Comments on: As Goes Santa Cruz, so goes Vienna

By: rosa

rosa — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:55:18 +0000

forgot we are in close contact with friends and inspirers in Santa Cruz, and in many other occupation movements as well. Also as a proposal maybe we should really start to think of the internet as a place to speak directly to movements, so instead of making assumptions, asking questions..
just as its quite strange to have someone talking about you, but to be listening to them at the same time. may as well just have a chat instead!

By: rosa

rosa — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:48:49 +0000

dear people, academy of fine arts is still occupied. I’m writing from the office of the (former) student union. There a lot going on here at the moment, and its hard to get an overview. Just wanted to correct something, students and people from many institutions and organisations have been working together for a longer time now on analysing the bologna process, protesting the broader globlal commodification of education, and destruction of knowledge commons. This larger network, and many many others were heavily involved in the first days of the academy occupation, as well as in the occupation of the university of vienna, and still now in the broadening of the discussions and occupations. Both occupations were done with a great amount of solidarity between different student groups, the university of vienna occupation emerged as a result of a 2000 strong protest that grew throughout the day, storming lectures and dragging more people out of their chairs and into the march, and involved students from many universities. Theres nothing to be idealised in this movement, as a movement it has all that is wrong with society within its fabric, the task is to start putting those things on a platform and not to hide them in the backrooms of institutional politics.
Occupy Everything.
In solidarity

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:51:42 +0000

I strongly doubt that anyone with direct authority will point at the Vienna occupation and say, “that’s why I’ve changed my mind and now oppose the Bologna plan”. I’m sure the occupiers would like that, but their approach implies a more nuanced strategy. They’re both getting media attention and making sure the attention leads to a clear, sympathetic message. See, for example, the revised list of demands and how vague and only partially-related causes have been removed from the list.