The end, but not goodbye

Schools out, and I'm out of school. That's right I just finished my last year at Fanshawe. I'm done with being institutionalized for a little while.

But before you breathe a sigh of relief or start celebrating, as I'm sure the administration is, you must realize that I am just one person, and there are many more like me.

Just because I am gone does not mean that this school will return to the status quo, or that there will be no radical student voice on campus. In fact, I have no doubt in my mind that next years students will outdo me and take radical politics at Fanshawe College to a whole new level that this school has never experienced.

People give me too much credit. They think that somehow because I'm leaving organized resistance and radical events are leaving with me. This is very naive. I only facilitated the emergence of a radical presence at Fanshawe College; I do not embody it.

Over the last three years, hundreds of students have been involved in developing this project. Hundreds of actions and events have taken place under our banner. This is way bigger than I, one person, could ever be.

Many of you have asked questions like “What's gonna happen to the Social Justice Club?” or “have you picked a new leader?” This club has continually evolved with its membership, but has always grown in its capacity and me leaving Fanshawe will not change this fact.

As for leadership, I have never picked a leader or appointed myself leader except in order to found the club three years ago. Since then I have always insisted that I was only ‘president' on paper, that anybody else could put their name on the paper instead, and that the club was meant to be a de-centralized group of individuals who could take individual or collective actions they deem appropriate in the fight for social, environmental, and economic justice.

Most students care deeply about the future we will have to live in and want a better place than we've been handed down. We want a free and peaceful society drawn on egalitarian lines. We want a healthy planet, instead of ecological disasters, we want an end to poverty (and the affluence that creates it), and we are willing to fight for it.

The Fanshawe Social Justice Club will be back again next year, and will continue to build on the foundation that has been laid here in the last three years. I understand that some returning students already have some pretty major plans to stir things up.

As for me, I'll still be dedicating most of my time to helping spread awareness and providing support for this club, and the many other local and regional activist groups I'm involved with. Considering I have a developed a strong readership here, I might continue writing columns for the newspaper from time-to-time if they let me.

The newspaper has been amazingly fearless about publishing the articles I write. I've been pushing the envelope, informing students about issues that the mainstream media refuses to cover, and giving an opposing viewpoint than that of the dominant paradigm. And I am eternally grateful to Diana, Interrobang's editor, for seeing the value in having radical perspectives and dissent in the student paper. I am also eternally grateful to hundreds of people who organized events, volunteered, took action, spoke up, took a stand, attended events, tabled, came on road trips, supported the fundraisers, made signs, and even got arrested.

These last three years would have been so boring without all you beautiful people. The last message I have for you is to not settle for the life they are selling you. Act daringly and passionately. Fall in love. Nobody is better suited than you are to decide what your life will be. Find the pockets of freedom get inside them and push them outwards in order to make space for more friends to join you. The problems facing us today are indeed catastrophic, but not out of our control. There is already a new world in our hearts, and the faster it beats the more it will manifest itself in reality.

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.