forthwritten (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
forthwritten) wrote2010-11-12 03:39 pm
forthwritten) wrote2010-11-12 03:39 pm
"The argument of the broken pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics"
It's a slightly weird experience to be researching direct action when it's happening around you. The title is taken from a speech by Emmeline Pankhurst yet that argument was voiced yesterday; what do you do when marches and demonstrations and deputations and lobbying get politely ignored? What do you do when anger and excitement and a fierce desire for change come crashing together? In March 1912 it led to a window-breaking campaign for which, according to The Times, over 150 women were charged. Women hid hammers in their clothing, making yesterday's students armed only with broomsticks look rather less hardcore.
The same questions were asked then. Does property damage help or hinder the cause? Will the actions of the militant minority reflect badly on the non-militant majority? How does one draw a line between militants and non-militants anyway - is there such a division, and in whose interests is it to make this distinction? How does a loosely organised movement split and fracture?
And, of course, what is meant when the newspapers report "violence"? Is it really violence if the damage was restricted to property? The disturbances and disorder and crimes and violence and outrages and incidents I come across in my research are often surprisingly non-violent - no one is throwing molotov cocktails or bricks at people, and yet there's a desire to portray them as aggressive and threatening. Is an attack on plate glass more savage than a government's actions to perpetuate inequality?
Anyway, while I wasn't at the demo (these abstracts won't write themselves) I have been following it.
This storyboard collection of pictures, video and social media is really interesting. There were various sarcastic comments about students going just so they could tweet they were at #demo2010, but actually social media can be really powerful and immediate.
Laurie Penny was at the demo:
Helen at Police State UK discusses policing and the philosophy of protest:
It's a terrifying time to be a young researcher in the arts, humanities and social sciences. These fields are being systematically devalued; the withdrawal of governmental financial support for teaching and research in these areas is an ideological attack rather than one based on economic sense. And in this environment, money is the sole, simple index of value; what something costs is what it's worth.
The same questions were asked then. Does property damage help or hinder the cause? Will the actions of the militant minority reflect badly on the non-militant majority? How does one draw a line between militants and non-militants anyway - is there such a division, and in whose interests is it to make this distinction? How does a loosely organised movement split and fracture?
And, of course, what is meant when the newspapers report "violence"? Is it really violence if the damage was restricted to property? The disturbances and disorder and crimes and violence and outrages and incidents I come across in my research are often surprisingly non-violent - no one is throwing molotov cocktails or bricks at people, and yet there's a desire to portray them as aggressive and threatening. Is an attack on plate glass more savage than a government's actions to perpetuate inequality?
Anyway, while I wasn't at the demo (these abstracts won't write themselves) I have been following it.
This storyboard collection of pictures, video and social media is really interesting. There were various sarcastic comments about students going just so they could tweet they were at #demo2010, but actually social media can be really powerful and immediate.
Laurie Penny was at the demo:
this is not, as the right-wing news would have you believe, just a bunch of selfish college kids not wanting to pay their fees (many of the students here will not even be directly affected by the fee changes). This is about far more than university fees, far more even than the coming massacre of public education.
This is about a political settlement that has broken its promises not once but repeatedly, and proven that it exists to represent the best interests of the business community, rather than to be accountable to the people. The students I speak to are not just angry about fees, although the Liberal Democrats' U-turn on that issue is manifestly an occasion of indignation: quite simply, they feel betrayed. They feel that their futures have been sold in order to pay for the financial failings of the rich, and they are correct in their suspicions
[...]
One can often take the temperature of a demonstration by the tone of the chanting. The cry that goes up most often at this protest is a thunderous, wordless roar, starting from the back of the crowd and reverberating up and down Whitehall. There are no words. It's a shout of sorrow and celebration and solidarity and it slices through the chill winter air like a knife to the stomach of a trauma patient. Somehow, the pressure has been released and the rage of Europe's young people is flowing free after a year, two years, ten years of poisonous capitulation.
They spent their childhoods working hard and doing what they were told with the promise that one day, far in the future, if they wished very hard and followed their star, their dreams might come true. They spent their young lives being polite and articulate whilst the government lied and lied and lied to them again. They are not prepared to be polite and articulate any more. They just want to scream until something changes. Perhaps that's what it takes to be heard.
Helen at Police State UK discusses policing and the philosophy of protest:
This isn't just about fees, it's the idea that a "free market" approach to education can be fair in a country with as much financial and social inequality as ours; it's about the insidious idea that the only value education provides is economic.
Is the cultural value of learning, the idea that things are worth knowing even if they aren't lucrative, worth fighting for? Is it worth a few smashed windows or getting arrested? Several commentators have noted that there is no reliable means of getting favourable protest coverage. If you're well-behaved, you're posh and pointless; if you're not, you're mindless thugs. When peaceful protests have failed before, when voting for change results in broken promises, what should be the next step for citizens in a healthy democracy to express their discontent?
It's a terrifying time to be a young researcher in the arts, humanities and social sciences. These fields are being systematically devalued; the withdrawal of governmental financial support for teaching and research in these areas is an ideological attack rather than one based on economic sense. And in this environment, money is the sole, simple index of value; what something costs is what it's worth.
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I mean, their universities have huge problems, too, but at least they're different ones. (Just as an example, the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia is moving toward doing away with student fees altogether.)
-J
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And thanks for the link.
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-J
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It's invigorating to see. And if it has no effect on the plans - which a peaceful protest almost certainly would have - then at least everyone can say we went out with a bang.
Great entry this.
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I read this article today and I'm glad that people recognise the anger present.
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I am reminded of V for Vendetta's pleasing arrangement; "people shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people"
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