In Praise of the Free Hetherington

Yesterday, I spent the evening in the company of a great bunch of people at the newly occupied Hetherington Research Club. It was absolutely brilliant!

I was there for about 4 hours, and I wish I could have stayed longer. I got a quick tour of the building, from the kitchens in the basement, through the downstairs bar and social ares, to the meeting room and sleeping area upstairs. There’s a free shop, library, study area and plenty of space for students and activists to meet, chat and share ideas. The space is run democratically, with large meetings where votes are taken on all decisions and a full calendar of events is maintained. Donations from well-wishers (and supermarket bins!) provide enough food for breakfast, snacks and dinner, with the kitchen creating delicious vegan meals. I found my whole visit really inspirational. The Hetherington is an excellent example of how we should be dealing with cut backs – by fighting back. The students of Glasgow have taken back what is rightfully their own, and made it better than ever. They’ve created a safe, all-ages space, not just for planning anti-cuts action, but also for strengthening the relationship between students and non-students.

SSY meet upstairs in the Free Hetherington!

I hope to go back down to Glasgow next weekend, and this time I plan on staying over night. It would be great if those of us outside of Glasgow could take what’s been done in Glasgow and repeat it in our own cities. We could create a network of safe, free spaces, where we could all work together to fight back against the ConDem cuts, the threats to education and public services and plan the revolution!

Long Live The Free Hetherington!