Who’s being Naive?
At the CSU Council meeting held Jan. 12, Council voted down a resolution calling for the resignation of all external Board members. I’d like to point out that the CSU is mandated to oppose corporate representation on the Board, and the majority of external Board members are corporate executives.
I want to discuss a conceptual problem that appeared throughout the debate. Can we please stop worrying about being “naïve?” Too many student politicians seem to have a psychological need to appear “sensible” to the big boys. Stop! The corporate executives, politicians and everyone who ever looked at you and muttered “idealistic,” are destroying our planet and society because they believe that economic success means ever-increasing corporate profits and ever-expanding GDPs. A child could tell you that doesn’t make sense—and actually sounds a little naïve. Yet being sensible and savvy seems to have become synonymous with toeing the line.
Naïve is thinking that making one more concession to a group of wealthy, arrogant corporate CEOs, who have not supported students on a single significant issue, will make them respect you. Naïve is thinking that running a university like a corporation is not by definition a silly, narrow-minded idea. Naïve is thinking that the Board of Governors as it stands is more than a rubber-stamp, when evidence to the contrary is all around us. Naïve is setting up committees to talk about passing a motion to study the possibility of possibly doing something when Concordia is facing its biggest crisis, and biggest opportunity, in recent memory—while higher education in Quebec is being attacked from all sides.
But if we go with the definition of naive that I heard on Wednesday—calling for radical change to our university and society—based on what is right, not what has always been, then students deserve a little naiveté from their representatives, because it used to be known as courage.
—Holly Nazar,
MA Media Studies
Director for Arts & Science, GSA
Free Education Montreal
This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 21, published February 1, 2011.
