Recent press coverage of the student protests has tended to focus on the sensationalist images of students smashing their feet through windows and scribbling 'Anarchy' signs onto police vans. And why wouldn't they? Not many people are going to buy the Daily Mail if it has the picture of a legitimate peaceful student making the case for higher education. I suspect that what Mail readers really want is to be terrified about scary students in balaclavas (preferably urinating on some war memorial...whilst holding hands with an asylum seeker...who has got swine flu). Over breakfast, they can them make some ignorant rant about how students aren't like what they were "in their day". They have a point. I can't think of any student protests that happened before the turn of the millenium. As a matter of fact, if you search '1968 student protests' into Google, you will literally find nothing! Try it...
However, much like the Daily Mail, these so-called anarchist protesters are very unhelpful. They undermine the student movement that is legitimately campaiging against the privatisation of the university system and against the Liberal Democrat's shameful U-turn on an election pledge. In fact, I'm not even sure if 'U-turn' is strong enough. The equivalent would be if you booked a flight with a company, ChangeJet, that says they are going to Barbados and then halfway through your flight, the pilot says "And shortly we will be arriving in Middlesbrough". Then, they refuse to give you a refund because they say that your contract was invalid because, after you paid, they were struggling financially so they merged with a stubborn but rich company called AwfulJet who only do flights to the North-East of England.
Of course, the anarchist solution is that we 'smash the plane' and all walk instead...we may get there but it will take a hell of a long time and by then, most of us will have drowned.
You get my point.
The Liberal Democrats promised 'new politics', they promised 'the end of broken promises' and then they shamelessly monopolised the progressive student vote with some PR stunts, got offered power with a regressive Conservative party, and then took all the good jobs they could lay their hands on. That Vince Cable can stand there and say this new scheme is "progressive" is beyond a joke. Does he really think that bright kids on a council estate are not going to be put off by a £50,000 stone mill round their necks once they graduate? Yes, they are raising the freshold for paying back to £21,000 and saying you pay back in smaller doses, but why don't you then put that on the current system? They are just window-dressing 80% cuts in education that mean students will have to pay THREE TIMES MORE for longer (with a worse standard of education). Merry Christmas from the coalition government!
The anarchist solution of 'smashing the state' is equally terrible. Yes, I understand that the anarchist view being expressed by most are not those of the great thinkers of Bakunin and Proudhon but more of those of John Lydon and Jonny Rotten. So we smash the state, we overthrow the Houses of Parliament, we scrap tuition fees...and then what?!?! Because someone then has to fund higher education. Well, you may argue, some benevolent wealthy businessmen could help out. Welcome to the complete privatisation of education...
The truth is and, like it or loave it, the state can be a positive force. We need the state to provide welfare to those in poverty, we need the state to rehabilitate murders so that they can be reintroduced into society and we need the state to provide free education for everyone in this country so that every child has the opportunity of every other child.
We also need politicians with some backbone and principle to implement such brave social change and revive the public's trust in the state's potential. Thanks to Nick Clegg, we still have a long way to go on this one.
