a univeristy story

why biden won

a uniVersity story

“tHe PaSt iS Gone and cannot Harm you anymore. and wHile tHe future iS faSt cominG for you, it alwayS flincHeS firSt and SettleS in aS tHe Gentle PreSent.”

It’s another year here at Adelaide Uni and by now there should be a sense of settlement. Routines established, class locations learned, acquaintances made, friendships solidified, old flames rekindled, old rivalries ready to be reignited, and one’s own aspirations thriving somewhere in there. First-year or old-timer, we are the student body, and we are what makes this community. The student experience is unlike any other, and the growing, unlearning, relearning, shifting, expanding, and realising is done when you put yourself in spaces that force you to question, to respond, to act, and to feel. It’s done when there is movement, both internally and externally. There is so much to university life outside the lecture hall and tutorial room. This is the time to get involved, to sow the seeds that are bound to grow into whatever your hands will have sent forth. If we do what’s good now, it will leave from us with praise as it settles in the future, waiting. There is a responsibility here on these grounds, now, during these times, and it’s waiting to be adhered to. The year is new, a fresh page has been turned, and even though the past is behind us, we have used it as a reminder. Learn about the history of this university. The old and the recent. As university students, we are under an education system that needs to be recognised for what it is: a slave to the free market-producing, profit-driven, money hungry, business-like, status quo-serving institution. And it needs to be challenged. Take everything you are taught in class with a grain of salt. Professors and textbooks aren’t always right. Professors and textbooks play the role of serving the institution’s goals and not always for the genuine advancement of student welfare. Make sure that most of your learning is happening outside of the classroom. Attend campus events. More importantly, attend student protests and discover the reason why they are happening. The veil of what the university is involved in is very thin. Be courageous enough to uncover it. Understand the role of the university in gentrification, in Israeli apartheid, weapons-manufacturing, policing, fossil fuels, and do something about it. Don’t settle and don’t let them convince you that you can’t change it. The power of change is in your hands, waiting to be put out there to do its work. Every radical change that has occurred in the history of human civilisation has happened because revolutionaries and martyrs have witnessed their time and strived for another vision. The message of the revolutionaries truly contains good news for us. We should sharpen our hearing abilities so that we can hear this message. The message from the revolutionaries is about negating fear and sorrow. So be brave. Be brave in your art. Be brave in your activism. Be brave in your unlearning. Be brave in your relearning. Be brave in your inner revolution. And be brave in your repairing, rebuilding, and pursuing.

Photography by Tiah Bullock

WORDS BY Habibah Jaghoori