Black Cat Group and Meeting Structures

This article lays out Black Cat Group's meeting structures and why we believe they're important. We do our best to stick to structures, but, given the society we live in, this can be quite hard.

Black Cat Group is serious about its anti-authoritarianism. Whilst we dislike disempowering bureaucratic procedures, we believe that transparent and structured organisations are vital to ensure equality. The latter however can easily slide into the former. Being aware of this, we attempt to walk the fine line between the two.
In the following leaflet we'll explain how our meetings work.

1. Our undemocratic society

Even if everyone believed that we should all have an equal say, we still wouldn't be equals. Our society is drenched in structures (e.g. capitalism, patriarchy, racism) that make true democracy, where every individual has an equal say, impossible. Amongst the things caused by these structures are: different privileges resulting from differing wealth, education and health; psychological factors like competitive and authoritarian behaviour; tendencies to take certain groups of people (e.g. white, male) more seriously than others; and our varying abilities to speak up in public.

If we want to make democracy truly real, we need to take those factors into account in our structures: we cannot proclaim that we want democracy whilst excluding vast sections of the population.

2. On the subjective level

The first step towards a more equal space is to be aware of how your behaviour impacts on the people around you. As an example, men tend to interrupt and talk more often than women in meetings. Here are some things that can help create a better environment:

• Avoid interrupting others
• Be aware of the amount you have spoken
• Be aware of the length of your contributions
• Avoid just repeating what someone else has said
• Avoid in-jokes and teasing
• Show that you are listening by looking at the speaking person or by nodding every now and again
• Avoid asserting personal opinions as facts (e.g. It is better to...) instead, assert these as your beliefs (e.g. I believe that it is better to...)
• Be open for criticism and be willing to discuss your behaviour or past contributions to the group

3. Roles

Whilst we believe that every individual is responsible for making the group as a whole egalitarian, we also know from experience that this is easier said than done. To this end we designate some roles at the beginning of each meeting. We also try to rotate these roles amongst members as much as possible in order to spread the knowledge and skills of these roles. The roles appointed at the beginning of each meeting are:

Facilitator: the facilitator's task is to make sure that the discussion stays on track. They do this by summing up arguments, by calling for shows of hands/votes or simply by pointing out that the discussion is straying off the topic. The facilitator should also keep track of who wants to speak and who's turn it is to speak. Whilst generally it makes sense to allow people to speak on a 'first come first serve' basis, it makes sense to allow those who have spoken less to speak before those who have spoken more.

Minuteer: the minuteer is responsible for taking notes during the meeting. These notes can be used during a meeting to review what topics have been covered and which decisions have been made. The notes should also be sent out to the mailing list, so everyone can look at them. Finally the minuteer should bring the minutes to the next meeting so that the meeting can determine how the group is doing.

4.Collective procedures

In order to ensure that everyone has a say, Black Cat Group meetings follow these guidelines:

1. At the beginning of the meeting an agenda is passed around. Anyone who wants to add discussion points/items to the meeting can write them onto the agenda.
2. A Facilitator and Minuteer is appointed. This should normally happen through consensus or a majority vote, and members of the meeting always have the right to recall the Facilitator/Minuteer (this point applies for all delegated roles, not just for these two)
3. The Facilitator should give a quick introduction to how the meeting works and why the meeting works this way. They should also start a name round so everyone has a chance of learning other people's names.
4. If you want to speak, put your hand up. The facilitator will make sure you get a chance to speak.

Letter supporting Sussex's no platform for Fascists policy

The renewal of the Sussex's Students' Union motion maintaining that no platform should be given to Fascists stirred up a lot of debate in last term's Badger issues. Whilst some articles appear to have posed genuine questions as to how the motion would be put into practice, others were at best an ignorant, misguided and dangerous attempt to 'right a wrong', at worst an outright promotion of the BNP and fascism.

Matt's article for instance (Badger Nr. 9) referred to the unfair procedure in the AGM, which allowed the opponents of the motion to brainwash the audience. It even goes so far as saying that in the end, the AGM audience was “united in hate, reminiscent of a scene from 1984. The enemy was the BNP, the BNP, violence” only to proceed, in an outraged voice, that these kind of rallies are a favoured tactic to “destroy the name of the BNP” - which is, of course, outrageous given the BNP's impeccable reputation. The laughable formulation of his argument aside, his claims are untrue: this year's AGM was remarkably well chaired and the interruptions of on-stage speakers were marginal to non-existent. Matt's concern with the ability of 'rogue' speakers to whip crowds into a frenzy in roughly 5 minutes of speaking time seems to exhibit an insidious form of bourgeois elitism in which Matt, as an isolated, proud defender of rationality stands against the hysterical mob. How can Matt be defending free speech and democratic decision making procedures if they exhibit such thorough scepticism towards the 'ordinary people' assembled for discussion? After all, how can human beings be entrusted with the power to make decisions through open debate if they are likely to fly into a rage every time someone speaks passionately about a subject?

