From all around the country, students and others involved in education, came to London for today, the guardian has posted an map that shows this impressively:
(from the guardian)The demo showed groups from different universities, students' unions and employees' unions. What I enjoyed was how many had made their own signs, some serious, others with an ironic twist. Some of my favourites of the latter category:
"What would Beethoven say? Nein!" - KCL, London Music Department
"Education Cuts Never Heal"
"Ancient Norse is not a luxury"
"A plague on both your houses" - Central School of Speech and Drama, London
"To the Winter Palace!"
"Maybe social sciences are a waste of time.
David Cameron: PPE, Oxford
Nick Clegg, Social Anthropology, Cambridge"
"Fuck this, I'm going to Hogwarts!"
(There were a few signs relating to Hogwarts. A debate has started between my friends about tuition fees at Hogwarts. There doesn't seem to be a watertight proof about it, anyone ideas, ideally with source?)
"I wish my boyfriend was as dirty as your policy"
"Over 9000"
(again borrowed from the guardian, I did not take my camera, carrying my own sign was enough)In the media, the coverage is dominated by a few hundred demonstrants storming the Tory's (the ruling party) headquarters at 30 Millbank, setting protest signs on fire, eventually smashing a front window and occupying the lobby. The security personell there seems rather overwhelmed, look out for the female receptionist. The guardian's leading article online is announced as "Student protest errupts into violence" and entitled: "Student fees protests: 'This is just the beginning'". While the second part of the article focuses on the predominantly peaceful protest, the video, in my opinion, is overdramatic, in line with the heading. A much better piece for the mainstream media is by CNN, maybe because of it's American audience it explains the arguments better.
Now there is a big debate, at home, via text mesages, various videos to be found online and over facebook. The questions could be reduced to:
- What does smashing windows, occupying a government building, laying fire in the building's courtyard, throwing things from the building on the police and others mean, what is its impact?
- Does peaceful protest (i.e. marching with signs) have a smaller impact than violent protest (which could be defined in this case as burning signs, smashing windows and occupying the government party's headquarters, and of course everything after that...)?
- Will violent protest change politicians' and the media's response at all or does it rather harden the positions and thus make a solution more difficult in the long run?
Here a bit of a conversation I happened to be present at:
A: "Name me a violent political movement that has brought positive change."
B: "The Bolcheshevists ... initially"
A: "And then lead to ... what ... Stalin?"
C: "Going to a protest doesn't make you a protester, just as standing in a garrage doesn't make you a car."
X: "I went to a peaceful protest and it didn't work for me. I didn't see anything happening. [Speaking aboout the Anti Iraq War Demonstrations] So I thought I'd try something else."
I've been thinking about them a lot and think I still need time to form my opinion, especially to see how Cameron and Clagg, as well as the national (and probably international?) media representative react. But my gut feeling tells me that burning signs is contradictory to spreading a message and that the voices of 50.000 shouldn't be overpowered by few hundreds. But somehow I feel the frustration while I was not part of that crowd and probably wouldn't join them in the future.
What do you think? I'd be interested to hear from you, email prefered but if I got some interesting ideas I might use them later, anonymously of course.
