In the Words of Mahatma Ghandi: ‘The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent’. Today as a collective student body, we should consider Ghandi’s words once again. Whilst hanging our heads in shame. Students across the country have been tarred by the actions of a minority yesterday.
Our credibility as one of the largest collective groups who can stand up to something we think is wrong and protest peacefully for fairness has disappeared over night. Students can no longer be considered a powerful body that have the ability to pressure the government and society as whole into changing policy. Instead we are now seen as thugs.
It has to be accepted that it was just a minority. There are estimations that 50,000 students turned up to march, and admittedly only a fraction of them resorted to violence. But the old refrain, that it only requires the actions of the few to affect the many, still stands.
The general public, and most importantly the government, understandably have no time for people who feel that they have to resort to anarchy to be heard. Violence can never be the answer. Members of the public who previously had sympathy for the views of students become alienated and alarmed when students feel people will empathise when they act like thugs.
And although facts are still emerging, it has already been disproved that the violence that took place outside and on the roof of Conservative Party Head Quarters yesterday afternoon was purely the work of left wing anarchists who had infiltrated the otherwise peaceful protests. Many of those who committed such horrific criminal acts were students. And most horrifying of all, some of those involved were York students.
Regardless of what we think of the government’s policy over tuition fees and higher education funding, it has to be accepted that violent behaviour of the sort witnessed outside Milbank tower yesterday afternoon is not the answer. We do not only undermine any respect that we had for ourselves and society, but we lose the support of rational members of the public, who in so many cases have sympathy for the situation that students find themselves in. But more importantly, as people intellectually capable to be at a first class university such as York, we should act in a way that dignifies such intelligence, rather than trying to exclude ourselves from the boundaries of civilized and acceptable behaviour.
And that not only means accepting that in future such behaviour will not work, but that we need to take responsibility for the events of yesterday. As a collective student body we need to accept we were wrong.
Most importantly, those York students who have been identified partaking in criminal behaviour need to be brought to justice. The nature of such justice is best left to the police, the justice system and the University authorities; it can only be right that they are punished for the way they acted, primarily for how they discredited the name of our University and its Union. This should be not just a criminal but also a disciplinary case.
Secondly, YUSU need to immediately distance themselves from the behaviour of the few York students who acted the way they did. National news broadcasts featured banners with the YUSU logo, identifying the union as being at the heart of the criminal activity outside CCHQ. Simple rebuttals from York students at the rally, stating they were on the bus when the violence kicked off, are not enough. It has already been proven that a few York students were involved. YUSU must make it clear that it condemns unequivocally the actions of this minority and that it does not represent the views of the union as a whole or the student body at York. Failure to do this will be seen as YUSU silently condoning such unacceptable behaviour. It is of course right that we have a union that stands up for fairness, but fairness does not include acting criminally and the union needs to make that clear. YUSU would be right to support the University in whatever action it feels it needs to take against the individuals concerned.
And finally, the NUS have a responsibility in light of the events of yesterday. To organise a march that passed CCHQ was unnecessarily provocative. Most marches in London take place in Trafalgar square or on the South Bank. Choosing the route they did, the NUS exacerbated the situation and failed to foresee the consequences.
The NUS’ pleas that the event was always meant to be a peaceful protest and was not meant to turn violent may well be true. But such claims are undermined by the facts that the NUS branded the event ‘Demolition’ and with slogans such as ‘We will riot’. Such inflammatory rhetoric is inevitably going to end in trouble. Ultimately the NUS were responsible for organising the event. Being unable to organise a peaceful demonstration says a lot about the competence of the NUS leadership.
At the end of the day, it may be true that the event got out of control and was hijacked by non-student anarchists and revolutionaries. But when the NUS organised the event they took on responsibility for its consequences. And that is why Aaron Porter’s resignation should have already taken place by now.
If we want public support for the student cause then we have to acting in a way that supports this. Alienating the wider public and indeed many students themselves as well as intentionally provoking the government through violence and disorder is certainly not the way forward and will only strengthen the case of those who oppose our cause.
‘Horrific criminal acts’? Sorry, are you referring to the window smashing, the stealing of stationary or running around on a roof?
Because I was there from the beginning to the end and didn’t see anything more ‘horrific’ than that.
If I read one more comdemning article from people who weren’t there I’ll really do a horrific criminal act.
We’ve all seen footage of windows being smashed, fires being lit, and fire extinguishers being thrown off roofs at rows of riot police. I think that you can quite legitimately describe all three as ‘horific criminal acts’.
I think its quite naive to think that people aren’t going to be condemming such criminal acts.
“As a collective student body we need to accept we were wrong.”
errr…but the collective student body was not wrong.
“But when the NUS organised the event they took on responsibility for its consequences. And that is why Aaron Porter’s resignation should have already taken place by now.”
