Building toward March 4 at SFSU

MARCH 4, the date set for a "state-wide strike and day of action to defend public education," is rapidly approaching. Naturally, questions as to how the movement should proceed exist. This is a debate we must have openly and inclusively.

At this point, the de facto strategy for the student movement consists of autonomous actions organized and taken by small groups of militants. If students, faculty and staff don't have the time, energy and connections to attend the numerous ad hoc meetings, they will be likely to remain passive supporters of these autonomous actions, instead of active participants and developing leaders themselves.

While we agree with these groups that the time for bold steps is now, organizing in such a fashion will leave out those who may strongly agree with the aims of our movement, but are currently disconnected from student activist circles.

A series of small autonomous actions will not be able to unite the disparate forces on campus needed to make March 4 a day of really mass action. We encourage occupations, sit-ins and strikes, but we believe that such actions should, whenever possible, be proposed, debated and then democratically decided upon at broadly built General Assemblies. We believe that the expansion of the General Assemblies is the key to the development of a powerful campus movement.

There are competing schools of thought among student activists about the role of the General Assemblies. Many agree that they are useful spaces to discuss political questions, like the connection between budget cuts, imperialist war and institutional racism. Some activists, however, contend that the General Assemblies should be little more than "talk shops." These activists argue that students should express their ideas in the assemblies, but must disperse in order to take action in a decentralized, autonomous fashion.

We believe this to be an ineffective method. In order to win broad forces to the General Assembly, it must become a democratic decision-making body, where discussions lead to decisions that are actually implemented and respected.

We do believe the potential exists for March 4 to be a mass action of thousands of students, staff and faculty, which establishes a new level of strength for our movement and leaves an imprint on the campus for many semesters.

IN ORDER to achieve that, we should set a date in mid-February for a mass General Assembly of a few hundred people, and focus our resources for the first weeks of the semester on building it. We must break out of the smallish student activist milieu and ramp up our outreach to more student groups, more faculty groups, more departments, more campus unions, more unaffiliated students--all of whom have an interest in fighting for public education.

Only through a truly mass, broad, and empowered General Assembly--which is definitely possible right now--can we launch a mass united action on campus for March 4.

We suggest a mass strike and teach-in to involve the greatest number of students, staff and faculty. We also believe that direct action, specifically occupations, will be a necessary component of March 4. However, we believe a truly mass occupation must involve the active democratic deliberation and organizational collaboration of the widest possible number of the campus community, and we believe this can be discussed in the General Assembly.

Of course, security concerns may necessitate a division of labor, but concerns about secrecy shouldn't trump democratic participation in decision-making by all those who want to take part.

We are inspired by the vision of several hundred students, faculty and staff assembling in one place and joining forces in a common action. If those people who attend and energetically participate in a mass General Assembly see the democratically decided actions implemented successfully, more people will feel inspired to take greater ownership of the campus movement. This will lay the basis for a new, higher stage of struggle at SF State and legitimize March 4 as a historic day of action.

Solidarity,
SF State ISO