Well the rifles are still loaded and the crosshairs are faithfully positioned. No, I'm not referring to the arms bought by Libya from the West so they could shoot their own people, and then be told off by the West. I refer to the struggles back home, where despite the government mooning the public in a 'kiss my arse' moment of defiance and continuing to push through damaging cuts like they were going for a world record, the resistance continues now in the desolate no-man's land between the previous London and Manchester protests and the big one that's to come in March. Disparate groups are uniting, and much discourse is circulating, although I think it's amongst people who are already well convinced of the impending damage. The media have all but given up commenting on public dissatisfaction, as no windows are being smashed, preferring instead to focus on the Middle East and Cameron's apology. A politician apologising is a headline story - what toss. Only the Socialist Worker seems to make the connection between the demonstrations in Egypt and the unrest in Britain, but is this a good thing? The type of mediation, from the 'grass roots' to whoever is listening, is something that was discussed at the Goldsmiths teach-in last week, and maybe came up implicitly at the protest at Goldsmiths on Wednesday - an expression of disgust at having the New Academic Building opened by ex-Tory MP, ASDA-sell-off visionary, and all round embodiment of what Goldsmiths' students and many others question in our society, Archie Norman.
This protest was deemed a success, and it was - it was fun, and we ruined the corporate event that was planned for that evening, in the newest building of our 'radical' university. But did it lack something? A message? We had no big speech, just a few banners and some cross words with Archie Norman towards the end of the evening.
As Mr. Dan Taylor has noted here in a gripping account of the evening, the invitees seemed largely unimpressed and bemused by our demo, failing to understand it's relevance. An education editor from Channel 4 thought we were stupid, and Archie Norman was condescending and feigned perplexity. The talks outside with Archie Norman showed the polarity of approaches we protesters use to mediate our concerns, shown also in the two pictures up there. One is with the cold, brazen use of impressionable angry language, and one which provides some idea into the ethics behind the anger. As people struggled to get Archie Norman's attention, some we of the 'You rich piece of shit, fuck off out of our Uni, you don't belong here!' kind of persuasion; other's were more like, 'we are here because of the arrogance of those like yourself, who push for unfair free markets and the marketisation of education, and come to stamp your imprint on our university, which is already threatened by measures that you and your friends endorse, while all along your position in the wealthy elite renders you incapable of ever understanding the concerns of the struggling hopeless youth.' It is this negotiation of these approaches that we are struggling with. What is accomplished with either?
To those who we feel are causing irreparable damage - those in power, governmental power; and those who influence power, corporate power - we can probably give up reasoned arguments on the streets. No one is listening. This may be why my friend was chanting 'Go away, Tony Blair' during the first march in the Autumn. In recognition that our words fall on deaf ears, his voice assumed one emptied of content, it merely existed to add to the sounds of dissent. And to those in the general public, currently working out where they stand on the issues, chants about neoliberalism and capitalism come across as a bit pretentious and cliquey. Protests become things that 'other people' do - other people who think they know all the answers, just because they've heard some stuff at uni about how terrible capitalism is. This, too, is how the Socialist Worker comes across. Isms are exclusive, people don't want to be told they're stupid, or asleep, and they don't want to be indoctrinated. Also, 'socialism' has a lot of baggage, it scares people, and 'anti-capitalist' has cleverly become code for 'naive hippie'.
Do we crave media attention? Is this the way to get the message across? It is often assumed so - media attention seems to point to a legitimacy of action, it suggests that those in power are noticing what's going on. But it means that we have to play a certain game: smashed windows - great; 'bad' language - won't get shown; academic opinion - scarcely a mention, and presented as too highbrow to be realistic; student's opinions - it's hit and miss and usually a let down. I've never heard the word neoliberalism on BBC News 24. Playing along to these media guidelines is not and should not be the way that disgruntled citizens play out their grumbling objections, for it reveals a compromise. A story told through the media lens is never the true story, it is spun to satisfy particular ideas of what makes something newsworthy. Villains, heroes, shocks, blame and fear - all needed to work together in an audience-friendly narrative.
So one can understand those who say, like the girl standing next to me as Archie Norman was being berated, 'he's not worth it, I'd be happy just to smash his face in with this party hat.' It's because words of reason are no match for the intrepid capitalist, with a snake-like tongue of silver, after inevitably weaselling his or her way to the 'top'.
But anger is just as alienating, inseparable as it has become from violence- most people who you ask will not condone the smashed window at Millbank, a mixture of a refusal to admit that these moments of transgression have the biggest impact, are in themselves liberating, and a response to scenes depicted by the media as feral, dangerous and condemnable. People are also put off by swear words, as they are by more highfalutin language. In both instances, language is seen as belonging to a particular group that they are not in. They are hesitant to encourage the activities of a group that seems to exclude them.
I don't know how to engage with those who are sceptical of the sceptics, or those who wield the axes, but it might be a question to address. Should we make our message clearer? It certainly doesn't work when you have bodies like the NUS taking that role. Do we get lairy and wreck shit? It's certainly noticeable, but our integrity gets questioned, our anger is said to have no foundation. Is there political force in the use of irony - in the appropriation of political campaigns and corporate events; in the theatrics of the UfSO? Maybe next time, all fifty thousand of us should be chanting 'Go away, Tony Blair.' In the words of Superhans, 'It'll freak 'em out.'
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