The Style of Student Politics

The questions are: how should the student body be organized to make proper demands from the political sphere, and what type of demands should the student body make? What is the style in which the student body appears as a political body? How will the student body become more influential politically? We are concerned in this post in attempting to explore ways in which the student body can be made a stronger force in politics, but also not to play into the political apparatus and arena as it exists, but rather be more original in youthful political expression, voice and actions. Among other things, we will attempt to see a shift from the student body's ego being modeled on the older politician, to the youthful ego itself being the ideal ego for all types of politicians. 'Youth as ideal ego,' insofar as it elicits real identification from older members and styles in politics, is precisely the more positive identity of the student body in the political apparatus.  

We must first situate the problem of the student body in terms of its lack of self-identity and its faulty mobilization. The student body does not come forward as a group of youth, it does not highlight and emphasize the subjective experiences of youth in its approach towards the political level. Rather, the student body has been depoliticized in a certain mode, and has been 'made labor,' meaning that it is made into a labor force for the purposes of the usage of its energy for the vocalization of political demands. On the flip-side of 'sexual frustration,' for instance, is asexual and political energy...the libido as sex-drive channeled towards a protest movement...the organization of politics depending on one's orientation towards sexuality...the perverted student as the leader of the political sphere, for he enjoys the beatings. All of this shows not too little investment towards the political (we do not, like the West, suffer from apathy towards politics among the youth), but too much investment, beyond a 'spiritual' investment towards a physical investment; politics becomes means of subsistence in life, it begins to give life substance and structures life with a meaning. Enabling this is a wide plethora of books and other materials, romanticizing the political struggle over the political gain...the student body has no history, no legacy...and so, the student body is only important as a resistive force in politics, it is prized for its physicality, it is exploited for its youthfulness in terms of the energy available to expend; but once one party is truly powerful, there is no need for the student body. One reason for its lack of access to power is because the student body is forever the object of education and therefore will be educated differently, or problematized to such a degree that a different education is demanded as a solution; the party acts upon the student to problematize it, indeed, it is only the student body which has become the object of self-criticism from the party. Additionally, what is important is the issue of identification: the student's ego, always looking for education, a model, an ideal, identifies with the ego of the politician, and attempts to replicate the archaic life-path of the older politician: old fashioned street protests are mimicked for this reason. There is a generational similarity between the old and new where the younger imitates the older as an ideal ego. The student body should break off with this image of the older ideal ego. And the older politician is satisfied with this idealization, precisely because he/she confuses this basic level identification with actual political influence.   

What the students lack is a maturity in the formal political game. And to counter this, the components of its organization need to be well developed: beneath a leader should be sub-leaders and beneath them more sub-leaders, in other words, an entire hierarchical organization of the members; an institutionalization of the student body; a delegation  of responsibility and authority, but even more so a predictability within the political apparatus so that other political actors start to believe that the student body has actual political clout...the politicized student body is too fragile and temporary today. Even more so, the romanticizing of politics must be ignored, it has led the student body to take to the protest movement too easily, while the arena of more important politics, such as global-level politics, is more favorable to keeping an image of order; the goal of global politics being not so much to maintain peace, but to maintain an image of peace, to keep the streets peaceful even if the policies are causing much conflict 'in private' rooms; 'peace' has become a sign of maturity rather than power. What is most important to understand is that, in such a scenario, it is not so much that the student finds too much enemy on the streets, but that the student finds no one there to oppose it, it is rather alone in the streets, and its protests do not fall on the ears of those that are alienated from that type of political organization. In this sense, the student body is an immature political organization, for even when it is in full volume, nobody cares for it, nobody is willing to hear it...the movement of vehicles and people in the recent strike in Nepal showed how the students protesting were ignored, as if their political voice and will didn't exist; but people generally assume that the students are harboring ways of doing politics which are today a thing of the past. But, as we have tried to explain, they weren't ignored because they are weak politically, but that they come off as too strong, they demonstrate an intensity in reality which is inspired by their political and politicized fantasies.

In a sense, we are looking at the style of doing politics. We understand that this style has shifted, that the world does politics differently these days. First, the student body must find an original voice underlined by its unique subjective position of being the youth of this world; the student, related to the ideology heavy school, must instead understand and address himself/herself and others of his/her age as youth. Youth are not the object of the same level of intense discipline as students are. Youth are not immature, but rather in the cusp between maturity and immaturity, where there is a general disinterested distance towards the mature world. There is a hesitation in action. Most importantly, as a semblance, the youth would be more of an image of the political than reality. In one sense, then, the reading of distance from politics as apathetic is incorrect, because the youthful political agents are more careful and aware even in their distance from politics; they are going towards the post-political with an awareness of the political as problematic. Indeed, from the recent strike in Nepal, we do have an example of what youthful politics looks like: the empty bag that was suspected of being a bomb proved how the youth are borrowing from other struggles in the world, but only in the realm of distance and images, because the bag is empty...as if to say the student is not a student because there were no books in the school bag, but a member of the youth, who will play with the conception that we associate with a bag on the street. Say No to bombs? OK...but I will say No to books too as a Nepali youth! It is a borrowing of the style of doing politics from abroad rather than being too seriously involved. It is a way of saying that if elements of the global-level political have been kept away from the youth, the youth will themselves mysteriously inaugurate signs, such as the empty bag signifying terrorism, to play with the global-level political.