DAG not participating in elections
Movement wants to return to its activist roots
DAG not participating in elections
Door Giulia Fabrizi
By Giulia Fabrizi
Giulia Fabrizi
Van uit de hand gelopen studentenfeestjes tot bezette universiteitsgebouwen en van kamertekorten tot dreigende bezuinigingen: Giulia houdt al het nieuws in de gaten. Ze praat graag met de mensen die het aangaat, schrijft erover en begeleidt freelancers bij het maken van nieuwsartikelen. Eerder werkte ze als stadsredacteur Groningen en gemeenteverslaggever Haren voor Dagblad van het Noorden.According to the movement’s members, the only way to do this is by not standing for election in the university council and the various faculty councils.
‘That doesn’t mean we’re leaving never to return’, says university council faction chair Ivi Kussmaul. ‘But right now, our work is too focused on the council, and not enough on any of the bigger themes we want to tackle.’
Study spots and pee breaks
DAG, or the Democratic Academy Groningen, was founded in 2017 as a movement that was dissatisfied with the fact that student parties on the council were mainly concerned with ‘electrical outlets, study spots, and pee breaks’. They wanted to talk about issues like the function of the university, the intricacies of the funding, and the democratisation of the board.
They felt being on the council was a means to tackle these issues. They succeeded in doing so in 2018, when DAG managed to prove that the university had used public funds for the preparations for a branch campus in the Chinese city of Yantai.
An awkward discovery, since former education minister Jet Bussemaker had guaranteed, back in 2016, that ‘no Dutch public funds would be used for transnational education’. An external investigation proved DAG right.
Activism
However, members say the movement is becoming bogged down in that which DAG had always opposed: being on the council for the sake of being on the council.
‘But we’re not doing this just to be on the council. We’re a movement, and we want to tackle big issues and change things’, says Kussmaul. Right now, that means they need to regroup and return to the spirit of activism that started it all.
Return to the kind of things they did in 2018, when they occupied the Academy building to protest the housing shortage. Return to investigation and tackling university policies that DAG feels is unbecoming for a modern university. Return to mobilising students and give them a say in the future of the university.
Evaluate
‘There are plenty of issues we’ll still be involved in. In the meantime, we’ll be evaluating our strategy, expanding our network, and mobilising more students’, says Kussmaul.
She’s not ruling out DAG’s possible return to the university council. ‘But right now, our time is better spent on other things.’