The past few weeks have been one of the most active for the student community in the UK. The normally passive bunch have finally found their voice yet now they have they seem intent on ruining the growing opportunities that it has given them. TNC spent a long time talking with some of the occupations, trying to spurt them in a different direction by showing them that there is another way they can handle this.
Some, like NCL Occupation, have been more receptive, whilst a majority of the others have been less than willing to take the opportunity and learn from the great peaceful protesters in history who provide us with more insight than we could ever need.
But those who still think that the actions witnessed during every student protest is working, and the public are on their side, need to read Simon Cohen, founder of Global Tolerance, in his blog post “Students Protest: Stand up by sitting down“. Words have such an incredible power at times that once read they have the ability of reaffirming in you the sense of honour and duty we all should have.
Towards the end of Simon’s post he says:
In a society in which every scandal is clumsily branded something-gate, and the same predictable headlines churn out, there is an opportunity and responsibility for every well-meaning campaigner to use a little imagination, change and challenge the status quo.
And for all you students who think the media have something against you and they are too willing to chase the sensation other than the actual story need to read Simon’s post and take it in. These are great times for all of us and for a message to be put out without it being damaged by the small minority of people who seek to cause trouble than peace. Imagine what it would have looked like if everyone sat down at Parliament Square, watched the debate, and listened, how incredible that image would have been and would have been close to impossible for the police of for a violent minority to break up the message going out.
It does appear that in this case students seem not only to unwilling to look at the images they are producing but are also unwilling to accept that their actions are enabling media by giving them the images they want. Gandhi own creation of Satyagraha is something that should be redressed here and taken quite on board. Are students really going to seeing themselves as the future of this country? If the answer is yes then they need to think again about how the past three protests have been, one thing is for certain they do not have the full backing of their student body or the public.
There is also a weird irony with many with in the student groups claiming that this movement is just the same as the famous 1968 student protests in Paris, truth is unfortunately this isn’t and has led Iain MacWhirter from the Herald Scotland to comment:
It’s also true that the student demos are not Paris, May 1968. But the truth is that 1968 didn’t directly achieve all that much either. Europe’s greatest popular uprising since the Second World War was a political failure. The student unrest and the strikes evaporated almost as quickly as they had emerged, and in the subsequent general election, the right-wing Gaullists were returned with an increased majority. But les evenements, while a failure electorally, were immensely significant culturally, and historians agree that 1968 was a watershed year in Europe and the world.
The rebellion wasn’t really a revolution in the traditional sense and was led as much by hedonism as Marxism. The revolt captured the imaginations of young people all over Europe, and marked the end of the authoritarian, sexually repressed and socially conservative post-war era. Feminism, environmentalism and gay liberation all trace their origins to the “spirit of ’68”.
Even Gordon Brown took to the streets at Edinburgh University. I half expected to see him on last week’s march to the Scottish Parliament against fees. Had he not been responsible for introducing student fees as Chancellor in the Labour government, I suspect he probably would have been there. The irony is that it is the children of 1968, who benefited from free tuition, who are now pulling up the ladder behind them. And they are despised for that.
There is still time for this to be a great movement, but there needs to be leaders willing to change, challenge, and prove that what we have seen is not the only way students can act.
We greatly appreciate the team at Global Tolerance for getting in touch with us and sharing Simon’s piece.
