David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

"We want our money back!" screamed Joey Hubre. Joey?

"We want to come back to class," said Janice.

"-amnesty!" said Paul.

"-a fair deal!" I said.

"-respect!" said Mariette.

"-the rights of Englishmen," said Hank quietly, and we all turned to look at him.

"Huh?"

But Whitlaw was grinning. "You-your name? Chelsea? Right." He made a note on his clipboard. "A for the day. Now let's see if you can keep it. What are those rights?"

Hank was standing before the barrier of desks, his arms folded. "No more taxes, Mr. Whitlaw, unless we get some say in how the money is to be spent. No more expulsions from the class unless there's a fair hearing. No more unfair use of force. We want the right to disagree with you, and the right to express our disagreements freely without you throwing us out."

"It's my classroom and the law says I can run it any way I want."

"Well, then we want that law changed."

"Sorry, that's one law I didn't make. I can't change that."

"It doesn't matter. You can change the way you run your class. You said you have autonomy. Let's negotiate some changes that'll make this class acceptable to all of us."

"Since when do students have the right to tell teachers how to teach?"

"Since we have all the doors!" cried Paul.

"Shh!" said Hank.

"Who appointed you president?"

"Will you shut up? One person is supposed to talk for all of us!"

"I didn't agree to that!"

"It doesn't matter what you agreed to-it's the way things are!"

"You're just as bad as he is! Well, the hell with you, then!" Paul marched to the end of the room and sat down, glowering. Hank looked around at the rest of us, a little panicky. "Listen, people-if we don't cooperate with each other, this isn't going to work. We can't show any weakness."

"Yeah," said Janice. "Hank's right. We can't bog down in arguments among ourselves."

"Yeah, but that's no license for you to take over," said Mariette. "Paul's right. We didn't have an election."

"Wait a minute," I said. "I don't want to argue-and I agree with you that we've all gotta pull together or we'll certainly be pulled apart-but I think we have to recognize that each of us is in this rebellion for a different reason and each of us wants to have a say in the negotiations. I want the same thing Paul wants-to be heard."

"May I say something?" John Hubre stepped forward, the silent twin. "Let's draft a list of our demands, and vote on the ones that we want to make Whitlaw adhere to."

Hank looked defeated. "All right. Who's got some paper? I'll write 'em down."

"No," said John. "We'll put them on the screen, where everyone can see them. And I think the entire class should discuss them and vote on them. Is that okay by you, Mr. Whitlaw?"

"Do I have any choice?"

John looked startled. "Uh ... no. Of course not."

"May I offer a suggestion?" asked Whitlaw.

"Uh ... all right."

"Let's dismantle this mountain of furniture so we can operate in a more civilized situation. The rest of this war is cancelled until further notice."

In short order, we looked like a classroom again, except that instead of tyrannizing us, Whitlaw was standing quietly to one side, observing-and only occasionally offering suggestions. The list of demands grew to thirty in less than five minutes. Whitlaw looked them over, snorted and said, "Don't be silly." The class reactions ranged from, "Huh? What's wrong with these demands?" to "You don't have any choice!"

He held up a hand. "Please-I want you all to take another look at this list. Most of your grievances appear to be legitimate, but take another look and see if you notice something about your demands."

"Well, some of these are kind of petty," said Paul Jastrow. "I mean, like number six. No more ripping shirts. Maybe that one's important to Doug-but how important is it to the rest of us?"

Janice said, "And some of them are redundant-like the right to express ourselves freely encompasses the right to assemble and the right to speak and the right to publish-so we don't have to list all three, do we?"

And then other voices chimed in with their opinions. Whitlaw had to hold up a hand for silence.

He said, "You're all right, of course. It's important to have protection for every situation, whether we specify it or not. I suggest that what you're looking for is an umbrella under which you can operate-an all-purpose rule."

He let us argue for only a few moments, then brought us back to the issue again. "Your demands are valid. Look at your rules again, and see if you can boil them down to one or two sentences."

We did as he suggested. With a little help, eventually we came up with "The government shall be accountable to the people for its actions. The people shall have the right to express their differences freely."

"Congratulations," smiled Whitlaw. "Now what happens if I refuse to accept it?"

"You don't have any choice," said Mariette.

"Why not?"

"Because if you don't, we'll just rebel again."

"Uh huh. What if I hire some more football players?"

"You can't afford to hire as many as you'll need."

"I'll raise taxes."

That prompted some groans and an immediate response from one of the boys who had not been expelled. "Where do I sign up to join the rebellion?"

"That's why you don't have any choice," Hank said. "You don't have the tax base."

"You're right," Whitlaw said. He went back to the front of the room. "All right, then-are we in agreement on this point? That if a government is not accountable to its citizenry, that citizenry is justified in removing that government from power-by whatever means necessary?"

There was general assent.

"I see. The kicker in there is the last line. `By whatever means necessary.' Obviously it includes open rebellion. How about terrorism? How about assassination? And at what point do you decide that those actions are necessary?"

Paul Jastrow was still sullen. He said, "When there's no other course of action left to us."

"All right, let's consider that. Was your rebellion justified?" General assent.

"Because I didn't want to listen to what you wanted to say, right?"

Again agreement.

Whitlaw said, "Suppose I had set up a complaint box. Would the rebellion still have been justified?"

There was a thoughtful pause while each of us considered it. I raised my hand. "What would you do with the complaints put into the box?"

Whitlaw grinned. "I'd throw them away at the end of each day without reading them."

"Then, yes," I said. "The rebellion would have been justified."

"What if I read the complaints?"

"What would you do about them?"

"'Nothing."

"It's still justified."

"What if I acted on those I agreed with? All the ones that didn't inconvenience me personally."

I thought about it. "No, that's still not good enough."

Whitlaw looked exasperated. "What is it you people want?"

"A fair system of handling our grievances."

"Ahh, now we're getting somewhere. Do you begin to understand now? Your credo up there is very pretty, but it's worthless without the legal guarantees to back it up. What kind of system are you asking for-uh, McCarthy, is it?"

"Yes, sir. How about an arbitration panel of three students? You pick one, we pick one and they pick the third. My father's union uses that system to handle disagreements."

"All right, suppose I decreed that's the kind of system we'll have?"

"No, sir, it has to be voted on. We all have to agree to it. Otherwise, it's still a case of you dictating to us."

Whitlaw nodded and looked at his watch. "Congratulations. In just a little more than an hour, you've recreated more than a thousand years of human history. You've overthrown a government, established a charter for a new system and created a court system with which to enforce it. That's a fair day's work."