As a former student and current instructor at Ohio University, I am reluctant to get involved in what is clearly a matter for students to resolve. Yet the hilarity of the situation was impossible to refute. Hoping to refrain from adding further diatribes and proverbial fuel to the fire, I would simply quote Brecht's The Solution:
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had thrown away the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
The back-and-forth over the past months (and probably years) regarding whether Student Senate really stands for the student body as a whole isn't really the question. The question seems to be about respect, the respect that one should seem to be able to expect that the governing would have for the governed (although where that would have been learned in this day and age is a mystery to me as well, I must admit). The fact that a member of Student Senate would publicly cajole dissenters into no longer airing their opinions in public makes me wonder if this member of Student Senate really understands the nature of democracy, representative government, freedom of speech, etc. These critics are doing exactly what they should be doing: paying attention to matters that concern them, whether or not they know how to do it better. That is the right - indeed, a requirement - of being a citizen or member of any group in this country. To claim that they are anarchistic is, I suppose, a McCarthy-like use of a supposed political pejorative. Perhaps Mr. Webb supposed that labeling the opposition with such a terrifying name would strike fear into those who may otherwise have an ear for those anarchists' qualms.
To me, what they are debating is of little concern. But the notion that representative democracy means that all power is given over into a select group through the election process itself, while perhaps true, is not only irritating but also terrifying, especially if this means that the power to criticize is also to be given up. I believe that many of these so-called anarchists have also complained bitterly in their past that Senate refused to consider their ideas; if this is the case, where else do they have to turn?
Perhaps it truly is time to dissolve this ungrateful electorate and elect another.
I, however, would suggest respecting it as the power-giving entity it is, rather than smearing the parts of it you find distasteful with the kind of rhetoric that marginalizes people different from you, even if they, heaven forbid, eat organic food. Disclaimer: I myself eat organic food.
Bodie Stewart is an instructor in the Department of Linguistics.
4 Opinion
