A year of social change

As the school year winds down, and we start getting ready for summer vacation, it's important to look back on the year and celebrate our successes, while at the same time being self-critical and open enough to look for constructive criticisms and dialogue between members of the club, other affiliates and the community at large in order for positive change to occur.

Fanshawe's Social Justice Club had an amazing year, and that needs to be celebrated! We brought in speakers, organized a week-long film festival that exposed students to a vast myriad of issues and local grassroots organizations, we organized film screenings, took a strong stand against military recruitment on campus, organized road trips, sent members to conferences, organized vigils, concerts, protests, workshops, direct actions, awareness campaigns, collaborated on actions with dozens of other groups locally and in other cities, raised hundreds of dollars for an orphanage in Africa and provided students with a much-needed and all-too-often suppressed perspective, which is an example of unrelenting, uncompromising, and empowering action for social change.

But there is always room for improvement. It is important to ask what could have been done better, what groups we could have collaborated with, what issues we could have focused more on, and what goals we should have aimed to accomplish. How could we serve the student body better? How can we be more effective at bringing about social change? What would be needed to attract a critical mass of students to this club? How should next year's social justice be organized? Should it be divided into smaller working groups or join a coalition of other groups? The opportunities for next fall are endless.

But in the meantime, we have amazing plans for this spring and summer, so I hope you don't plan on getting a boring office job, or going back to the mind-numbing comfort of your family's home, or using this time off to watch television and play video games. Members of our club will be starting a media collective, building a recording studio and jam space, starting a magazine, opening an urban organic community garden, organizing a vegetarian banquet, planning road trips to different activist conferences and convergences, joining other activists on an anti-torture caravan across southern Ontario to Guantanamo North and Ottawa, as well as organizing many actions and events right here in London, including an independent media convergence. There will also be many critical mass bike rides, community meals, protests and actions. The spirit of resistance will be strong this summer.

When school is done, education begins. Although we all pay ridiculous amounts of money to attend educational institutions, there is a vast amount of information out there and people willing to help others learn about the world we live in for free. Self-education and community-run education are as important, if not more important than rigid, expensive, institutionalized forms of learning. Therefore, the Empowerment Infoshop will be hosting many documentary film nights, and is opening a lending library of alternative and radical books, magazines, ‘zines, music and films. Different groups will also organize a workshops and present speakers at Empowerment. Naturally, there will also be workshops, training, and speakers taking place at many other places in London as well including the Centre for Social Concern at Kings College, the public Library and various other locations.

Resistance to the status quo is everywhere, and this is just the small fraction of what's being planned in London that I'm aware of. Remember, action is the only remedy for despair, and one person can do so much. So let's stop talking and start acting on our conscience and creating the changes in ourselves and in our world that we wish to see.

To keep up to date on events and actions, help organize, or get involved in the ongoing campaigns taking place throughout the summer, email our club. Also check londonontario.indymedia.org, empowermentinfoshop.com, and londoncommons.net for local action updates and alternative views and news.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.