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Dec. 9th, 2010 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bagheera_sanThe way the British media reports on the protest against funding cuts and fee raises for British universities continues to baffle and disgust me. It's not just a British problem, of course, but they seem to be more extreme in their condemnation of any protest that isn't completely peaceful and unobtrusive. Well, newsflash! The whole point of a protest is to get noticed. The point is, in fact, to annoy you, to upset you, to disturb you. Protests aren't harmless and pleasant things.
So students in London smash some shop windows and burn a park bench. I'm not saying this is a good thing: but it's much better than the deafening silence I'm hearing up here in Durham. Anyone who has ever tried to get people to protest, vote, or politically participate in any way knows that it's damn hard. People are lethargic, they might grumble, but getting a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand people on the street is damn near a miracle. So if people are burning your park benches in protest, then it means you're doing something REALLY REALLY wrong, because most people are not acutally keen to be beat up by police clad like stormtroopers.
For years Germany had no tuition fees, and it worked fine. Now we do have tuition fees - about 1000 Euro at the most expensive universities, while some others do just fine without fees. That is nowhere near the 9000+ GBP proposed by the Browne report. And yet our universities are no worse. The teaching in Durham, at least in English Lit, seems to me to be slightly better than in Heidelberg, but the library, for example, is much worse. Frankly, I've no idea what English universties do with all that fee money! I know what German universities do with it: the first year after it's introduction, the German department bought new chairs and drapes for no good reason, and the English department ordered every book they could possibly order. A few new jobs were created. But the teaching and research quality? Stayed exactly the same.
What I'm saying is: the protests are justified. And even if they weren't justified, they're still a good thing. They're what democracy is all about, for heaven's sake! The fake outrage of the media is a vile and shameful thing.
Burn more park benches, guys.
So students in London smash some shop windows and burn a park bench. I'm not saying this is a good thing: but it's much better than the deafening silence I'm hearing up here in Durham. Anyone who has ever tried to get people to protest, vote, or politically participate in any way knows that it's damn hard. People are lethargic, they might grumble, but getting a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand people on the street is damn near a miracle. So if people are burning your park benches in protest, then it means you're doing something REALLY REALLY wrong, because most people are not acutally keen to be beat up by police clad like stormtroopers.
For years Germany had no tuition fees, and it worked fine. Now we do have tuition fees - about 1000 Euro at the most expensive universities, while some others do just fine without fees. That is nowhere near the 9000+ GBP proposed by the Browne report. And yet our universities are no worse. The teaching in Durham, at least in English Lit, seems to me to be slightly better than in Heidelberg, but the library, for example, is much worse. Frankly, I've no idea what English universties do with all that fee money! I know what German universities do with it: the first year after it's introduction, the German department bought new chairs and drapes for no good reason, and the English department ordered every book they could possibly order. A few new jobs were created. But the teaching and research quality? Stayed exactly the same.
What I'm saying is: the protests are justified. And even if they weren't justified, they're still a good thing. They're what democracy is all about, for heaven's sake! The fake outrage of the media is a vile and shameful thing.
Burn more park benches, guys.
