I’ll be honest with you all: I am not very politically driven. I have opinions on politics and am aware of which political parties I do and don’t like, but politics in itself does not dictate what I think of people and is definitely not in any way associated with me grouping people together. Nonetheless, I attended the 50,000-strong march in London on the 10/11/2010.
Why was this? Well, being a student I know what it is like to be one and go through the troubles of funding, banking and all that jazz. Not only this but I know that for an educational establishment to run it needs money.
If you take this money away from spending in education universities (as well as other educational establishments) will need to make up the shortfall elsewhere. Even with raised fees the budget a university could spend would fall greatly and thus there is a possibility that parts of the university would fall into disrepair, both physically and in the sense of the quality of education and facilities.
Now for a bit of explaining behind this rant:
Following the Browne review the current coalition government in the UK has decided to cut public spending, an important factor in this being in education. Higher Education funding is being cut by 40%, a removal of teaching grants for most subjects, and there is now to be a cap of £6000-£9000 for tuition fees (from £3290). This will, of course, deter possible university students from pursuing higher education. Not only this, but Undergraduates wanting to pursue a Ph.D. or a MA/MSc will be deterred due to their current student debt.
So we marched.
With 300 people from Coventry University, and 6 coaches, we set off to become a part of a massive march through London to protest against these changes, not only for ourselves but also for future students and education in general.
Contrary to what any of you may have heard from the news the protest was generally peaceful. With our chants (the most popular being “no ifs, no buts, no education cuts”), placards, banners and various musical instruments we walked from the Houses of Parliament to outside the Tate Gallery, where higher ups in the various student unions gave rousing speeches on the issue, as well as showing some amusing and interesting videos made by the unions and universities, and then a return to the Houses of Parliament.
Many of the protesters were very light-hearted. Being students we often joke about things that are very serious and there was much humour to be had on the placards: “Harry Potter doesn’t pay for Hogwarts”; “The government cut my sign budget”; “Fuck this, I’m moving to Scotland”.
Sadly, along the way there was some violence. The group I was in were passing the Millbank Tower, which we later discovered was the Conservative Headquarters, when we saw people leaving with what appeared to be smoke coming out of the foyer. Eggs were thrown. Then people with hoods up and scarves over their faces started to hit the windows, smashing them.
Some people cheered, some people jeered. There were many calls to them to stop doing it (with me personally yelling at them “This is a fucking peaceful protest!”). This violence later turned into a storming of the building followed by protesters getting onto the roof, though by that time we were long gone, not wanting to get in any way involved and join the many other people leaving the area to continue the protest in peace.
Of course, the media picked up on this. The only thing that mattered were the thousands of youths tearing up our nation’s capital, setting it on fire and destroying the buildings. At least, this is what we apparently did, as some people seem to think.
No, we did not do this. The majority of students marched on, continuing their chants, letting the government realise that though we were angry at what they were doing we would not go so low as to resort to violence, we would still show passion. One group is reported to have made a placard saying “Break the cuts, not the windows.”
Let’s look at the numbers. Going by a Guardian article there were 200 violent protesters, leaving 49,800 peaceful protesters. That’s 0.4% of us being violent bastards! And they account for all us students? OF COURSE NOT! Apparently this rose to a thousand, though that was mainly the crowd that was outside watching the spectacle.
“I am appalled that a small minority have today shamefully abused their right to protest”
- London Mayor Boris Johnson
“This was not part of our plan. This action was by others who come out and used this opportunity to hijack a peaceful protest.”
- NUS President Aaron Porter
(Quotes from the BBC)
And what of the violence? Did it help put across our cause? Well, maybe. They may have shown that students are bloody angry. But we all were, we didn’t take it to such an extreme. Personally I feel, as well as many of my colleagues, that what happened was detrimental to our cause. That it would show the student off as a yob, a hooligan, and, possibly, a terrorist. Do we negotiate with terrorists? Of course not. Despite the violence I feel that we did make an impact.
But I have to re-iterate: this was not the reason we were there. We wanted to show the government, through peaceful protest, that we were pissed off and that we did not agree with the government’s choices.
Through our peaceful nature we showed the coalition government that we are not happy and that there is still room for them to change their minds. The sheer number of people that moved on from the violence and watched and listened to the speakers shows how we students are not violent, even in our passion.
To read a more opinions on the NUS demonstration visit: Teodora's Blog
To read a more opinions on the NUS demonstration visit: Teodora's Blog
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