But Matt's article doesn't seem to revolve around free speech at all – it seems to me that they have actually taken it upon themselves to defend the BNP and to argue that they are in fact respectable members of the public. According to Matt, the BNP are randomly accused of being fascist, with no substantial basis for this claim. Matt maintains that they cannot find any trace of fascist politics or ideas in the BNP. We believe it's worth noting that instead of talking about the historical and the practical origins and practices of the BNP, Matt backs up their claims by selecting a few quotes from the BNP manifesto. They do not refer to the genesis of the BNP out of the obviously fascist National Front; they do not refer to the many and recent documented ties between BNP and NF members (see Searchlight magazine for instance); and they do not discuss the increase of racial tension in areas where the BNP possess power. Yet all these factors are vital when assessing the BNP. It is only after taking these into account that we can read their manifesto as it should be read – with a bucketful of salt.

Matt however chooses to cast their critical reading glasses aside and to replace these with their goggles of wilful ignorance: the BNP's claim that multiculturalism has failed is not read as an attack on anything that is not 'British' in the UK, but as a modest proposal without practical consequences; their rhetorical claims referring to the poor and oppressed British people betrayed by the ruling regime seeking to profit from globalisation and thus from international (foreign) capital is not seen as a direct parallel to Nazi rhetoric of foreign Jews bleeding the German economy dry, but as an innocent critique of unfettered (international, greedy) capitalism. We have to ask: who is this ruling elite that is referred to? Who controls international and foreign capital? Why is UK capital any better?

A second article, written by Luke (Badger Nr. 9) approaches the discussion from a different tack. Luke's main argument seems to revolve around the notion that free speech either exists for all or for no-one. This argument highlights the purely philosophical nature of the free speech they defend. The troubling element of this position is that whilst it is framed in a thoroughly abstract way it will affect a thoroughly concrete thing – people's lives. The problem is that an approach to free speech like Luke's, fails to take into account the pervasive unequal structures of our existing society.
As German-American philosopher, Marcuse argued in 1965, in Repressive Tolerance, notions like tolerance, freedom of speech and even the right to assembly only mean something when the society in which these are exercised is egalitarian. What use is it to insist on the right of protest when you have no power and nor any influence over the decision making process? What use is it to insist on the right to free speech when you lack the resources to be heard? For the vast majority of people, 'to be heard' in any meaningful sense however, is not possible. It is only when you have the money to carve yourself a niche of the media market that your views will be presented effectively. This is possibly all the more pertinent in the age of the Internet, where everyone can have a blog, yet only a few people and organisations have the resources and time to manufacture popularity for their blogs and websites.
Furthermore, as countless feminists and anti-racists have pointed out, being heard requires not only a capacity to speak but a willingness of listeners to take you seriously – something that all too often still is lacking for women and anyone who is not a straight white man. Men still dominate public discussion; black people and especially 'non-western' cultures are still commonly portrayed as primitive and unenlightened.
Marx, in Capital Vol. 1 pointed out that most citizens in bourgeois society are free in a double sense – free in the sense that all citizens are formally given equal rights, but also free from the material goods they need to access those formal equal rights. One has to argue similarly with free speech – whilst one can have a formal right to free speech, this does not guarantee actual free speech.
But Luke is not concerned with these wider definitions of free speech. They are concerned with their narrow, traditionally liberal notion of free speech, a notion restricted to the purely formal definition as to whether individuals are directly denied or prevented to speak. And they want to grant this right to everyone, even if this means undermining the wider issues around free speech mentioned above for structurally oppressed groups in our society, which is exactly what would happen if Fascists gain platforms to speak from.

Luke demonstrates an obsession with the formal right to free speech for an explicitly fascist and violent group that denies the structural forms of oppression which result in an increased threat of violence for specific groups within our society. Their claim, “no minority needs protecting”, epitomises the lack of awareness that predominates especially amongst middle- and upper-class white men. Instead of fighting patriarchy and racism, structures that cause rape, death and assault, unequal pay, social exclusion and silence, Luke believes that organising a platform for fascists (which directly undermines the fight against patriarchy, racism and capitalism) is an important political priority of our time...

Giving 'no platform' to fascists is not an abstract argument to be held in the halls of debating societies, but the result of a concrete struggle against fascist groups throughout this century. It has been proven time and time again that letting fascists speak is giving them a space to organise. Giving fascists a space to organise is the last thing we want. The no platform strategy is one pursued to avoid open conflict that will inevitably follow if fascists manage to get a foothold in a community (such as the attacks at Chapel street market 1981, and at the 'Jobs for a Change' festival 1984 to name just two).

