NSF convention: ‘Progressive’ students of Pakistan unite!

NSF seeks to end privatisation of education, restore student unions.

FAISALABAD:

The National Student Federation (NSF) met after 21 years in Faisalabad.

Speakers at the concluding session of the national students’ federation stressed the need for progressive student organisations of the country to unite in their struggle against the ‘status quo’.

“Pro state elements such as Imran Khan are capitalising on the absence of a genuine progressive organisation representing the students and the youth in general,” said Balochistan Students Organisation (Punjar) member Amir Baloch. Baloch asked the NSF to convene an All Pakistan Students Conference on the state-sponsored targeted killings of Baloch people.  He highlighted the atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army and intelligence agencies in the province, “We will welcome an army that vows to protect our borders and not kill our people because they demand ownership of their resources,” he said. Baloch also urged students in the Punjab to avail quotas available to them in Baloch educational institutes. He said the BSO would ensure the security of such students.

Mehboob Yousafzai of the Pakhtun student organisation said that Pakistan could only be a federation if all ethnicities were made equal stakeholders and allowed full ownership of their resources. “There is a need to change the impression that all Pakhtuns are terrorists,” he said. “The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Lashkar-i-Islam and Harkatul Mujahideen have all been created and are being supported by intelligence agencies. Peace will be established in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the day these state-sponsored and foreign jihadis are expelled from our land,” he said.

Representatives of student bodies from Jammu Kashmir and Sindh supported the PSO and BSO delegates’ call for increasing communication among progressive student bodies.

The convention ended with musical performance by rock musician Arieb Azhar.  Earlier, the NSF organised a rally from Dhobi Ghat to the district courts in support of its demand for the abolition of “the three-tiered education system, the commercialisation of education and lifting of the ban on student unions”.

Alia Amir Ali of the NSF said that the organisation will work with left-wing political parties of the country to “change the state’s priorities from security to the welfare of its people”.

She said that a political struggle led by youngsters, who comprise almost 65 per cent of the population, was the only way to bring about an improvement.

Talking to The Express Tribune, she said the organisation was still in its infancy and that there was a long way to go before it could be organised to the level it commanded in the 60s. She referred to the rising unemployment and extremism among the youth and said it was high time progressive student bodies present themselves as an alternative to right-wing student groups on the campuses of most public sector universities. “In a short span of two years the NSF has already established chapters in most of the districts of the province,” she said.

During a closed session on Friday, the NSF Punjab chapter elected its office bearers. Irfan Chaudhry was elected the president, Alia Amir Ali general secretary, Muhammad Babur senior vice president, Nasir Sohail vice president, Ali Hasan information secretary, Ali Raza joint secretary and Usman Chaudhry as the finance secretary.

Over 500 people attended the convention. Majority of the participants were students from public sector colleges and also included representatives of the Progressive Youth Front and Labour Qaumi Movement. Besides NSF delegates from various public sector universities of the province, the open session was also attended by members from Pakhtun Students Organisation (PSO), Balochistan Students Organisation (Punjar) and Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2011.