Some thoughts on student protests

I’ve been listening with interest this week to lots of people commenting about the student protests. Several people have been comparing them to protests in ‘their day’. Most people seem pleased that there is increased student activism, and have a sense that, in general, students are less politically engaged than they used to be.

People have been discussing previous student sit-ins, protests, occupying buildings and so on. I understand that in Hull University a common tactic was to occupy the boiler house so that the university had to close down. Some people are really positive about these tactics, others were more annoyed that other people’s actions meant that their education was disrupted.

I welcome student activism, and think that comments that students are less political now are probably over-exaggerated. Students and the campaign against higher fees need to think carefully about what they are doing and what their strategy is. There are rumours of plans for direct action. This may work well for the campaign, but it needs to be carefully thought through.

Consideration needs to be given to tactics. A campaign needs to leave room for the other side to change its position and actually do what the campaigners want. Some forms of protest can be so confrontational that they do not leave room for change and only solidify existing positions.

Violence is also a key factor of course. One of the problems with any protest is that it will attract violence by some. Keeping your own campaigners completely non-violent needs incredible discipline, and keeping others out who want to use violence is likely to be impossible. The challenge for any campaign is to keep violence to a minimum, and then have a strategy to allow the message to come through despite the inevitable media attention on the violence at the edges. Ultimately, the protestors need people watching to blame the other side for the problems being highlighted, not to blame the protestors for the trouble being caused. This is not an easy balance to achieve, and needs a well thought-out strategy.

Government transparency? Clear as mud

I’ve been at a meeting today where we were discussing the new government’s agenda and its implications for local government. One of the themes that came out was the government’s agenda for increased transparency in local government (for the record, a principle I agree with). One example is the duty for councils to publish all expenditure over £500. I find it interesting that central government departments will be required to publish only expenditure over £25,000.

One of the other interesting themes that came out of the session was the new language being used in central government. Regionalism and sub-region are not approved words any more apparently- some people are using pan-local instead, or just trying not to talk about regionalism. There are no longer targets, but milestones. Prototypes trial new projects, not pilots. And that’s before we even start trying to define the ‘big society’.

Clear as mud.

Topical cases for teaching

One of the things that I find makes teaching easier is having relevant, topical case studies to use. So far this year there has been plenty of material to draw on.

A few weeks ago, we were discussing the subject of when, if ever, it is legitimate to disobey the state at the same time as the issue of student fees first became prominent. Unsurprisingly, we quickly got onto a discussion of whether civil disobedience is acceptable when protesting against student fees (I’m hoping I didn’t put too many ideas into students’ heads!).

The following week, we were discussing non-violent direct action the same week as there had been a protest at the full council meeting I had been in. There was lots to discuss about what works well and what doesn’t.

Now, our new topic is about what methods are used by terrorists, and what they are aiming to achieve from their terrorism. I anticipate plenty of scope to discuss the recent explosives on cargo planes from Yemen. There are lots of interesting topics, like whether the terrorists have achieved many of their aims without a bomb needing to go off, due to the media coverage, extra security measures and so on. Interestingly, I notice that few media reports are saying anything about the aims of the terrorists. I wonder whether that is because the terrorists have not made this clear, or because governments have put pressure on the media not to discuss motives in order to support counter-terrorism objectives.

Of course, it would better when teaching a module on terrorism to only have historical cases to draw on.