Finally, Bob (Badger Nr. 10), asks us primarily what the No Platform Policy is and how it operates. We believe their question to be important and the Students Union should publish information as to how the policy is enforced. Further, like Luke, Bob maintains that there is a contradiction between a motion “to protect academic freedom and freedom of speech on campus” and the existing No Platform for Fascists. We have tried to explain some of the issues surrounding free speech above and we do not want to reiterate these – suffice to say that we as students in Sussex have to decide whether we are interested in a free speech based on a purely formal notion of equality of rights or in a concept of free speech that also emphasises the need for actual, material and social equality.

In opposition to Luke and Bob therefore, we want to maintain that it is possible, and students at Sussex should be proud of this, to maintain a commitment to free speech and the free exchange of ideas, whilst maintaining both concrete support for groups suffering from structural discrimination and a tactical and effective struggle against fascists – one that denies them the right to spread their politics and violence in our community.

Kate and Alex – Black Cat Group

Reading and Sources:
Huyssen, A. 'Women as mass culture' in After the Great Divide: Modernism, mass culture, Post-Modernism
Postone, M. 'Anti-Semitism and National Socialism' available at http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/postone1.html
Marx, K. Capital Vol. 1.
Marcuse, H. 'Repressive Tolerance' available at http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm

All work and low pay: students at work

A recent joint report released by the NUS and the TUC shows that over the last ten years, the number of students having to get part-time jobs while studying has risen by 54%.

Being a student isn’t what it used to be. I mean, sometimes in these days of loans and top-up fees it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always like this. After all, only ten years ago the fees didn’t exist at all. And before that we actually used to get given grants to go to uni! Times have changed now and with it, the student experience.

Obviously, we’ll always have the excessive drinking and wide-ranging immorality. That’s here to stay. But some things about being a student have changed drastically. A new report from the National Union of Students (NUS) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) shows that more students than ever are having to take up part-time jobs in order to fund their way through university. In fact, since 1996, the amount of full-time students in paid employment has risen by 54%. Female students have been hit even harder. While the last ten years has seen the amount of male students having to work increase by 47%, the amount of working female students rose by 67.5%!

Of course, some people, such as Bill Rammell, Higher Education Minister has claimed that students taking jobs is “nothing new” and is actually beneficial as many employers “want evidence that students have work experience”. The point that Bill seems to conveniently be missing is not the fact that students are getting jobs, but the scale on which it’s happening since his party first introduced higher education fees.

Another worrying trend is that working students tend to go into the most insecure and low paying jobs around. Two-thirds of all employed students end up in either the retail or the hospitality industry, which have the lowest rates of pay for part-time staff in the UK. Over the whole academic year, average wages for full-time students in continuous work is around £5.73 an hour.

Naturally, it’s not just the poor wages that us students have to complain about. Anyone who’s ever worked can tell you how the misery of having a job manages to worm its way into the rest of your life. Increased stress, fatigue, less time for studying, sleeping and socialising. It’s all there in the working life of a student. 40% of working full-time students said employment has a negative effect on their studies with more than half of part-time students echoing this sentiment.

Of those full-time students who felt their paid work had an impact on their studies, more than three-quarters stated that working meant they spent less time studying. Two-thirds reported that lack of time impacted on the quality of their studies and a similar proportion reported increased stress levels and feeling overloaded. 10% of students have thought about dropping out for financial reasons.

Here at Sussex university, some of us probably work more hours in one shift then we have contact hours in a week. Students with jobs work an average of 14 hours a week, many of us at Sussex have as little as seven or eight contact hours a week. Fees well spent?

It’s clear that university no longer means young people studying to prepare themselves for the workforce but actually involves them juggling the two simultaneously. The fact that we also find ourselves in those sections of the economy where low wages and high instability go hand in hand means that we have to do something about our situation. Workplaces aren’t just stressful environments but they can also be dangerous ones too with thousands of people being made ill or injured by their jobs. In some cases it can even lead to death, as happened to Sussex student Simon Jones in 1998 when he was killed on his first day working on Brighton docks. An estimated 20,000 people are killed by or at work each year .

So what can we do? We can’t rely on our bosses to look after us, after all, their job is to keep things business as usual. Even the nice ones still have to put profit before their staff. The only people we can rely on to look after us are our workmates, students or non-students, by knowing our rights and getting organised. At work, our strength is in the fact that when we stop working (or even just slow down), profit stops being made and from here, we can start to reach a deal for better conditions. Whether its for better wages, longer breaks or taxis home after a late night shift, we can achieve it through organisation. As much as the student experience may have changed, this has not.

To read the full report, click here

First published on Libcom.org by Ed