A Meaningless Existence or Truly Worthwhile?

I should start by stating my belief in the former rather than the latter. I have been far too involved in student politics for too long (three and a half years). I am on the verge of actually deciding to get a life. No honest I am.

I should also state my belief that student activism differs GREATLY from student politics. In my experience the two are almost mutually exclusive. I started out as a student activist, campaigning for free education (abolished in New Zealand since 1989) as a means to right some of the other social injustices. Since then I have got far too wound up in meaningless campus debates about nothing of particular importance.

Of late I have even managed to get myself embroiled in national wide student politics fights. At both the campus and national level your average Jo Student actually couldn't care less about these fights. This is because their main effect is to take all those people who actually have some useful skills away from using them to help students, making them waste all their time and money on silly little game playing and point scoring. It's a case of not missing what you've never had. If we weren't all so busy playing oneupmanship we could achieve so much for students, and for society.

A few things I have learnt during my days:

1. Remember everything comes back to money. Control the resources and you control what is done. Ultimately the person or people who decide how the money is spent actually determine a lot more than you think they do.
2. Whoever says they don't stand for personality politics does, probably more than anyone else. They will be the person who runs slag campaigns against people, defaming them and lying about them. This is true in all facets of life I think. (Gosh that sounds bitter).
3. Remember that someone who lies once will lie again (in fact probably already has). Don't trust proven liars. It is a constant source of irritation how many people have still not learnt this.
4. Unity is strength but sometimes you have to lead the group rather than follow the leader. This requires a s**tload of guts, but hey, its only student politics so who cares?
5. Learn to act. This is NOT so you can lie convincingly - lieing is not a good thing, and is not to be encouraged. You need to learn to act so that when one of your allies inevitably stabs you in the back you won't bleed visibly and so will minimise the damage considerably. If you are a woman you will need to learn to act like a man. This seems to be because men are more respected. Trust me - I am a law student, but my opinion on legal issues is much less respected around the council table that other student politicians who have never studied law but are male. (This is but one example). Be prepared to face unfair insults with a joke and a smile.

These are probably the only useful things I have learnt from my time as a student politician. Oh and the cafe budgie meals are actually OK and not made of cat/pigeon/the chef's belly lint. And the University/Government/Establishment will screw you over any chance they get.

Student Politics feels like it should be worthwhile. Unfortunately it is like any other form of politics - reduced frequently to game playing and petty point scoring, rather than trying to achieve your goals (unless your goals happen to be game playing and petty point scoring). The problem seems to go back to Plato's ideas that those best suited to office are actually those least likely to run. This seems to be the major downside of democracy, however I still think democracy is worth the effort. An educated citizenry would sure help fix some of the problems methinks. And that's not educated in that elitist university sense, but educated about the roles of rights and responsibilities (ie that they are both intertwined and we all have both) and citizenship type stuff.