The PBEC conference demonstration and subsequent reaction again highlights the tactless ignorance and facile pettiness of all those who organise university politics. Once the rumpus had died away the traditional witch hunting began... by both sides. Wednesday's "open forum" on the subject was nauseusly predictable as all the "innocent" parties sought to lay the familiar charges of irresponsibility, mismanagement and abuse. We've seen it all before and it only confirms our apathetic students' opinion that V.U.W. politics are designed for the greater glorification of those idiots prepared to publicly admit to their condition.

Graeme Collins makes a hopeful plea for the facts, then speaks categorically without them. As if, with all the half-truths and hysteria, they will ever become evident. He does have a point however, which may well have been taken up by our student spokesman before the demonstration ever started; It's about time those opposed to certain ideas and practices thoroughly familiarised themselves with the facts upon which such ideas and practices are founded. Moreover it's quite incredible that the argument against New Zealand's involvement with PBEC was never spelt out in the media. "Don't blame us, we tried", cried the innocent activists. Crap. However the use of any amount of common sense or diplomatic manoeuvring to ensure any such statement was made would have been too taxing, too idealogically distasteful for our concerned campus colleagues.

Surprisingly enough, even those of us who don't dominate the S.U.B. microphone arrogantly alleging concern for humanity while secretly hating the next door neighbour are opposed to big business exploiting developing countries. However, were the demonstrators opposed to Canadian, Japanese and American business investment in New Zealand? If they were, I suggest Economic Hostorians like Rob Campbell and Timmy Groser forget the histrionics and consider the economics and what N.Z. will look like in twenty years without foreign investment. Or don't they really care?

Why not a student population which knows what it is demonstrating about before it starts getting involved in all these too easily over-simplified causes? For the sake of our credibility, and continued existence as an influential pressure group, I suggest we find out what we are talking about before borer bombs antagonise those who may have appreciated our arguments. As things now stand, V.U.W. politicians are rapidly engineering their own destruction as personal prejudice and rampant egotism on their behalf, and gullibility on the students behalf, is rapidly draining away all productive effort. Loud-mouthed socialists may do well to study the mafia's methods of how to infiltrate the establishment and employ its resources for its own ends without the bureaucrats even suspecting it. Incidentally Mao Tse Tung recommends a similar strategy: the ultimate success is to win without open confrontation.

R.A. (Apathetic) Priest.