Our vote matters
Not enough that only 23% of students vote
So the Oscars are over and the Wolf of Wall Street did not win Best Picture, regardless of the ongoing dreaminess of Leonardo DiCaprio.
Despite not winning the Academy’s finest honour, the shameless self promotion spirit of Jordan Belfort, DiCaprio’s character in the film, was alive and well at Mount Royal University last week, as Students’ Association elections were underway.
Yes, you may have been wondering why perfect strangers were stopping you in the hall and preaching to you the wonders of student bureaucracy and how only they can lead you to the promised land of practice legislation.
What this all amounted to was the commodification of student issues that allows —admittedly worthy candidates — to join the cult of bureaucracy and enter into the world that thrives on that same self promotion, greed and an ongoing obsession with staying within party lines.
What this system does is effectively isolate the ambitious of Mount Royal from those with actual student issues. This is not a symptom of SAMRU, but rather one of democratic systems in general.
The bureaucratic systems of government essentially separates empathy into commodities of speaking points that prop up a system of greed and ambition that turns good people into merely good politicians.
Legislative systems want us to believe that government is too complicated of an entity for the plebian and therefore can only be manipulated by those willing to completely devote and sell their selves to it.
Luckily for us, it doesn’t have to be this way. For those lucky determined folk who are elected into the elitist world of an elected official at SAMRU, you have the opportunity to not fall into bureaucracy and selfishness.
Not only do you need to remember the boastful claims you made during your election period, you also need to remember that you are a servant of the students of this school and they deserve your empathy.
In essence, The Reflector is asking you to feel rather than delegate; have compassion rather than craft legislation; and always remember your role of protecting the students of this school. Cut the greed and self-promotion and accept the challenge of being a champion for your electorate.
We at the ‘Flec will, as always, be along for the ride.
Congratulations to the new SAMRU executive council.
– The Reflector Staff
