THE DEATH OF EXTREMISM AT CLUB MAC!!!
Universities often have a reputation as being extreme left wing - you know, tree huggin' free lovin' drug takin' hippies and all. Extremism was always "in" at uni. Well, the 90s has seen a new rebellion - a rebellion against extremism. It's very rare that you'll find even an experimental anarchist. Indeed, one of our tutors almost had a seizure when not one student would argue the case for a reading that advocated anarchism as a utopian society. Our university lecturers, re-living the glory days of holding hands with boys who dig girls who dig boys who dig boys like they're girls, bemoan the loss of the spirit of protest that beset our country's students in the Vietnam era. I suppose it's hard to get all teary eyed and militant about tax reform. And it sure is hard to be paranoid and angry about everything the Government does when your diet no longer revolves around the inhalation of marijuana. Even Government changes to HECS barely caused a ripple. Were our lecturers telling us the truth when they said that the most recent revolutions and social changes started off with uni students?
The final bastion of extremism was the university paper and student written publications. We could always find a rant on the virtues of vegetarianism and of course a recitation of the evils of multinational corporations. You would find the yearly spray on the evil Nestle for killing off poor African children with milk powder. And while the heartless columnists of tabloid journalism would say that the babies would've died of AIDS or poverty anyway (Nestle is doing them a favour), it was always good to see our newspaper at the fore of campaigns to boycott Nestle products (and they were banned in all union food outlets).
Another highlight of this incisive journalism came in the form of a guide to illicit drugs; how to injest them and the sensations that come with them. Of course, a disclaimer to cover their legal backsides was inserted saying that they didn't condone the use of illegal drugs. This was in spite of the author placing the hard drugs in the same category as alcohol:
"hey, alcohol is a drug, so anything else that comes after this one is comparable."
The disappointing thing about the article was that the authors didn't call for the legalisation of all the comparable drugs and instead stuck that disclaimer in. Was this a sign that even our most radical of publications could not withstand the 90s? Not that they weren't trying to withstand the increasing conservatism of the 90s when two years ago, the university almanac (given to all students on enrolment) discussed pregnancy and abortion. Girls were warned about the dangers of completing a pregnancy:
"IF YOU CHOOSE TO GO AHEAD WITH YOUR PREGNANCY, YOU MUST REALISE THAT YOUR LIFE WILL DRAMATICALLY CHANGE!"
This was contrasted to abortion, which was a painless procedure that would let a woman lead a normal life without having to make any changes at all to her status quo:
"an abortion can be performed safely until the eighteenth week (four months)"
I enjoyed reading this wonderful advice. I enjoyed the contradiction of the good fight they were leading against Nestle which aborted the lives of african babies, and at the same time supporting abortion for convenience sake. It was certainly refreshing to see at least one organisation care more about african babies than middle class (mainly white) fetus.
And now, their time has expired! The newspaper has gone conservative after the people running it were voted out. It is still left leaning, but compared to what we had before, it's like Musolini has moved in. To rub it in to the prior occupents of the newspaper, the new editors have in two issues published on the evils of abortion and have inserted politically incorrect jokes. A sampling:
Q. "If you have a leb, an asian, and an
aborigine in a car, who's driving?"
A. "A cop".
Q. What do you call an Australian who has an
abortion?
A. Smart.
Q. What do you call an Asian who has an abortion?
A. Crime Stopper.
I'm almost expecting a positive piece on the GST.
We here at the AV, mourn the loss of the student newspaper to more conservative voices. We enjoyed reading the ludicrous logic of the loony left. The only redemption the current editors have, is that they have a bit of "wog" in them - there has already been a 'wog' edition, and the student body is really looking forward to more stereotyping in the "yobbo" edition. We've moved from the era of a high intellect uni paper (anti-corporations, sustainable veganism, communism as saviour to third world poverty) to something more accessable to the ordinary club mac uni student: hot rods and VBs.
September 2000