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Blogs • Josh Pemberton (Blog Scholar 2009)
Undie 500 visits Dunedin
Posted by Josh Pemberton on Monday, September 14, 2009
No doubt any reader of this post will be familiar with a whole lot of negative publicity regarding the disorderly student behaviour in the weekend associated with the Undie 500. The Undie is an annual car rally organised by Canterbury University's ENSOC, where cars are traditionally purchased for less than $500, decorated, and driven down to Dunedin by students (via a lengthy pub crawl) for a weekend of partying and catching up with mates.
The first time I heard of the trouble associated with the Undie was in 2007. I was travelling in Europe and came across news of arrests, bottle throwing and student riots on an international news website. I remember being slightly confused at the time as I thought that the students were protesting something (in the mould of Springbok tour or Vietnam protests) and couldn't work out what that something was. However it turns out there is nothing actually being protested, which leads to the question - why is there rioting which requires the police to forcibly intervene?
On Friday night I wandered down Castle St at about midnight to check out what was going on. There were several hundred students gathered there drinking, and although no trouble was being caused, there were also a large number of police present. There also seemed to be a tangible expectation that things would eventually end up the way they have in the past couple of years, with arrests and student versus police conflict. In my view this expectation of trouble on both sides is self-fulfilling, and as such is a large part of the problem. Students were there because police were there, and police were there because students were there. Press coverage of the events is invariable negative, portrays the situation as militant and therefore contributes to the same events occuring over and over. In an article on stuff.co.nz, student crowds are referred to as 'mobs', the area of flats in North Dunedin as a 'student stronghold', and there is a suggestion from the mayor Peter Chin that Canterbury students 'trash their own city instead'. With these expectations in place, as soon as crowd numbers become to large it is hard for the police to continue to stand aside, especially when students bait them by lighting couches on fire in the street and throwing the odd bottle. It's worth pointing out I have only ever seen a burning couch in Dunedin on Undie weekend, which I think shows that it is also a case of fulfillment of a pre-conceived expectation of what the night should entail, rather than normal student behaviour.
When the crowd began to chant "scarfies on the piss" on Friday night I went home in disgust, and would like to reassure readers that people involved in such antics aren't an accurate representation of the wider student population. The riot police later stepped in (I could hear their megaphones as I lay in bed) and from that point, with liberal use of batons and pepper spray on anyone who doesn't get off the street and inside a flat fast enough - the police are suddenly perceived as opponents and are resented even more.
So as soon as force is used the game is up and the whole event descends into chaos. The challenge for ENSOC, our own OUSA, police officers and local authorities has been to prevent things from getting to that stage. Suggestions of a concert to give students something to do were nearly made a reality but, if Canterbury students and OUSA President Ed Darlow are to be believed, fell through due to Chin's insistence on putting his head in the sand and refusing to find a solution.
At the end of the day, the mayor can say he wants Undie 500 banned all he likes, but nothing in the law can prevent motorists travelling from Christchurch to Dunedin. It is up to all parties involved to address the underlying issues and, in my view, to remove the self-fulfilling expectation that there will be trouble. Otago University has an excellent academic reputation, particularly as a research institution, and it is time that events such as those over the weekend stopped bringing this into jeopardy.
The first time I heard of the trouble associated with the Undie was in 2007. I was travelling in Europe and came across news of arrests, bottle throwing and student riots on an international news website. I remember being slightly confused at the time as I thought that the students were protesting something (in the mould of Springbok tour or Vietnam protests) and couldn't work out what that something was. However it turns out there is nothing actually being protested, which leads to the question - why is there rioting which requires the police to forcibly intervene?
