As the wreckage is cleared away from Westminster and the West End, the young people who braved the cold, batons and horses will consider that they have taken part in something historic. For so many of the young people, with battered heads and bones and dubstep ringing in their ears, kettled on a sub-zero Westminster Bridge for hours, or caught up in an attack on the heir to the throne, yesterday will be a defining moment in their lives. It will change their view of their world. It has already become part of their personal history, like those who battled at Wapping, Orgreave, Grunwick, Saltley Gate, Grosvenor Square, or for that matter those who waved their pro-democracy placards in St Peter’s Fields before the yeomanry charged, swords flailing.
The rational part of me knows that yesterday’s sporadic violence should be condemned, as should the police cavalry charges against packed crowds. I’ve been on the wrong end of those, and it’s an incredibly dangerous and unpredictable tactic for the police to deploy. The ritual condemnation of the rioters, and the words of support for the police, have filled the airwaves this morning. Yet I have an irrational respect for all those young people in London yesterday. Watching Sky News and reading the tweets from Penny Red and UCL Occupation made the heart race a little faster. I can hear the chorus of readers’ condemnation as I type these words, but there was something ever-so-slightly heroic about the demonstrations yesterday.
History teaches us that popular struggle, including rioting and violence, has lead to social progress. The Suffragettes smashed the windows of government buildings, sent letter bombs, set fire to pillar boxes, attacked churches and ‘rushed’ the House of Commons. In 1914, following the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Richardson walked into the National Gallery and slashed Valezquez’s Rokeby Venus with a meat cleaver. It’s still there, in Room 30 of the National Gallery, with the repair marks barely visible. Votes for women became a reality, and a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, who smashed windows and attacked police officers, stands next to the Houses of Parliament. Across the road is a statue of Nelson Mandela, who said at his trial ‘I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.’ Within the grounds of parliament itself is a statue of Oliver Cromwell, who signed a king’s death warrant.
I don’t think that the students and schoolchildren on the demos yesterday are the same as the Suffragettes, or the African National Congress, or the Roundheads. But I do think they stand in a long line of people prepared to stand up for what they believe, to fight injustice as they see it, and risk a broken head rather than stay at home. The history of the Labour and trade union movement is the history of such people, whether we like it or not. A trip to the People’s History Museum on the banks of the Irwell will make the point. Don’t delay your visit for too long, though, because the Tory-led government has announced the museum is having its funding cut. Not content with wiping out the futures of so many young people, they also want to eradicate their forebears’ past.
indeed very hard not to agree when one hears “off with their heads” or as Willets would say, Tally-ho!
Very well put. I am struggling to feel any sense of condemnation for the actions of the demonstrators on Thursday. Of course, one should abhor violence in all its forms but I wonder who’s interests the scences witnessed really serve. Certainly those of Mr Cameron who was given an opportunity to air his indignance and disgust. I wonder, too, whether it doesn’t harm the police’s budgetary case to appear to almost lose contol of the situation; again. As for the police tactics, they did not seem to be aimed at maintaining and reinstating peaceful order, especially when one considers that some of the demonstrators were very young indeed. If we are looking for the real philistines here, I’d say that they were those members of parliament who voted to further reduce state funding for universities. Surely, universities, beyond being places where undergraduates are taught, are centres of learning and scholarship, things which should be valued as such and for themselves. When there are fewer universities, and when some new private ones have opened, perhaps the coalition government will be happy to assert what a service it has done the nation. It is surely needlless to repeat that education is a general good, having benefits way beyond those said to be attendant on gaining a degree. Better health awarenes; lower rates of crime and more civility; a higher level of national debate; and, a greater interest in culture are some that come to mind. The goverment are fond of saying that there is no alternative but there is: it is a question of priorities and clearly investment in education is not, according to their decisions so far, something that the coalition in really promoting. A future Labour manifesto should include a commitment to abolishing tuition fees, reinstating EMA and SSPs and renewing it’s commitment to school rebuilding.
Protests in the past, were, by and large, on behalf of others (eg people being bombed by the Americans in Vietnam, victims of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, or the people of Iraq at the time of the 2003 war) or to gain or defend democratic rights we were being denied (eg the right to vote). The current protests are largely about money. Let me say right away that I agree with the protesters’ case – but we are talking about if and when violence can be justified. Is it right to smash shop windows because government policy is going to cost you money? Admittedly many students and others voted for the Lib Dems on the fees issues and may have felt democracy has let them down – but in that case their ire should have been directed against the people they voted for, not the police or businesses with no connection to the issue.