While checking my email this morning, I noticed an urgent (not even kidding) message from AStA (a national student-government type thing.  It's very odd) informing me that the occupation of one of the lecture buildings will continue.  They invited all of us to take part in the events that they are hosting, like documentaries and discussion sessions (this is a Serious Protest).  The occupiers have run into a bit of a snag - the building that they chose to occupy houses the library for political science, and the undergraduate thesis for political science students was supposed to be due on Monday.  As a compromise, they've managed to extend the deadline for the thesis by three days - but as the occupation is continuing, this extension will not be a big help.  Rest assured, they are "trying" [sic] to make the library available.  Good to keep the priorities in order here - finshing your bachelor's thesis=bad, discussing documentaries and alternative workshops=good.  Score one for the Bildungsstreik!

Continuing the hilarity, they've issued another list of demands, this one more riduculous than the last.  High points include:  "Removal of compulsory attendence from the entire social sciences" and the too-awesome-to-be-true "two-hour lunch break and class-free Wednesday afternoons to encourage collaboration and active participation in student committees."  Again, please don't misunderstand me - I think that it's good that students are trying to take control of their education, but they're going about it in entirely the wrong way (potentially screwing your fellow students out of a degree is not the way to make friends) - and there's still not a compromise in sight. 

For those of you who can read German, I've linked the original email here. 

I found myself in the middle of Marburg's Altstadt during the planned "flashmob" - I would call it more of a gathering, but to each there own.  Expecting heavy crowds, I hesitantly moved forward - and saw the scene to your left, which shows the entire flashmob before/during/after the "protest".  As I did some research online beforehand, I knew that they would be shooting the final scene for this video.  I only wish that I had come up with that idea - it's pure comedy gold with it's one-dimensional rant against corporations and juvenile symbolism.  Since I knew what to look for, I kept an eye out for the "businessmen" and the camera.  Expecting some thrift-store threads and a handheld cam, my jaw dropped.  The "anti-capitalist activists" were all wearing tailored designer suits and the camera they used had a $300 dollar tripod.  I stood around for about 15 minutes waiting for something to happen, but they just did more takes (and yelled at people for not doing it "right").  After they got the shot they wanted, they simply disbanded.  It was lame enough that the police didn't even bother to show up, even though they knew that it was planned.  Way to stick it to the man!

Walking from the train station back to my dorm room (since bus traffic stops after 8PM in Marburg) I noticed a banner hung over the student "bar" (and I use this term as loosely as possible) in the housing complex urging all fellow students to join in a Global (read: other European country/ies also have a banner flying over their student housing areas, with some in Canada joining in as well) Week of Action to "Emancipate Education for All". Exciting activities for the week include a "Global Flashmob" (is it really a flashmob if it's planned months in advance?) which will take place in part on Marburg's central square (I'll try my best to get pictures), as well as the standard lectures by activists and sympathetic professors.

So what is this week of activism for? From their website and manifesto I found a few main goals: lower the cost of education, decrease the presence of corporations (surprise!), fight budget cuts at the university level, and more accessible higher education.  With the exception of decreasing the presence of corporations (but missing a chance to rail against corporations would go against everything the German "protest movement" stands for), these seem like fairly reasonable goals - until you learn the facts.

Higher education in Germany is essentially free.  I pay 180 Euro per semester to enroll and take courses - that's it.  Note that this payment is for administrative fees, not tuition.  If that weren't enough, this 180 Euro also pays for a public transport pass valid for 6 months which allows me to travel anywhere in Hessen, using every train and bus except the ultra high-speed trains, which don't run through Marburg.  If I weren't enrolled at the University of Marburg, an equivalent pass would cost me approximately 220 Euro per month.  So far, a very good deal. 

Since the university system here is highly rated, a few Bundesländer increased the tuition from 0 Euro per semester to 500 Euro per semester in order to increase the amount of money going to the schools and allow for better facilities, as well as maintain competetive international standards.  Protest ensued, and within a year the government in Hessen which instituted the fees was out of power, and the center-left (for Germany, for the US closer to Nader) government which replaced them dropped the fees.  In doing so, deficits at the university level skyrocketed - the University of Marburg was something like 12 million Euro in debt this year, and as a result had to cut many positions and in some cases whole departments.  The financial crisis made it all the worse, and since the university system provides the talent that makes the German industry run so well, the corporations stepped in to help out.

