Academic Asylum Ended in Greece

Greek parliament votes in education reform bill that abolishes academic asylum and free course readers and brings sweeping changes to university administration: first reactions from the ground

August 24, 2011 Occupied London

On August 24th, the Greek parliament voted in the education reform bill
submitted by education minister Anna Diamantopoulou, which included some
of the most sweeping changes the country’s educational system has seen in
living memory. The law introduces a UK-style administration of
universities, with external individuals and non-academics taking part in
the running of institutions and assessment-based and industry-oriented
funding. Students are given a maximum amount of time to complete their
courses, or face expulsion; the so-far compulsory distribution of free
course readers to students is abolished, who also lose their say in the
running of their institutions and are given a provision for student loans
– speculation being rife that this is a first step toward the introduction
of undergraduate fees.

In a very last minute tweak of the education bill, Diamantopoulou
announced the complete abolishing of the historical Academic Asylum (which
prevented police from entering academic grounds in the name of the freedom
of expression) and the election of university vice-chancellors primarily
from their academic community. The last minute changes aimed at, and
succeeded in gaining the consensus of the Conservative party of Nea
Dimokratia, which voted for the law along with the PASOK government MP’s
and the far-right LAOS party.

Hours earlier, 1500-2000 students demonstrating in central Athens (in
35C!) where clashing with the police, while demonstrations also took place
against the education reform bill in Thessaloniki, Heraklion and Patras.



Greece: The ‘Metapolitefsi’ has legally ended

August 24, 2011 Contra Info

On Wednesday noon, August 24th, Container squat in the University campus
in Zografou, Ilissia district, has been invaded and evicted. The occupied
container was smashed, and all items were removed and confiscated.
Students from the occupied Refectory building at the Propylaea in downtown
Athens called for a discussion–briefing at 9 pm regarding these
developments.

Hours earlier, about 2,000 students demonstrated in central Athens while
demonstrations also took place against the education reform bill in
Thessaloniki, Heraklion (Crete) and Patras. Nevertheless, the Greek
parliament voted in the education reform bill submitted by the minister of
Education Anna Diamantopoulou which included some of the most sweeping
changes the country’s educational system has seen in living memory.

In a very last minute tweak of the education bill, the minister announced
the complete abolishing of the historical university asylum (which
prevented police from entering academic grounds in the name of the freedom
of expression) and the election of university vice-chancellors primarily
from their academic community.

Needless to say, the university asylum has been violated in practice
numerous times during the ‘Metapolitefsi’ and especially over the past
years.



In academic asylum my whole life.

August 25, 2011 Occupied London

I was born in the year 1982. The year when the first CD player came out,
when TIME magazine would name the computer as its “man of the year” and
here in Greece, the year when Academic Asylum came into law. It is strange
to think how seemingly inane objects and conventions shape so much of our
being: just like us and our coevals in countries across the world couldn’t
perhaps imagine life without a computer these days, I could equally not
imagine life without academic asylum, this peculiar little piece of
legislation. But waking up this morning, the asylum was gone.

Growing up in what felt as the turbulent nineties, we had always known
spaces of academic asylum had our back: during the high school student
occupations at the turn of the decade ours was the last school standing,
located as it were just inside the local university’s campus – therefore
just outside the reach of police. Such a strange concept, this demarcation
of the spatial boundaries of power, and yet one that we had entirely
accustomed ourselves to. As we continued to grow up I cannot even recall
how many times we found refuge in a university building, chased or beaten
by riot police, demonstration after demonstration. And I cannot begin to
think what would have happened if the asylum wasn’t there.

The Asylum was introduced in response to the junta killing of university
students during the Polytechnic Uprising of 1973. Rather than a kind
commemorative gesture, this was a testament by power that it had gone too
far; an effort to curtail its reach for its own good, to preserve its
perpetuation. This idea, after all, is far from new: a few millennia ago
those chased by authority would seek asylum in spaces of religious
worship. To violate this asylum was a hybris that was expected to be
crushed by divine nemesis. This religiously veiled conceptualisation hid a
very plain truth: ram your power too far down peoples’ throat and they
will fight you back. The asylum was a two-way social contract. For all
their declared love for all things Ancient Greek, the masterminds of its
abolition in Greek parliament yesterday didn’t seem to realise this.

As of today this social contract is void. It is an eery, even chilling
feeling. Not quite like losing a loved person, more like losing a solid
certainty about your ways of acting and interacting with the world. But
the staggering reality remains: one of the most rigid social agreements of
the post-dictatorial times was breached overnight, an abrupt political
hybris calling for its social nemesis._



Greece clears police to enter university campuses

August 25, 2011 Associated Press

Greece has abolished restrictions that made it difficult for police to
enter university campuses, which have become a hotbed for protests against
the country's austerity measures.

The new law also reduces the say of student political parties in academic
administration.

Lawmakers passed the new legislation on Wednesday, which left-wing parties
opposed.

Under previous freedom of expression laws, police could only enter
university grounds with rarely-granted permission from academic
authorities.

That system was widely abused, particularly by rioting youths who would
hole up in university buildings to attack police during the past year's
protests against the tough austerity measures.

They are being imposed in an effort to bail Greece out of its crippling
economic crisis.