Students turn out not to be apathetic proto-consumers shock!
Beginning with a 24-hour occupation at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on 13 January, the sit-ins spread across the country. Now occupations have been held at the LSE, Essex, King’s College London, Birmingham, Sussex, Warwick, Manchester Metropolitan, Oxford, Leeds, Cambridge, Sheffield Hallam, Bradford, Nottingham, Queen Mary, Manchester, Strathclyde, Newcastle, Kingston, Goldsmiths and Glasgow.
Among the demands of students are disinvestment in the arms trade; the promise to provide scholarships for Palestinian students; a pledge to send books and unused computers to Palestine; and to condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Technology has set these actions apart from those of previous generations, allowing a national momentum to grow with incredible speed. Through the linking up of internet blogs, news of successes spread quickly and protests grew nationwide.
Just three weeks after the first sit-in at SOAS, students gathered yesterday at Birkbeck College to draw up a national strategy. The meeting featured speeches from leaders in the Stop the War movement, such as Tony Benn, George Galloway MP and Jeremy Corbyn MP. There has also been an Early Day Motion tabled in Parliament in support of campus activism.
At the end of the month students from across the country will gather for a national demonstration calling for the abolition of tuition fees, an event that organisers say has rocketed in size following the success of the occupations over Gaza.
Vice chancellors and principals have been brought to the negotiating table and – in the majority of universities – bowed to at least one of the demands. The students’ success means that now there is a new round of protests. On Wednesday two new occupations began at Strathclyde and Manchester universities, and on Friday night students at the University of Glasgow also launched a sit-in.
I predict we’ll be seeing a further radicalisation of students in the coming few years. The people now in uni or starting uni have largely grown up under New Labour, have constantly been disappointed by New Labour, not in the least by the way it pulled up the ladder behind them (grants turned into loans, top-up fees etc). You’d think this would mean students would be more focused on getting a degree than on getting involved in politics, especially now the economy has collapsed, but this generation of students doesn’t toe the line easily.
Their most enduring political memory has to be the build-up to the War on Iraq in which they had been actively involved as well. When the war finally broke out you’ll remember it was the students that went out on strike, including primary and secondary school kids. The greatest political event of their lives was a war that millions of people protested against using all legal options available to them and that ended up happening despite a majority of the country being opposed to it.
The cynical way with which the antiwar protests were disregarded by a political establishment desparate to crawl into George Bush’s arse (or suffering from a messianic complex) has shown this generation that just going on marches is not enough. We’ve seen the results during Israel’s assault on Gaza. By putting pressure on their universities to divest themselves from Israel students took a radical and practical approach to the issue, a way to directly help the Palestinians. It’s a very good sign for the future.