So yes, AUC students are striking again this semester against the tuitions’ increase. As a current AUC student, I support their cause, the increase every fall in the fees is absurd regarding the service we get in return and the lack of transparency in the financial affairs of the university. Limited food outlets, difficulty in courses registration and the bureaucratic system that takes place in every department are just some of the problems faced by the students, let alone the countless issues that the security and workers struggle from.
What happened this fall? Like every other fall, students strike for weeks and no action from the administration is taken whatsoever.
What’s new? Well, today was different, strikers decided to close the gates from 7 am and prevent anyone from getting in. Over 400 students and faculty members gathered in front of the gates and locked them with chains till 12:30 pm. The university attempted to send a wire cutter to break the chains on the gates but students stopped them by putting their hands on the chains!
Nizar El Zenaty, current SU vice-president was one of the strikers, “I am not a representative of the SU today.” said Nizar. “We decided to close the gates today because after taking all the negotiation roots, we were completely ignored by the administration. This action was also taken years ago by students at AUC and it was the only time through history that the fees decreased. I think what happened today was peaceful as the clashes were all contained.”
If strikers think that this action is effective and peaceful then why did they open the gates again? Nizar’s reply was that it turned out that students themselves did not want to attend their classes and those strikers were not a minority of the students anymore. Also he thinks that it was very disrespectful that the university didn’t cancel classes.
The question is: Are these students actually the majority? Does everyone really approve this action? Mohamed Ashraf, AUC Alumni had a different opinion about today’s incident. “What happened today was definitely unorganized due to the lack of any kind of planning before the action was taken. I do support the cause of the strike but I do not support today’s action. Comparing it to last year’s strike, we had more than 2000 students supporting our cause, yet we didn’t take the action of closing the gates because we weren’t considered the majority of the university. It takes two people on each gate to close it but you need more than 50% of the university’s support to justify such an action.” exclaimed Mohamed.
Mohamed thinks that the action itself was not approached properly because a successful student movement is the one that convinces students to take an action without forcing them to. He also thinks that the strikers did not think of how to handle the situation if the students backfired and insisted on getting in and attending their classes.
What’s going to happen now? Well, no one has the slightest idea and I bet the strikers themselves do not have a plan yet. All I know is that scenario has been repeated through the years and if there was any possibility of decreasing the fees, it would have happened years ago. Call me pessimistic, but I learned my lesson the hard way the past 4 years in this university and of course I do hope that one day this corrupt institutionalized failure changes, somehow.
Let’s take you back a year when all the forces including students, faculty members and workers all grouped up together to protest against the raise in fee’s as well as the minimum wage the workers were receiving.