Activist groups at Oxford University Freshers' Fair

The Oxford University Freshers' Fair was a real success for the social justice and anti corporate globalization groups.

On the October 10th and 11th, the Oxford University Freshers' Fair was held in the Examination School, where groups, societies and clubs can have a stall to explain what they do and what they are to new students. Many social justice and anti corporate globalization groups had stalls, and found that many new students were very interested in getting involved in different parts of the movement.

For example, around 350 (which is a lot! :-) new students signed up to get involved with the newly formed Oxford Student Activist Network (

http://www.osan.org.uk ), which is meant to be a decentralised and non-hierarchical network, an open space for students to do radical politics and organize actions on different issues ranging from peace, corporate globalization, environmental issues, etc. The first meeting of this network will be next Wednesday at 8pm. Hopefully many people will turn up, as Bush is coming to London soon...

Many other groups were also present: People and Planet, Survival, Narmada Campaign, Habitat for Humanity, etc. Oxford indymedia was also sharing the stall with the Oxford Student Activist Network. Tons of leaflets have been distributed, while the ideas behind the global indymedia network and its local node in Oxford were explained. Students were very interested in the creation of this new alternative media center in Oxford, and many said they would use the website and get involved in the free media revolution!

Resistance is fertile!

Sociétélibre

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Yay!

12.10.2003 01:22

Long live OSAN!!!!

Erin

Yay again

12.10.2003 10:05

So there is some hope that not all students are only concerned with their portfolios and pension funds.

NVDA for as many as possible would be good. Contact usual people.

Bush should be made to suffer.

Oxford brookes freshers fair

13.10.2003 14:46

The Oxford brookes freshers fair was a weird event. Half the stalls seemed to be commercial and there was a lot of competing sound systems.

However "People and planet" and the"stop the war society" both had stalls which were well visited and many students signed up.

There was some sort of 'join the military' stall there with 'chaps'in uniform stolling about. I spoke to a few of the a bout the 'court martial' option should the be ordered to follow commands against their concience. A few jioned the 'stop the war society' and several signed the 'get out of iraq' petition. Hopefull.

there will be a screening of "day X" on nov 4th. its a film about the day we attacked Iraq and what the Kids did in responce by taking Parliment square. A must, very high energy little film, 6pm the venue, hellena kennedy building, OX Brookes student union.

Matthew Morton
mail e-mail: mjdmorton@hotmail.com

Fuck those Oxford students man...

14.10.2003 15:57

They're all a bunch of ruling class wankers if you ask me. Trendy people-&-planeters trying to be cool before joining daddy's investment bank.

No, only joking. I just had to say it before anyone else did.

;-)

Tom

aarge

15.10.2003 21:42

you made my blood boil, but now its on simmer again, in fact that was quite funny. Brookes is a strange University, would have been better of if it had stayed a Poly, but it is one which is worth cultivating for activism. This is partly because a large part of its british students are part of "the problem" and are worth turning around , and also because when you talk to the foreign students (those that arnt pissed at the time) they know a lot about world politics and collectivly have a wide range of opinions and dreams of solutions for their countries and the world at large. If we dont facilitate good dialog then they may end up dishartened and join the ranks of "the problem".

Worthy people bore me senceless too, but the clock is ticking and we dont really have the time to beat around the bush with petty class issues when we could be beating around the Bush and stopping the beggining of the Empire.

Permaculture is on my mind, as is bonfire night, last bonfire night I was thinking about the bombing of Afganistan, an Iraq was still a conspiracy theory. As we light up the sky on NOV 5th think how scary it must have been for the fires in the sky to be bombs, and ask yourself which country will have been bombed before the following Bonfire night.

Its a good time to carry banners into the night, or make it to Parliament hill in North london. A prize for the best model of parliament

Matt Mo

matt mo