I'd given up on the students of today. I'd come to think of them as conservative, politically apathetic and mindful only of their future job prospects. I compared them unfavourably to the students of the 60s and 70s, who had campaigned and marched in tens of thousands against the Viet-Nam War, Apartheid and the National Front. Today's students were, I concluded, just plain boring. Last Wednesday's events have caused me to reconsider this unkind verdict. As John Harris comments in today's Guardian :
"What happened on Wednesday afternoon was not some meaningless rent-a-mob flare-up, nor an easily-ignored howl of indignation from some of society's more privileged citizens. It was an early sign of people growing anxious and restless, and what a government pledged to such drastic plans should increasingly expect."
The mass media, of course (and for other reasons, myself) concentrated upon the actions of a violent minority. More relevant, I think, is the fact that tens of thousands of young people have woken up to the fact that public spending cuts are going to seriously endanger their futures. Many other sectors of society are also becoming aware of the devastating consequences of these cost-cutting measures and are beginning to take action. Our Welfare State itself is threatened - and if the government have their way, will be permanently dismantled. Harris quotes David Cameron in a speech made on August 2nd, in Birmingham:
"Should we cut things now and go back later and try and restore them later? I think we should be trying to avoid that approach"
In other words - what gets cut, will never be replaced. Harris goes on to comment that banker's bonuses have been replaced. On November 9th, Barclays announced that £1.6 billion was in their bonus pot.
If, as I hope, students, pensioners, trade unionists, community groups and others likely to be affected by the cuts unite to resist them, then the government can expect many more demonstrations like that seen in London last Wednesday.
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Yes, I agree. I think it's worth noting that most of the trouble was vandalism, not violence, but ultimately that isn't the big story here. By concentrating on the trouble, the media successfully avoided covering the causes in detail.
ReplyDeleteThis demo will not be a one-off. This government has deliberately chosen confrontation, in much the same way as Margaret Thatcher loved to do, most notoriously with the miners, but also with anyone else deemed to be an enemy. If you seek confrontation, you will sooner or later get it.
I remember a cartoon during Thatcher's era of a ship called the TINAtic sinking with her at the helm. TINA = There Is No Alternative. It was prophetic once - perhaps again.
You are right about the destruction being vandalism, Nev, but (at least as far as the perpetrators would see it) it was PURPOSEFUL vandalism. They would see it as attacking the symbols of a callous establishment. As the intellectual godfather of violent Anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin, said:
ReplyDelete"the passion for destruction is a creative passion."
I agree that's how they'd see it. But their main achievement was to distract media attention away from their grievances and towards the vandalism. Bit of an own goal there, I think.
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