By Saanika Sudeep and Vedosi Karmarkar
On the 28th of February, students from all the university colleges in the Netherlands were invited to University College Utrecht to attend the UCSRN Symposium. The University College Student Representatives of The Netherlands (UCSRN) provides a platform for University College students to share knowledge and voice common concerns. This year, the symposium focused on student activism: a group of panellists from various activist organisations, dealing with issues ranging from climate change and feminism to sexual violence and support for Isreal-backed organisations, were invited to share their thoughts on the topic of students’ agency in political affairs.
The panel discussion brought up speakers’ first memories of activism, failures and resilience in their respective paths, and the importance of community within activism. It also emphasised how students can get involved with these causes as well as how privilege can be wielded to “speak for those who cannot speak for themselves”.
A rousing speech by the chair of the organising committee, Rana Kechriotis, kicked off the event. Among the other speakers were: Anna Graves from Amnesty International, Sarah Mottet from Feminist Club Amsterdam, Simcha Zijlstra representing Greenpeace, James Herbert from Effective Altruism, Ilse Puper from Right to Play, Iris Bouman representing QueerUStories, and Piet Rietman from Humanity in Action. Two student organisations founded in Utrecht University were also present: Speak, represented by Leyla Duru Gürsan, and UU Student Encampment, represented by Kareem el Amine.
Leyla Duru told the audience about the first time she was objectified, expressing the power of collaborative action: “When I was fifteen, I stopped wearing bras under my shirt. I was pulled out of class at school and reprimanded. When I told this to my friends, every single person in my class took their own bras off, and we spent the rest of the day like that”. Her classmates’ support led her to feel that “collaborative action eases the mind”, a sentiment also shared by Sarah Mottet of FCA. “Activism […] is about supporting each other”.
The panellists also spoke about the ways in which they have maintained resilience in the face of failure and the resistance of larger organisations. Anna Graves of Amnesty International shared about her experience dealing with universities. “Sometimes universities don’t support student-based activism. It’s something that makes me quite angry. We’re forced to abide by the rules, so we often have to rely on personal connections and word of mouth”.
However, resilience is often followed by ‘activist burnout’, a term used frequently in the discussion. To safeguard one’s activism, Zijlstra (Greenpeace) advised the attendees to categorise groups as allies, opponents, or those who can be convinced to join the cause. This distinction between groups was unanimously advised as a helpful tool to conserve the resources and energy that an individual has as an activist. This idea of conservation of energy was supported by the representative of Effective Altruism Herbert: “In a word: prioritisation. Think carefully about the most pressing issues, and what you should spend the most time on”.
Following the panel, attendees expressed their admiration for the speakers and spoke of their own experiences with activism. First-year UCU student Francesca Daviet said, “I feel like activism is a very broad and relevant topic right now, so I was really interested to see how [the speakers] would tackle it.” Another perspective was offered by Kashish Varma Das, a first-year student at UCU, who stated that this was a novel experience: “Where I’m from, activism, especially student activism, is not that big of a thing. Protests are not widely attended. So I think I really need a lot of exposure, and I felt like this event would be a great way to get a little bit of that”.
Students also majorly attributed the symposium’s success to the cross-university connection and the varied perspectives offered by the speakers. Nielsen commented that the event was a great way to meet students from different university colleges. Saska Bourgoin Hasperue, another first-year UCU student, also found it fascinating how “all the different activist groups were giving different perspectives on the same topic”.
The symposium turned out to be enlightening amongst students in more ways than one. Das reflected on the many forms of activism which don’t require sacrificing one’s personal safety, especially as an international student: “This [symposium] shows you that there are ways that you can practice advocacy, where you can play with knowledge distribution, and knowledge creation, which are all just as important in creating a change”.
All interviewed UCU students shared a sense of pride for the UCU students on the panel. Leyla Duru Gürsan and Kareem el Amine acted as role models for the students present as they made astute and perceptive points, not afraid to critique their university’s management and demand attention to the issues they were speaking up for. Bourgoin Hasperue expressed her admiration for her fellow students’ passion: “Seeing Kareem being so passionate about what he’s doing, you could feel that it was something that really mattered to him. […] All of the points that [Leyla] was making were really interesting and nuanced”. The interviewed UCU students reported being really excited to see Leyla and Kareem continue to foster change, and were grateful that the symposium provided a spotlight for these activist organisations.
The UCSRN Symposium was as much about passing the torch to future generations of student activists as it was about recognising the efforts of established activists. Once the plenary concluded, the speakers broke off and hosted individual booths where attendees could approach and engage in one-on-one conversations. The students were then invited to the UCU student bar for a celebratory borrel.
The importance of this year’s UCSRN Symposium cannot be understated. Kechriotis summed this up succinctly: “I truly felt that it was such a resonant and vital topic to address, especially with the political landscape right now, with the loss of hope in our communities, and with the absolute necessity to resist”. When asked about her core mission for the symposium, she said she wanted a diverse panel that tackled multiple global issues: “We wanted speakers to represent decoloniality, education, environment, feminism, and queerness”.
She recognized these categories as key to selecting the speakers: “I was extremely set on getting a balanced panel to ensure intergenerational dialogue between student activists themselves and people who have chosen to carry their activism to the center of their professional lives”. Kechriotis had often observed power dynamics between professional activists and student activists, as panels she had previously attended would not touch upon “what colours the positionality of students themselves”. The organising team wanted to dismantle this in the UCSRN Symposium by having what Kechriotis described as an “intergenerational, intersectional, and inclusive” panel.
The student body left the symposium feeling inspired and moved by the many different accounts of activism presented by the panel. The event was nothing short of a success, and left students excited for the remaining events that UCSRN will host this year: notably, the UCSRN tournament, hosted here at AUC on April 11th. The organising team hoped that the attendees’ final takeaway from the event was one of encouragement. As Kechriotis said: “[Activism] can seem very disillusioning sometimes […] what I wanted people to leave with was a sense of hope. Because I think that’s what we fight for all of the time. I would be so, so happy if people had at least a small semblance of hope in their hearts while leaving tonight”.
The Herring 