Ah yes, Aaron Porter. The Borg Queen. He had total control over his collective of students, controlling the actions of the 50 000.
Even though it was only a minority who committed criminal acts, I think we have to be big enough to accept that it negatively affects the image of the student population as a whole. What we can d is make it clear to the wider public taht what happened in the name of studnets doesn’t reflect the views of the vast amjority of us and taht we condemn violence of this nature.
Secondly, Of course he didn’t have control over the actions of 50,000 but he helped precipitate an atmposphere in which it was possible for such violence to take place. I think it is also clear taht there were huge failings in the planning and execution of the event, eg. the route, branding of the event, and liason with the police. For that he ought to take responsibility.
Possibly the worst article I have ever read from this columnist, and that’s saying something.
To say all students should hang their heads in shame is just ridiculous. According to your logic any person should be ashamed of themselves for whatever negative actions people in their demographic commit.
Lets not forget the real criminals in this are Clegg and Cameron for potentially ruining the future of thousands of young people in this country. The UK is already investing less of its budget(0.9%) than most developed countries (2.9%) in the USA. For Cameron this is not a pragmatic cut. It is ideologically fuelled as part of his Thatcherite agenda to roll back the frontiers of the state. Clegg is just a sycophant to Cameron and must surely be despised by everyone in his own party. Clegg’s pledge to oppose tuition fees was not a minor detail in the depths of his manifesto miniature, but a central principle of his party’s ethos with which they have been wooing student voters for the past 10 years. He, and other Liberal Democrats have broken a solemn pledge to the electorate and left myself and many others disenfranchised. Maybe that’s why many students acted as they did on Wednesday.
I really take issue with this article and the way its written from the position of the moral majority. Many of us students, even if we don’t openly condone the rioting, do share in the discontentment of those involved and would likely stand in solidarity with them rather than the political regime whose HQ was the target in this spectacle.
It is clear that the system of governance under which we live is highly undemocratic; that these changes are being sanctioned by a party who promised to fight the opposite case (and who were elected on that basis), and that now no one in Parliament represents the interests of the working/lower-middle classes in general. The decision to raise fees and cut HE funding was based on a review conducted by a bunch of unelected business technocrats, whose sole focus of the review was that of costings, ignoring completely the intrinsic value of higher education. The fact that of the three parties, one set in motion this review whilst the other two received its ‘findings’ uncritically, shows a deep failure in the system of parliamentary democracy as it currently operates (namely: as neoliberal consensus working so that it allows no genuine opposition to itself).
We are presented with a notion of democracy that is not about empowering the people, but about free speech on condition that you don’t expect your demands to be listened to. People are frustrated, and for you to not recognise this is to take sides with those in power. Your paper’s attempts to rat out those involved in the protests is petty and vindictive, and the worst part of it all is that YUSU funds you to do so. Shame on you and your colleagues.
“Even though it was only a minority who committed criminal acts, I think we have to be big enough to accept that it negatively affects the image of the student population as a whole. What we can d is make it clear to the wider public taht what happened in the name of studnets doesn’t reflect the views of the vast amjority of us and taht we condemn violence of this nature.”
Angus, I agree with this. But this statement clearly does not mean anything like the same thing as “As a collective student body we need to accept we were wrong.”
The point of this article was that the NUS organised a needlessly provocative and inflammatory march, intentionally or not. This makes them inexcusably naive at best and unforgivably irresponsible at worst. The resulting violence was foreseeable, preventable and counter-productive. If we condemn only the perpetrators of violence and not the instigators we are complicit in this violence. Failure to distance ourselves from those NUS figures responsible would be both a failure of our basic civic duty and a massive political own-goal. We would thus undermine our ability to engage with government when the population associate us as a collective body with violent riots but also make it far too easy for our views to be irrationalised and ignored. The fact that Aaron Porter does not control every single protester is true, but irrelevant. He organised the march in the name of students and chose to use inflammatory rhetoric and tactics. He is responsible in the same way any person in a position of authority is responsible for the actions of those under them, even if they are not directly complicit. Ministers and company executives are held responsible for the actions of their subordinates – this is both fair and necessary for there to be any accountability at all.
Furthermore in response to criticism leveled at Angus for this article I find it particularly facetious to attack him while hiding behind behind false pseudonyms but also your objections are entirely irrelevant and ill informed. Firstly the Browne report was commissioned by a Labour Government and was inevitably going to come out in support of a raise in Student fees at the time of commission. Also your objection to meritocracy in this case is simply arguing that governments should uninformed which is inevitably to its deficit but also those producing the report have no legislative power but only act in an advisory capacity. However the current Labour party still oppose the changes proposed but you still seem to live in an ideal world where political compromise is non-existent.