Blood and Wine

The Student Council.

My history with student politics is complicated. Back in my secondary school, I started out as a Deputy Opposition Leader for Education, a fancy title which masks the fact that the only thing I did during my entire term was sit in on a grand total of three meetings where the entire Opposition party would gather all their sour grapes to make a rather nasty concoction for the Government at the next parliament session. That's all they did: complain.

Then our party managed to win the election the following term and suddenly we were the ones in the hotseat. All that time spent griping gave us a good idea of what to expect. I didn't have it easy; I was both Deputy Minister of Health and Minister of Information so there were two ministries to protect.

With these experiences, I thought I was ready to take on student politics on my own without the structure and support of an entire political party. I ran for Student Council when I entered Institut Sinaran for A-levels and promptly lost. I'd gone in without knowing a single thing about working the crowd. I'd gone into the election arrogant, believing that all my experience and talent would give me a clean edge over everyone else.

I was wrong. You can't win an election no matter how good or experienced you are if you can't win the crowd. Charisma matters a hell of a lot. And sometimes charisma and influence can hide an alarming emptiness in a person. Ability and competence take a backseat.

But when we're talking about appointing leaders, not electing them, ability matters a lot more than simple charisma. Sinaran's administration wanted a new election system that would not only increase the relevance of competence in the election but would also allocate candidates to the posts they were at least willing to accept. They wanted to appoint me as Chairman; I refused and became Advisor. I was already applying to come to Singapore and didn't want to cause a fuss in case I actually got the scholarship.

I did get it. When I returned three months later and crashed the college, the Council teacher advisors caught me hanging around and actually thanked me personally. Apparently the new Council did have to go through a more competitive election and they were happy with the results. I nodded and mumbled something appreciative, screaming inside to just get the hell out of there.

With new confidence, I flew back to Singapore with a renewed desire to try my luck again at my Junior College's Student Council. But things changed. Cheerleading made me reevaluate. My passion and love for all the stunts, pyramids and performances I could have with the Cheerleaders began to exceed whatever drive I had to join the Council. I wanted to stay on as Captain, especially when I'd learned from observing and being involved in student politics that you mostly do what the administration tells you to and little else. Student politics winning real policy changes is almost impossible because the administration doesn't have to do a damn thing you say.

The Council however has to listen everything the administration says. That's perfectly understandable of course; you can't have the Council saying one thing when the official message is completely the opposite. But most administrations are bloody conservative. Rules, Image, and the Status Quo are the gods they worship. And these fanatics willingly scythe away any and all that sounds even remotely heretical to their mantra.

So student-initiated changes are usually doomed to failure before they even start. When these conservatives, who just simply refuse to open their minds and even consider the merits of change, view your new ideas as "radical" and "dangerous," you can forget about them becoming reality.

And because almost all the new ideas challenge the god called Status Quo, students learn that while the official message is "We want your ideas," the unofficial one is "Shut up and be good." We learn and we stop bothering. The administration becomes happy now that their version of what's best for the students has been defended and the Council can stick with only what it's told and not much more. And usually it's to organize school events.

Then the Council is no longer a Student Council but a School Activities Club. It's less about making student life better and more of organizing and conducting efficient school events.

I can already hear the cries of denial. "That's not right! The Council is not just any School Activities Club. You have to elected!"

All right. I stand corrected, it's an exclusive School Activities Club. And by denying free participation, the Council courts inefficiency by ignoring and excluding the talents of truly exceptional ordinary students. The message here is "We don't need you. We can do it ourselves."

Can you smell the arrogance and pride? These are sins of Councils everywhere, not just the one I'm specifically haranguing right now. And it's a damn shame because Councils deliberately deny themselves these huge pools of talented volunteers. You'd think that as a School Activities Club, they'd welcome all these free experts and specialists just waiting to contribute. Obviously they're using a different system of logic. It's called "Idiocy."

If it isn't idiocy, tell me then, why should the Council be exclusive? The standard textbook answer is of course that Councillors are elected to become leaders of the Student Body. But are they really leaders? From my observations of my Junior College's Student Council, that argument is just rubbish. Idiocy. All that hype about Councillors being leaders is a simple lie. Because the number of Councillors who actually do lead are small: the executive committee, most of the house representatives, and perhaps a few truly excellent Councillors.

The rest? Members of the School Activities Club.

I agree with voting for leaders but voting for muscle is just redundant. Voting is about deciding on the best-qualified people to lead society. And we believed your hype and promises of being those best-qualified people when we voted for you to become our leaders, damn it. Now you exist to support the Council's functionings, perform menial labor, work logistics and brainstorm. But you're not doing what we voted you to do. You're not leading us.

You are a doer, not a leader. You are an ordinary member of an organization that serves the students. I don't think there's a good reason why you have to be elected to do that. Except for the creation of an elitist society of course.

You walk with a swagger that does not reflect your true redundancy. Many Councillors are redundant not because they don't work (they do and I really appreciate that) but because they don't lead. They are redundant because every student can organize and conduct school activities as well as they can. We should have the damn right to; we are rightfully members of the School Activities Club since it's our school too, not just yours.

Then what does the Council do? Lead! The whole point of an election is after all to select the most capable people as our leaders. The Student Council must really be the executive committee to the School Activities Club. It's not completely unheard of. The political parties of La Salle Kota Kinabalu's student parliament are open to membership, whether to help plan and conduct school events as the Government or criticize as the Opposition to act as checks and balances. The Cabinet and the Opposition Leaders act as executive committees to the two parties and are internally elected or appointed.

Don't like two-party parliaments? Institut Sinaran has a Student Council system of subcommittee heads elected into power through elections in addition to a President, Secretary and Treasurer. These subcommittees are completely composed of volunteers acting as the Council's manpower and talent pool which it directs and allocates to work.

These aren't exclusive clubs. Anyone can join. When so many people are part of your labor force, outsourcing and the proud reluctance to do so is minimized. Usually the better people get selected for the right jobs. Though I never did volunteer myself into any subcommittee, I was invited and became Master of Ceremony for many of my old college's events. I even have a damn Meritous Service commendation.

Student participation will be high when you just let the students participate. They want to be involved in school events, not just watch people dance and clap without any feeling for what's happening. It's their school, not the Council's.

The Council is a leadership body. The Councillors need to lead, not just do. We can do. Heck, some of us even want to do. You just lead. Involve us; it's not that difficult. It's as simple as the Council's artistic directors asking volunteers from their own Houses to sit with them and combine all that artistic talent together. You have photographers and artists and writers just waiting, just like all the other actors and singers and cheerleaders who would be proud to don school or House colors and contribute.

But you never do. Instead you pretend to lead and you are arrogant because you insist you are a leader when you're not. The state of my tagboard should be an obvious sign that my comments on the Student Council's arrogance in my previous post really struck a nerve with some people. I won't apologize. I stand by my opinion that many Councillors are arrogant. They act like they really deserve being Councillors when anyone could've done what they just did. There are people with more time and more skill out there after all.

You were elected because we felt you were the best people to lead us. So, damn it, lead. We all have passion that burns but you were chosen to channel yours down a different path: to help us channel ours down another. Because ultimately we all want the same thing: a great and exciting school life.
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