So that's where we are now - and German students are pissed off about it.  They don't like that they've lost departments, but don't think that they should have to pay for it (education is a right to them, and they conveniently ignore that they pay for it anyway in the form of taxes).  I agree that education shouldn't be as expensive as it is in the US, but their approach ignores the facts - if they don't pay, someone has to, and if corporations are willing then the activists should either front the fees themselves or stop complaining if they want to keep everything running as before.

Math time:  there are 20,000 students at the University of Marburg.  We'll assume that half of them can't afford 500 Euro per semester (just to be on the safe side here).  Each year, the 10,000 that could pay would contribute an astounding additional 10,000,000 Euro to the university - almost enough to wipe out this year's deficit in and of itself.   

The press release for this "Week of Action" (from the 20th of April to the 29th, so it's actually 9 days - somewhere between a week and a fortnight but I guess that that did not sound as catchy) provides an endless source of unintentional hilarity.  My favorite sentence:  "Activists gather on web chats to share ideas of ways to protest and to send letters of solidarity to one another.", which translates into normal English as: "We talk online a lot and congratulate each other for thinking pretty much alike."  I will of course update should this "week of action" manage to accomplish much, as well as about events or demonstrations that I stumble across.

**Update**
Pomona College has decided to reverse the ban!  Still, what happened makes for an interesting story, so I'll leave that part up, but the contact emails have been taken down. 

I recently found out about an "incident" that occurred last month at Pomona College which only served to remind me of what I won't be missing about the school.  Essentially, the situation is this:  the Voices for Planned Parenthood (VOX) Chapter at Pomona College (in conjunction with Pomona College's Women' Union) hosted a public event during Abortion Awareness Week.  As this event was, you know, public (see an image of the original flyer here), two students from the neighboring Claremont McKenna College (CMC), Kyle Kinneberg '09 and David Daleiden '11, from Live Action, a California pro-life (or anti-choice, take your pick) group decided to attend.  Although they did arrive late, they knocked on the door and were allowed in by a student who was aware of their Live Action affiliation. 

So far, so good.  Upon arrival Kyle and David turned on an unconcealed video camera (reports state that they kept the camera on their leg) and began to film the Q&A session led by Ms. Serena Josel, a Planned Parenthood public relations manager, following her lecture.  It being a Q&A session, students began to ask non-personal questions, and David joined in.  Another student then informed Ms. Josel that David was a member of Live Action, at which point she became irate and non-responsive to his questions, as well as insisting that he turn the camera off.  As the event was public (it had been advertised as an event open to the public) the use of a video recording device was protected under CA statute.  She was under the impression that it was a private event for VOX members, but David corrected her and informed her that all students of the 5C's (the five Claremont Colleges) had been invited to attend.  However, she continued to tell them that they had acted illegally and insisted that they leave the event.  David and Kyle stopped recording and complied. 

At this point, what would have been a minor incident was suddenly a major event:  shortly afterwards, two Pomona College deans sent an email to Pomona's student body regarding the incident, claiming that David and Kyle had "violate the space" of the Women's Union and that they had asked "disruptive" questions (I only wish that I were making this up).  On March 2nd, David and Kyle were handed (literally) a letter from the Pomona College Associate Dean of Students (and Dean of Women) accusing them of violating Pomona College policy and “serve[d] as notice, from [that] day forward, [they] were banned from the entire Pomona College campus.” Click here for page one of this letter, and click here for page two.  Prior to this disciplinary action, David and Kyle were not given an opportunity to discuss the alleged violations or disruptions.

Please note that I am not trying to make this into a pro-life or pro-choice issue - the fact that two CMC students were banned from my alma mater (which is just across the street from CMC, no joke) with no warning and no proper course of judicial action is appalling.  The 5C's pride themselves on being an open consortium of students, with students free to enroll in courses offered by the other universities (I personally took 1 course at CMC and 3 at Scripps College, and my major department was hosted by both Scripps and Pomona).  Ironically, this decision came after a campus debate on the nature of free speech.  Kyle and David have not yet been informed which policy that they violated.  I believe that if a College devotes itself to the free exchange of ideas, as Pomona College claims to do, then they must recognize that dissent will occur from time to time.  Kyle and David's actions are also firmly under the protection of the First Amendment, which, under CA law, applies to all insitutions of higher learning, making their ban from Pomona both unjust and illegal.  Sadly, the administration of CMC has complied with ban, and provided Pomona College with pictures of the students so that they can "enforce" it.