On
Wednesday April 16th our second meeting of students trying to set up a
Socialist Society at the University of Wolverhampton took place.
After
having decided on our first meeting (because it was “such a cool gig”, as
someone said) to have more meetings, we started to make preparations soon after
everyone was back from their Easter holidays. We distributed leaflets on campus
and spread the word about the meeting.
This time
we discussed the need for a fundamental change in society. Sarah talked about
the history of the ideas of socialism, starting out with the ideas of the utopian
socialists and comparing them to the scientific socialism of Marx and Engels.
Most importantly the question was raised whether scientific socialism is still
the answer to the problems of humanity today.
As several concepts of making capitalism “more humane” – among them
“Fair Trade” (which is promoted massively by the University´s canteens) – fail
to solve the most urgent problems like poverty, unemployment and war, socialism
has again become the only perspective for social change in the 21st
century. Recent developments and problems in Venezuela were highlightes in this
context.
Compared
to the first meeting fewer people turned up this time. This gave us the chance,
however, to have a long and lively discussion in which nearly everyone
participated and expressed their views. We decided to have our next meeting
soon – so stay tuned and e-mail us if you want to get in touch!
