Radical Politics & The University of Queensland

Radical Politics & The University of Queensland : Staff & Student Activism

Speaker addressing students, Relax Block, St. Lucia Campus

Talking - a free form democracy

If we designate the height of the movement in Australia as roughly 1966 through to the mid-seventies, there was a shared cultural ethos for much of that time. A crucial element in this was the Forum Area where very frequent debates happened, from an open platform. In the earlier period the audience would gather on the grass under a tree and on the surrounding paved areas and covered way. Changes to the area seemed to express a kind of architectural hostility to its use as a Forum. By the time of the second civil liberties struggle in 1977 the audience area had been built out. The speakers still occupied the covered way but faced east.

The ‘Relax block’ ¹² was another site of informal exchange, meetings and conferences. Both areas became central during teach-ins, quasi-strikes (mass skipping of classes) and an actual strike in 1971. At those times, forums and meetings happened on a daily basis.

The university ethos at the time was perceived by many as arid, instrumental and closed to issues and ideas, in fact as anti-intellectual. But the three term teaching and end of year examinations structures actually allowed ample time for talk, and the (sole) eatery ‘The Refec’ (The Refectory) was the site for this, as much as classes, homes, meetings, the Relax Block or the Forum Area.

Most students at the time did not usually work during term but many did during vacations. After 1973 they did not have fees to pay, scholarships were common. The materiel of living was minimal and the inducements to consume rudimentary, compared to later generations.

Student rally at the Forum Area

From requirements to wear suits and dresses, student culture rapidly arrived at a uniform of t-shirts, jeans and footwear like thongs (sandals), army disposal jungle boots, Dunlop Volleys (tennis shoes), or no footwear at all. When without a car many chose to hitch-hike. There was a long area of broad footpath at the end of Schonell Drive, St Lucia — the 'hitching area'. Most drivers picked up student hitchers, at least intermittently.

Dan O'Neill, one of the leading activists, wrote in 1969: "The debate and tumult of 1967 persisted in voice, deed and written word until the examination period itself ... there were many students who made almost palpable the feeling that, after all, the examinations were not the central part of the pursuit of knowledge, and the practice of critical reasoning. The forum was held sometimes up to three times a week right into November and a communal breakthrough seemed to have been made. Refectory trivia gave way to serious discussion, and immature groupings based on prejudice broke up in a new climate of serious camaraderie." ¹³

And again in 1976:

"There was a fascination in listening to the speeches in the forum area in those early years. People would stand around for hours of the afternoon watching as their fellows stood forth and began to exist in a new way, listening as the spoken word broke a long enchantment, moved us day after day to a new vision of the world in which we as individuals and as groups seemed, for the first time to have a part". ¹⁴

Dan O'Neill