Thursday 11 November 2010

Guest Blog - Millbanks lovely windows

By Alex S,
Yesterday, a bunch of angry students got together and smashed the pot noodle out of Tory HQ, making Daily Mail readers quiver in their armchairs and everyone else form rational opinions. People are already looking back to the 1980’s with nostalgia, particularly at that long employed cry of ‘Tory Scum,’ and everyone is sitting in two categories: for and against.

While it’s all very well saying shut up to those who don’t agree with you but that’s not actually a real argument. You see, violent protest in not a new thing. We haven’t conjured it out of pent up rage from lack of masturbation and waiting for the new series of Breaking Bad. In fact, violent protest has, believe it or not, been around forever and it has actually worked. What the mummy’s boys on the left who can’t handle a bit of fire don’t realise is that peaceful and violent struggle often walk hand in hand, one being essential to the other to work and vice versa.

In the early 20th century, women were seen as accessories to the house, as tools for the benefit of males and as such they weren’t very happy about it. They weren’t allowed to vote and so they decided that the best way to get equal was to get the vote and so this is exactly what they did. The Pankhursts were notable suffragists/suffragettes who initially started to campaign peacefully, through leaflets and marches. However, a few soon realised that this wasn’t working and all the government were doing was force feeding them through their noses and laughing at their puny attempts to take power. Thus, a militant wing was born and they smashed windows (sound familiar?) burnt down buildings and generally caused havoc for the government at the time. Women were eventually granted the vote and so it can be argued that this violence was essential in making the government sit up and realise what it was the public wanted. At the time, newspapers across the country vilified them and damned their actions as despicable. Now they are looked back on as important figures in British history that were unhappy with the state of affairs and did something about it. The gift of hindsight is a great one and maybe in a hundred years times, those masked lads will be figures of importance. Who knows?

Now, when innocent people start getting hurt, then you know you’ve gone to far. This is one of the reasons the IRA didn’t achieve a unified Ireland. Once you start causing serious casualties, people start to lose sympathy with you. A lot of students are angry at what’s going on and this is just one way of venting this beef with society. We don’t deserve to be raped by a government that is completely going against everything that people voted for. The fact is that those in charge now are the ones that benefitted from a free university system and yet they’re the ones with the audacity to want to charge us extortionate amounts of money. It’s important to make your views heard. You’ve only got to look at today’s papers to see where the attention lies; it’s not with the 50,000 voices that marched, it’s with the 15 broken panes of glass at Tory HQ.
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Alex S. is a first year student at a London College. Guest Blogs are always welcome

5 comments:

Broadway Blogger said...

I believe the debate has been started by the riot. I would hope the Liberals will block the rise and propose to get rid of fees altogether. Fees to study are obscene - they are private education via the back door. New Labour were more right wing than the Tory party !

Fantastic blog Alex. I support the students 100% and everyone on my blogs and facebook agrees as well. The public are on the side of the students. The "riot" was against windows - that means nothing because insurance covers it - the media is trying to make things out to be worse than they were. Only one incident was dangerous - the fire extinguisher and the fact it missed leads me to believe it was done as a prank and not as an attempt to kill or injure someone. The students I saw in the "riot" looked middle class and at the end of their tether - and worried about their futures. Not violent people but desperate young people who cant see a future.

All of us need to pull together and persuade the Liberals to oppose fees. Simon Hughes ( who I greatly admire and is one of my fave politicians and I prefer him to Clegg ) may lead a rebellion. If he does perhaps he can be given the Dep PM job because Clegg looks out of his depth and wont argue with Cameron. We need the Libs to fight the excesses of the Tory right wing. I voted tory by the way - so I am pro tory - but everyone I speak to says fees are wrong. The students are right and I am impressed by all of those interviewed today on Sky News - the future is safe if those are the leaders of tomorrow.

Mrs Angry said...

The idiot who threw the fire extinguisher has risked everything that his fellow protesters acheived by a. doing something that could have killed someone and b. stupidly playing into the hands of the right wing press. Protest cannot take place without self discipline. I hope students will continue, however to organise resistence to the utterly indefensible tuition fee hikes and also bring their protest to the Libdems who have so shamefully betrayed their promises on tuition fees.

baarnett said...

At least the fire extinguisher incident has clarified that there is an enormous groundswell of support for the students - and let us not forget the lecturers.

However, that is support only up to a certain point. For many people it even includes breaking windows, but not further - the risk of serious injury or worse, by stupidity, or criminal intent.

Like most people, I feel sure there will be further direct action. Five years of austerity is a long time - nearly as long as the Second World War.

And every newspaper I read seems to undermine George Osborne's assertion that the UK was on the edge of a financial precipice, and the severity of the cuts was essential.

Broadway Blogger said...

24 NOVEMBER A DAY OF ACTION
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/11/students-protests-national-24-november

How can we support this in BARNET ? I think it really important that we all support the principle of free education for all. That is what a rich democratic country should provide for its young people.

Amanda said...

I dont see how anyone can condone violence when protesting. You see what Alex fails to mention is that his own party (The red one) were the ones who introduced the fee's, topped them up and then devalued them by allowing the introduction of degrees in subjects such as 'Zombies and wine study' and yes really they do agree!