Responsibility to Represent

I want to talk a litle bit about how I feel student politicians, and politicians in general, should act. In particular I want to talk about the responsibility to listen to the general public and act on what they hear. I have given this issue a lot of thought since the Macleans debate and I will use that debate as an example of what I'm talking about.

The Macleans debate centred on whether the UVSS should do anything in response to the "Too Asian" article. The UVSS Board meeting that discussed this was the most well attended board meeting so far this term, and every attendee that spoke was in favour of boycotting Macleans. The board eventually voted in favour of the boycott, but there were some that voted against it. There were a couple reasons for the votes against: one was that because people thought the article was problematic, but a boycott would amount to censorship (I strongly disagree, and stated why at the board meeting, and won't get at that here as its not the true focus of this post), and the other is that the article didn't bother them combined with ideology of the first reason.

As for me, when I read the article, it didn't bother me. When the issue came before the board, I voted in favour of the boycott. Now why in the world would I choose to boycott something that didn't bother me? The simple reason is that I am on the board to represent the student body as a whole, not just myself and my viewpoint. I am not asian, so the article did not target me. However, many asian students, as well as other students, expressed to me that this was a racist article and that we should, as their representatives, do what we could to make their displeasure known to Macleans. As a student representative, it was my responsibility to listen to their concerns and act upon them. To do anything otherwise would be to not do my job.

The counter-argument to my reasoning is that it was simply a vocal minority and that the majority of students either don't care, or against the issue. I don't buy this argument for two reasons. The first reason is that the "vocal minority" in this case were the people directly affected by the article. Of course it didn't bother most people, they aren't asian. It was the asian community that stood up and said this bothered them. When a minority group says they have concerns that they are being targeted, they are the people you should be listening to.

The second reason is more what I want to focus on in this post as it steps away from the Macleans issue and addresses a problem I have seen in most governing bodies. The reason that I don't buy the whole "vocal minority" argument in this case and most cases is that by labelling a group a "vocal minority" you are delegitimizing what they have to say whether they represent a broader portion of the community or not. An important point here is that we don't know for sure whether they do represent the larger community or are just a vocal minority. The majority of people aren't vocal, that's why they aren't called the vocal majority, and we can't assume that we know what they want. All we can do as representatives is listen to the people that are talking to us, but who are these people?

In student government, as well as other governments, I am going to artificially narrow down who is talking to us into two general groups: our circle of friends that have access to us all the time (in other governments I equate this to the large business interests that always have access to the government) , and groups that campaign on a certain issue, the "vocal minorities". Often times these to groups conflict on how the government should address an issue (far less in student politics than at other levels). In this case, who should you listen to? Of course you should listen to both groups as they will both provide unique perspectives, but in the end, you have to make a decision to act one way or another, or make a compromise between the two. This is very difficult even for those with the best of intentions.

Sometimes there is no room for compromise, like if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees society as we know it will exist no more so every country has to do everything they can to reduce their impacts... wait, that's a really bad example. A better example is the Macleans motion that went before the board. It was either boycott Macleans or do nothing. There was a compromise amendment proposed that was to just write a letter, but in reality that would be to do nothing; Macleans would get that letter, say "how nice", and then throw it in the garbage. So really you have to make a decision to act or not to act.

When making the decision to act, or not to act, there are two key factors (note: I have noticed that I am incedibly binary in writing this post) that should go into deciding which group to side with. One factor is who is affected by this issue. I am far more inclined to listen to people who are genuinely effected "vocal minority" by an issue in a way that prevents them from participating in the community, effects their health, or effects their means of survival. Their arguments hold more weight for me than someone "friend" who not effected by an issue. It is for this reason that I weighed the point of view of the asian community in the Macleans debate over any other view.

The second factor is not related to the Macleans debate, and often not to student politics at all. This is who stands to gain financially or in power from a decision that has to be made. For example, if you have a tar sands company "business friend" that says there should be no regulation on them, and an environmental group "vocal minority" that says there should be, I am much more inclined to side with the environmental group because they have nothing to gain financially whereas the tar sands company does. Therefore, the tarsands company is far more likely to lie to you, or at least withhold the truth.

Now I want to talk about a third group that you should listen to that I neglected to mention earlier. This is your fellow representatives. So many times I get frustrated at board meetings and feel that discussion is pointless because people don't listen to each other. The purpose of government should not be to oppose and attempt to embarrass to other by trying to find flaws in an argument. The purpose should be to provide different points of view and really listen to each other and then come to a decision by addressing concerns. There are some people on the board that do this very well, but there are others that refuse to be swayed by others on the board no matter what the situation. I find this to be unacceptable and it defeats the purpose of even having meetings.

So in summary, we as student representatives have a responsibility to listen to students on campus when they come to us with an issue. We also have a responsibility to listen to each other. Once we have truly done these things, we then have the responsibility to take actions to represent the students as we said we would.

Rob McDonald