Last month in Bristol we saw a tremendous upsurge of militant student action, characterised from the start by spontaneity, openness and a lengthy resistance to short-cutting decisions. This has to be said because it represents one of the best and most significant features of the movement.
The idea of the free university was first discussed at a meeting of the Bristol New Left in April. An open meeting in the University was held earlier this term, attended by about 80 people. From this meeting a voluntary committee was formed which went on to arrange a programme, invite speakers, to find a place to hold the Free University week, and publicise what was happening,
From Monday June 11th to the Saturday after, the events planned took place. It is hard to describe these as meetings - the discussions were very open and critical. It was a practical experiment in a way of thinking and learning liberated from the restrictions of the usual lecturer-lectured relationship. As these discussions got under way - beginning with a two-day critique of education - a kind of corporate dialogue began to develop which involved a large number of people (generally over 100) thinking coherently and critically together about a number of vital and complicated subjects. Initial difficulties in communicating were quite rapidly overcome, and a process of communal intellectual discovery evolved. It was very exciting, and provided a perspective of what genuinely socialist education would be like,
After discussions on the relationship of the arts and sciences to society, on the mass media, on contemporary psychology; on Friday the speakers were Jean-Francois Godchau, of the J.C.R., and Savanunda, who talked about Black Power. Their reception in a university rather politically lethargic was excellent.
On Saturday we talked about student (and staff) control. Permission had been asked on Friday for an extension of Student Union hours. This was refused, as there was no time to arrange for extra porters. They had been on until 2.00 a.m for a ball on Friday. Although the BALL went on until 2.00, the Free University had to leave at 10.30 as usual, On Saturday the meeting decided to ask for the keys, so the porters could go home. This was refused on the grounds that it was impossible to convene the appropriate committee, This was not a very big thing, but it is one aspect of an important issue in Bristol - union members have little control over the Students' Union, which occupies a large and very luxurious building, For example, the permanent staff are employed by and responsible to the University, not the union. A number of crucial committee meetings are confidential, and a very strong protest is needed to find out what they have discussed. Also, once elected, the union executive is under no obligation to implement "(or try to) proposals and demands from Union General Meetings, Nor need it explain why not.
The meeting decided to stay in the union building until it had finished its discussion, and other events planned for Saturday evening, Although the chairman of the appropriate committee could not give us the keys, he said in effect that we could sit in if we wanted to, which we did,
The sit-in had two objectives, the first to exercise direct control by students over union facilities, the second to invite into the building members of the public normally not admitted. It had emerged clearly from preceding discussions that one barrier to be broken down was that between students being trained as an elite and the less-privileged but potentially powerful mass of society around them.
The meeting that night was chaotic, but extremely valuable, The Free University was desperately trying to find its feet as a large and militant group. Plenty of people from outside did in fact come in, Thus two vital discussions were running simultaneously in the same hall, one on organising and orienting the sit-in, and one on what society thought of the students. The frustration this produced made the meeting very noisy and quite inconclusive.
However, it also presented us then and there with a major problem of action: how to establish coherent communication between groups with very different interests, all expressing them very loudly, We succeeded to the extent that the meetings did not break up in disorder, but concluded peacefully.
On Sunday the day was devoted to student affairs, and the discussion produced a set of specific proposals relating to the University, which the meeting decided to act upon in the coming academic year. It was agreed to take direct action only if these, or proposals like them, could not be implemented through normal university channels, This later meeting succeeded in establishing two different but related programmes by which this movement will be able to really effect changes in Bristol. One programme is coordination between students and workers based on, first, a regular bulletin containing accounts of the activities and struggles of both, and secondly, on meetings between students' and workers' organisations (formal and informal). The second programme is one of grass-roots action in the form of a social workshop campaigning on issues such as housing, poverty, Trace and education. One activity that is already planned is a Free School in Bristol this summer,
To conclude, it seems to me that the liberation of inquiry in higher education as shown by these events, is directly and intimately related to militant and constructive socialist action,
I would finish by pointing out that the views expressed in this article are my own, and do not necessarily represent the Free University body.