On Friday night I wandered down Castle St at about midnight to check out what was going on. There were several hundred students gathered there drinking, and although no trouble was being caused, there were also a large number of police present. There also seemed to be a tangible expectation that things would eventually end up the way they have in the past couple of years, with arrests and student versus police conflict. In my view this expectation of trouble on both sides is self-fulfilling, and as such is a large part of the problem. Students were there because police were there, and police were there because students were there. Press coverage of the events is invariable negative, portrays the situation as militant and therefore contributes to the same events occuring over and over. In an article on stuff.co.nz, student crowds are referred to as 'mobs', the area of flats in North Dunedin as a 'student stronghold', and there is a suggestion from the mayor Peter Chin that Canterbury students 'trash their own city instead'. With these expectations in place, as soon as crowd numbers become to large it is hard for the police to continue to stand aside, especially when students bait them by lighting couches on fire in the street and throwing the odd bottle. It's worth pointing out I have only ever seen a burning couch in Dunedin on Undie weekend, which I think shows that it is also a case of fulfillment of a pre-conceived expectation of what the night should entail, rather than normal student behaviour.
When the crowd began to chant "scarfies on the piss" on Friday night I went home in disgust, and would like to reassure readers that people involved in such antics aren't an accurate representation of the wider student population. The riot police later stepped in (I could hear their megaphones as I lay in bed) and from that point, with liberal use of batons and pepper spray on anyone who doesn't get off the street and inside a flat fast enough - the police are suddenly perceived as opponents and are resented even more.
So as soon as force is used the game is up and the whole event descends into chaos. The challenge for ENSOC, our own OUSA, police officers and local authorities has been to prevent things from getting to that stage. Suggestions of a concert to give students something to do were nearly made a reality but, if Canterbury students and OUSA President Ed Darlow are to be believed, fell through due to Chin's insistence on putting his head in the sand and refusing to find a solution.
At the end of the day, the mayor can say he wants Undie 500 banned all he likes, but nothing in the law can prevent motorists travelling from Christchurch to Dunedin. It is up to all parties involved to address the underlying issues and, in my view, to remove the self-fulfilling expectation that there will be trouble. Otago University has an excellent academic reputation, particularly as a research institution, and it is time that events such as those over the weekend stopped bringing this into jeopardy.
2 Comments:
I agree with many of the comments you make Josh, those involved with the weekends chaos are certainly not a representative cross section of the University student cohort. As OUSA President Ed Darlow stated on national news, anyone who gets a kick out of throwing a bottle at another human being is in serious need of some help, yet this immature minority reflects on the entire University reputation.
This annual event has descended from a quirky, entertaining and harmless weekend to one of destruction and damage limitation for authorities. It was demonstrated last year when the Undie 500 was cancelled, and yet similar behaviour was observed to 2006 and 2007, that banning the event will not solve the problem. The Mayor, the Police and Student body representatives need to work together to produce an innovative alternative, and I believe this year progress towards achieving this was stonewalled by city leaders and not by OUSA and ENSOC who both made significant efforts towards organising an event to draw crowds away from Castle Street where they could be managed and entertained.
The riotous behaviour of students over an undie weekend (or similar event) will continue on expectation alone. Once an alternative event is provided for both the Friday and Saturday nights the crowds will not gather and police will have little trouble maintaining peace in North Dunedin as they do every other weekend of the year.
I currently reside on Castle Street and after witnessing the events unfolding I can only commend the Police for the way they acted. Early aggression shown in previous years was replaced by patient Police, who moved only when people or property were in danger. This demonstrated the Police were actively trying to avoid confrontation as best they could. Further Christchurch Police worked actively with ENSOC to ensure the cars travelling down were safe and the drivers sober, according to the ENSOC website this years event ran WITH the support of the Christchurch Police.
At the end of the day engineering students still want to decorate cars (some spent thousands of dollars on decorations this year), and parade down to Dunedin for a weekend of fun. This can occur in the absence of carnage and multiple arrests in the student quarter of Dunedin (as it did for 18 years) if only the individuals in a position to produce an alternative cooperate and address the problem rather than attempting to outlaw it altogether.
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