It is is that context,that i,just one of many committed both to my class and to a revolutionary socialist future both greet the Conference and the life of the Revolutionary Socialist Students but offer whatever limited help and support i can give.
Fraternally
paul summers
(member of ISN/international Socialist Network,and writer,LOSTbutnotreturning)
d1/08092013
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