Letter to the Editor

By Ramzi Rafih
 

In line with No Frontiers' aim of raising student awareness and involvement in social and political issues, the group has launched, since the start of the year, a comprehensive campaign, including conferences, movie screenings, and exhibitions. NF's constant effort to increase student activism is confirmed through its participation in the Student Representative Committee elections.

   Student elections are essential for fostering democratic citizenship at a national level. While elections are a necessary stage of our activism, they are not a goal in themselves. Throughout our campaign, we focused on having a participatory process, and held workshops in which SRC candidates and their friends learned more about student governance, came up with their own platform, and divided tasks among themselves.

   Being an independent student group with no presence off-campus, No Frontiers has to constantly reach out to students. Elections presented an opportunity for the group to introduce itself to the community: we handed out our declaration of principles, platform and achievements, and released political statements. 

   Politically, we tried throughout these elections to unite the diverse opposition parties with which we have political affinities. However, conflicting issues between different political parties made an alliance unreachable. Consequently, No Frontiers ran alone, and coordinated in specific places with the Progressive Youth Organization, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Democratic Assembly. Our groups together won a landslide victory.

   No Frontiers' activism is not limited to the elections and encompasses various levels of student life. The group tried to get students to participate by showing them they could make a difference. We trust that students who worked on the elections will not stop there, and will channel their potential along with their newly acquired experience for the benefit of the community. The general public's attention, as reflected by the media, stops at the political shape-up of the Student Representative Committees. However, for us, the real challenge has just begun.

Ramzi Rafih