Wednesday, November 24, 2010 

Protest hyperbole and the not completely mundane reality.


One of the less attractive traits some of us on the left have is just how easily we resort to hyperbole when in the midst of what on the surface seems to be a wonderful example of the people power we often idealise. Anyone can get swept along by the moment, yet it's difficult not to groan when faced with the exuberance and excitement of Laurie Penny describing the teenagers around her in Whitehall as being part of a children's crusade. Not just because of the unhelpful connotations which now surround use of the word in such a context, but also as to how it isn't the most helpful historical reference: most now accept that there were no children's crusades as romanticised by the chroniclers of the day, and even if there were a few such events, then they didn't actually involve what we would now classify as children.

Not that only Penny has been caught in the temporary euphoric spell, as the usually more grounded Lenin also declares today's protests to be part of the biggest student rebellion since '68. More than one generation will dispute that. It's also not as if the occupation of some university buildings is recently unprecedented; many were temporarily taken over in protest at the Israel-Gaza war of December 2008-January 2009, with deals being struck to ensure that more students from the impoverished and beleaguered territory would be able to come to study in this country to end the sit-ins.

There is however no disputing that this is an organic, fluid and highly-motivated protest movement which has put everything else so far done in opposition to both the cuts and the rise in tuition fees to shame. Even the concrete shithole I call home, so thoroughly bourgeois for the most part that the biggest ructions of recent years were over minor changes to the bus timetable, has seen the best attended protest I can remember ever being staged here with at least a couple of hundred schoolchildren and sixth-formers marching to the council's offices. Prior to the Iraq war we could only expect around between 50 and 75 to turn up for similar local action. If it's happening here, then it's almost certainly taking place in towns and cities major and minor, beyond the reports that have mainly focused on London, Bristol and Brighton, where brief trouble flared.

Brief trouble is probably putting it more dramatically than the true picture. After being embarrassed two weeks ago by deciding not to bother putting anyone outside Tory HQ, regardless of how it was only a matter of yards from where the NUS march ended, the police were out in force and back sadly to the tactics which post the G20 protests it was hoped they'd think carefully about before using again. Despite the Adapting to Protest report from Denis O'Connor, which made clear that officers were meant to facilitate demonstrations as much as control them, it was interesting to note that no one was being allowed anywhere near the Liberal Democrats' HQ, nor was Westminster itself open to access should anyone have wished to exercise their democratic right to lobby their MP. As for leaving an unprotected police van parked right in the middle of Whitehall, either someone's going to be getting severely bollocked in the morning or it was just a happy coincidence that the local constabulary had provided a focal point for the protests, not to mention the TV news and tomorrow's papers. This said, some hardly helped themselves; as amusing as it was when the kid asked what he was holding by Nick Robinson, who unlike everyone else seemed to be able to enter and exit the "kettle" no questions asked, responded with the soon to be legendary "a rasclart weapon" while holding it up, as usual the small amount of troublemakers may well have spoilt the experience for the others.

Key will ultimately be whether this in fact turns out to be the peak of the protests. Most mass-movements which spring up almost from nowhere tend to fade away just as quickly. When most of those who previously took part in the demonstrations won't be personally affected by the rise in tuition fees should they be voted through, it really is going to depend on the younger ones who first made their voices heard today who will be. As true as it is that today's protests were all but leaderless, without that vital component the chances are all the greater that this will be that one-off. Who or what fills the role will be integral to keeping up the pressure on a government which is there to be cracked. With the real cuts yet to be made, these could still be the opening skirmishes to the resistance some on the left are already eager to portray it as.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Share |

11/24/2010 11:53:00 pm | |

Wednesday, November 10, 2010 

Almost the right idea, certainly the wrong target.


Looking at today's student protests which culminated, whether the NUS likes it or not, in the antics at 30 Millbank, it's hard not to be reminded of last year's G20 protests. Then a demonstration which was overwhelmingly peaceful in the main was portrayed by the media in the main as if the black flag had been temporarily raised over the City, with photographers and cameramen lining up to take their money shots as the windows of a branch of RBS were broken and the building looted. Having done their day's work, they then all but ignored the wider actions of the police in kettling and battering other protesters away from the main flashpoint, until the video of Ian Tomlinson being pushed over forced them to recognise that there had been abuses by both sides.

The difference is that the G20 protests were flagged up well in advance by both police and media as likely to involve violent clashes, to the point where it all but became a self-fulfilling prophecy, with those determined to cause trouble being attracted where otherwise they might not have been. No one seemed to imagine that there'd be a repeat of that today. The similarity is that the media were well represented at Millbank, and there have to be questions raised over how that encouraged some on the demonstration to play up to the cameras, and not just those who were masked. Case in point was the kid in the footage who brings down one of the windows, delighting in having his actions filmed and making not even the slightest effort to hide his identity, who if he didn't have his collar felt shortly afterwards almost certainly will at some point, and going by recent standards, shouldn't expect to just get a slap on the wrist.

Regardless of the fact that the "violence", if it can really be called that, was confined to a single building which could have been considered an obvious target, such is its proximity to where the final rally was held, the media has been playing it for all its worth, as have, just as pathetically, the Liberal Democrats themselves. Anyone would have imagined that the centre of London had come to a standstill as temporary anarchy took over, rather than a demonstration got out of hand for a few hours in a quickly enclosed and sealed off area. It doesn't help either that the National Union of Students is so completely spineless, condemning the actions of a few in exactly the kind of language which only then encourages the media to play the demonstrators off against each other. Some of what they did certainly was despicable and stupid, such as the throwing of a fire extinguisher off the roof, which as this video shows those on the ground reacted angrily against, and ultimately counter-productive, yet whilst the media's reaction has been the over-the-top it's also ensured that the overall message of the rally has reached far further than it would have otherwise.

This said, very few are going to be persuaded one way or another by today's action. Those that already dislike students will only have their prejudices reaffirmed, while a few broken windows are hardly going to trouble the coalition's overall policy on tuition fees or cuts. While it may enthuse a few who were otherwise despairing that today's youth are more happy tweeting and blogging than taking direct action, the revolution also hardly starts here.

It's equally dispiriting that the targets of today's marchers were the same old enemies rather than those genuinely responsible. As nice as it is to occasionally hear the youth of the day condemning "Tory scum" and attacking their seat of power as it were, they're not the ones who have ensured that students in the years to come will have to take on even more debt; that lies primarily with the Labour party for introducing top-up fees and instigating the Browne review, and most pertinently now with the party which promised prior to the election not to raise fees and which many marching would have voted for. The Liberal Democrats need to and should have felt the brunt of the onslaught, and while "Lib Dem scum" doesn't quite have the same pithy ring to it, they've barely been touched by today's demonstration, chants against Nick Clegg aside. It's not even as if the protesters couldn't if they had wanted taken the demonstration to Liberal Democrat headquarters, which in fact is only a few streets away from Millbank. For Simon Hughes to then appear on Newsnight condemning the NUS for urging the "hunting down" of his party when they've done nothing of the sort outside of rhetoric should show how cowardly and susceptible to pressure his party really is.

As undesirable as the possibility of the reintroduction of the kind of policing the G20 protests saw and which was criticised in a report afterwards as a result of the ransacking of Tory HQ is, almost the right idea, certainly the wrong target has to be the ultimate summary of the day's events.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

11/10/2010 10:37:00 pm | |

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Last posts

Archives

Email me
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates