Student protests: today is our 1968 moment (30 universities occupied?)

[Hannah Bell]

Less than a month after the first national student demonstration, the coalition has given up on real argument. The line now being pushed by Nick Clegg and David Cameron is that students – the full-time readers, the doctoral researchers – simply haven't read the government's proposals, or don't understand them. We have read them, and we don't like them...

It is the government that is failing to understand the situation. At the time of writing, something like 30 universities have gone into occupation, and school and FE students have come out in tens of thousands to defend their right to basic levels of educational maintenance support and accessible university education. The government is doing more than plugging a funding gap, it is fundamentally changing the purpose of education: not simply orientating it towards the logic of the market, but introducing the market directly into the system.

In response, we are witnessing the rebirth of mass discontent in a serious form...For now, students' attention is fixed on the vote...With just hours to go until the vote, it is now undeniably possible that the fee rise will pass. (It did.) If it does, it will be the task of everyone who wants to oppose the wholesale marketisation of society to remain steadfast.

History tells us that repeal is a serious possibility....But while in 1968 protesters fought for a new society and a new history, today we contest the supposed end of history – the idea that human progress is now and for ever linked to free markets and corporate interests...

The government at the heart of this crisis has nothing to offer us but palliatives: meagre electoral reform, the odd quid for bursaries, the hollow slogans of the "big society".

The popular unrest over education reforms is threatening to bypass the rhetoric, and to spread to millions of ordinary working people after Christmas. Lib Dem MPs must now stick to their pledge. If they don't, and the vote passes, they will regret it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/09/student-protest-tuition-fees-vote

[Waiting For Everyman]

1. K&R

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