Prefect board elections are pretty heated this year, and the field has split itself into two camps: "look at me i've got a cool name" prefect candidates and "RIPB sux" Gordon and associates. Both are at each other's throats, limbs, and genitalia. Of course it would be dangerous for me to state any partisan view in a public forum (which this blog is...). Luckily, I don't have one! As far as I'm concerned, both camps should go stick their collective heads in a pig. So this post is mainly here to state my utter, total and complete apathy towards the whole situation and to elucidate the true motives of each camp, as seen by a neutral observer.
The topic of Rafflesian politics is at best a depressing one, bitterly divided, and the highest reason I can find for blogging about this is because I'm bored and slightly aggravated by the sheer level of dingo's-kidneys meaningless conflict that threatens to ruin my morning classroom sleep. So. We have one group of bubbly, energetic, youthful, self-important children aka prefect nominees who see it their holy duty to plaster every square inch of school walls with posters in varying degrees of colour, size, and bad taste. Of course nobody likes this.
On the other hand, we have a collective of mildly anarchic pseudo-liberal freedom-fighters, whom of course find fulfilment in making cynical remarks about everything, and taken away from this pastime will eventually resort to snarly comments about the weather, God, each other, and all of the above. Nobody likes this either.
Despite protests about 'freedom of speech', 'duty to the school', 'right-to-this-and-that', 'responsibility', and 'rafflesian' (whatever that is), the prime reason that anybody goes through the whole shebang is just to feed their own sense of self-importance, telling themselves that they're doing new, wonderful and progressive things, improving the general state of humanity, et cetera. Nobody likes this, and they often say so. What I advocate is that feeding the self-importance of either camp is ultimately going to be an exercise in futility. Just don't do anything! The prefects will ultimately grow out of their juvenile phase, become mature and responsible and snarl at new bubbly self-important candidates, and the freedom-fighters will eventually tire of the whole tirade and go pick on something else. Nothing anybody does or says is ever going to change that.
So let the kids play grown-up.
adam