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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 18. July 24 1978

[Introduction]

Of late, vanity has been plastered with leaflets bearing the slogan "Worried about the Right?" These leaflets herald the arrival of a new political group on campus, the Progressive Students' Alliance (PSA). This week Salient examines the aims of this group and the necessity for forming it.

A cursory glance through the pages of Truth or the letters to the Editor column of Salient would give the impression that, from time immemorial, student politics has been dominated by "left-wing radicals" Surprisingly perhaps, this is not the case. Since its heyday in the ′30s and ′40s the left has only emerged as a political force on campus within the last ten years.

Emerging from such diverse groups as Student Labour Federation, the Labour Party and the Student Christian Movement progressive left-wing students gained the support of the student majority, and in 1972 convincingly won the elections for the VUWSA executive.

Times have changed in the last six years, and now the left is struggling against massive student apathy and an abysmally low level of political awareness on campus. If this university is to avoid seeing the disappearance of all the positive and progressive forces in it, the left will be forced to undertake some very intense work. It is not enough merely to raise the political consciousness of students, it must also build an organisation in which the political understanding of progressive and potentially progressive students can continually develop. This on-going organisation must operate exclusively at the student level.

The necessity for such an organisation is easily seen if we look at the students presently active in the development of progressive policies. With a few exceptions, they arrived at varsity in the heady days of the early and mid-70s, and naturally grew into the activity flourishing at the time. Now such activity is on the decline and with little real effort being made to seek out progressive students, many are passing through the system without ever being involved in work at the campus level.