#aucstrike

Today marked the first achievements of the strike held at The American University in Cairo. President, Lisa Anderson has responded to some of the strikers’ demands and others are to be reaching a consensus soon.

Although two strikes were planned to take place today, one calling for the departure of Dr. Anderson while the other one calling that she stays, the “Pro-President” strike didn’t take place. Some students who are taking part in the “One-Hand” strike commented saying that those who were calling for the “Pro-President” strike have no serious issue to stand up for. One of the strikers said,: “They are a minority who are afraid to explicitly stand up for their belief. There is nothing that they are holding on to and they are not willing to put any time or effort into this. It’s just a Facebook group; no more, no less.”

The strikers by assembly hour started marching all around campus calling for people to gather in front of the Humanities and Social Science (Huss) building in order to await Dr. Anderson to come out and talk to students. The crowd grew less than how it started on 9/11, but it was still quite a number. As security members and workers gathered in front of the Huss with the students, one of the Student Union members started giving a speech as they await Dr. Anderson. He explained the new “committees” strategy; through which strikers are to join committees that would facilitate the progress of the strike. For example, one of the committees stated is Public Relations, through which the committee would publicize for the strike to alumni and parents and maintain the communication with the security, workers and administration.

It was only after four o’clock when Student Union representatives came up to the crowd to inform them that they have reached some solutions with the president and have asked her not to send emails to the students as they are resenting her emails. The representative explained that many of the demands are to be met, including the involvement of at least 7 students within the administration’s decision making processes except when it comes to private faculty issues; and allowing them to have a detailed insight on the AUC budget. Moreover, Mohamed El Zoq is to be under investigations.  Meanwhile the fees issue is to be discussed the following day, Monday, September 19th; however it was clear that all the long-term demands were met and only the short term ones are still under studying.

         Today, Wednesday September 4th 2011 marked the fourth day of the battle between AUC strikers and the AUC Administration under president Lisa Anderson. For the past three days, all united, AUC students, workers, and security men stood together and asked for their rights, insisting that these rights and demands will never be separated neither categorized. Meaning that if one demand for the students was accepted while another got rejected for workers, all strikers will consider both demands weren’t approved. At the time while strikers expected to receive any reply from Mrs Anderson, her only reply was sending an email suggesting setting meetings on Tuesday with representatives from each group to discuss the demands, yet students refused the idea deciding to continue the strike until Wednesday

        After the failure to have meetings with the strikers, President Lisa sent the whole AUC community emails stating the administration’s disapproval to all demands provided with some explanation and clarification for the rejection. A series of three emails were sent to AUC community but did nothing but getting the striker’s spirit higher with a great determination on continuing the strike till all demands get approved.

        Today many events took place, thought the extremely hot and sunny weather , the strikers didn’t get tired and never lost hope, by the end of the evening they decided to move the strike inside the administration building to show the administration their seriousness  for and nonstop determination to get their demands and basic rights.

        Inside the building, the students organized a silent sit in, being careful not to cause any kind of disturbance to their administration work while demanding for their rights all in one hand, students, workers and security men.  While yesterday, only one faculty professor joined the strike and demanded for workers rights promising to stand by their side until they get their rights. Today another professor joined the strike believing in her role and her duty towards the strikers. It was obvious that professors are no longer afraid to join or speak up.

       During the sit in there were inspirational speeches given by few people, some of them were alumni whom for them it was not the first strike to participate in and for them, it was another big step of a journey that they started when they were at AUC couple of years ago. They came to enlighten the strikers with their previous experience with the AUC administration and to stand by their side as well to achieve the goals of the strike.

       On the evening, Dr Mervat Abou Ouf , a professor of Journalism and Mass Com at AUC  decided to address the students herself and talk to them to reach an agreement point between them and President Anderson. The discussions got tense as the professor wanted to reach agreements that satisfy both sides, moderating the discussions between students and Mrs. Anderson on the phone, yet it did not work as students insisted that Mrs. Anderson must reconsider what she sent in her previous emails and either reply to their demands or address the strikers herself. Then at the end of the debate, Mrs. Anderson agreed on revising her email and meet with the strikers tomorrow, Thursday, September 15, at the time and place the students agree on to have a meeting to discuss their demands.

             Today, at the American University In Cairo, All students, staff,and administration witnessed a big strike demanding for student’s and worker’s rights. The call for the strike started when the AUC administration under President Lisa Anderson has decided to increase the university’s tuition by 9%.This decision was met with huge objection from most of AUC students and their families. Their anger and frustration even got worse with the beginning of the new semester, fall 2011 that started on Sunday September 4th,when AUC students found huge deterioration in AUC registration and many student’s services and facilities.  

               I was one of the many students who joined the strike today. I was not only protesting against the tuition increase but also for  the service I was getting in return since the beginning of the semester that is completely not equivalent with the money I paid for. I did not attend the strike from the beginning but when I reached campus, I found that students had already stated their demands and joined them AUC workers and security men asking for their demands as well. They all united asking the AUC administration for any response. Later in the afternoon, students saw president Lisa watching the strike from the Administration building and thought they will get any response soon but the only response they got was president’s Lisa’ suggestion for choosing four students to talk on behalf of everyone at the strike showing  her openness for negotiations. All students rejected this initiative and demanded President Liza to get down from her office and listen to them.

              Right after assembly hour, regular classes resumed and the strike switched to a march a around AUC campus. Strikers chanted at students who did not participate in the strike with slogans to inspire them and motivate them to join the strike, getting them from inside their classes after their instructor’s approval and continued the march for one hour heading back to the Administration building. By that far, when students didn’t get any response from the president, students started to set tents up determining to stay the whole night to continue the strike. By 6 pm some students started to go home with the promise of continuing sticking the next day at 8am.

The American University in Cairo witnessed a massive strike that took place September 11th from 1 pm and is expected to continue till demands are met.

A huge number of students, workers and security members have had sit-ins in front of the Administration building, demanding several things, of which the two main ones are:

1.      Canceling the 9% increase of tuition fees for returning students; [Especially that there are no service improvements that would justify the increase].

2.     Raising the workers’ wages to a minimum of 1,200 pounds; [putting into consideration that a full time student at AUC pays an average of 60,000 pounds per semester]

It was unbelievable that the administration didn’t approach the crowd, not even through an email as they usually do; although I consider this the strongest strike since I entered AUC in 2007.  The people striking were really standing for a cause that they believe in, from their deepest feelings they all marched together all around the campus, collecting other people and asking them to actually care about their parents’ money and the workers’ basic human rights.

By 4pm the gathering started to go smaller and smaller. I believe that workers and security members were the ones who kept staying there along with a little number of students, unlike during assembly, when a massive number of students were also there.

I am starting to lose hope that our demands will be met, but at least I believe that if more students joined and we kept the strike going for the next week, we may actually get something.