Not so long ago, more precisely on the 9th of Dec 2010, London’s soil was trembling. Students and many others were marching together to show their discontent with the proposed raise of tuition fees & HE cuts. But the march wasn’t only for that, its underlying message was also to oppose the current cold wind blowing from Westminster. The newly elected coalition government is cutting budgets in all (im)possible areas and so threatening the common UK people of their basic existence. Whereas 18 of the 23 senior cabinet members are millionaires… hear hear… And yes, let’s not forget the banks, they have not paid back any of the tax money they received in the course of the “historical 2008 bailout”.
Which makes me wonder, how must it feel for those who don’t really have to worry about their bank account figures, that a socially sound EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) for the less well-heeled will be scrapped. The max. for students to receive is £30 per week, I would argue it is not an exorbitant amount for the government to pay to approx. 600’000 people. But it might be gone by the end of 2011, unless SAVE EMA will hopefully win this battle.
People in all seriousness wonder why, I call it “the generation of future”, who has not caused this economic disaster, but yet are asked to help straighten it in the most unfair ways, might react with anger?! After all the rich and mighty, who definitely don’t sit in the same boat, decide over the future of education and the welfare state. It started as a banner swinging and echoing march and had to end on Parliament Square, the message needed to be placed right there! Why is it so far fetched to break down barriers, not to follow the proposed route and to damage property? Being kettled once more by baton swinging police officers and the riot police, who keep playing this power game, it got out of hand. The “generation of future” is clever and organized and another large group of people moved down from Trafalgar Square to Whitehall clashing with the police and clearly outnumbering them. The dynamic of this mass of people was incredible and one thing was utterly clear to me: these young people, by now aware of the outcome of the vote and disappointed, were unstoppable and far too fast for the motorized police. A large group started to go back to Trafalgar Square trying to burn the Xmas tree… A small number of police arrived but the crowd had already a new target in mind and were moving fast (me included trying to catch up with their speed…) towards Leicester Sq. and Piccadilly Sq. and then towards Regents Street where onlookers did not understand what was going on.
Then in midst all the generated energy of the day a weird moment of coincidence happened - or could it be called Karma? A car came into the spotlight, very expensive looking and surrounded by security cars; it took everybody a good moment to understand WHO was actually sitting in that shiny one. It was indeed his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, aka Prince Chas and his Camilla sitting comfortably in the Royal Rolls Royce, slowly rolling up Regents Street. In all seriousness both sides were baffled at first (besides, how come the driver drove straight into a large crowd of people?!) the royals did not understand what the crowd was about and initially thought they were cheering them and cheered back. But in the heat of the moment, things for obvious reasons changed and the RRR got its share of anger from the youngsters. No physical damage happened to the Royals and the RRR convoy cruised off after a brief but intense intermezzo with the demonstrators.
[caption id=“attachment_475” align=“alignnone” width=“600” caption=“At ease, Prince Charles smiling and Camilla with her thumb up”]
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The crowd moved on to 216 Oxford Street aka TOPSHOP which was the actual target. It was the last stop to express once more that people are NOT agreeing with certain individuals, like Sir Green, billion pound tax dodging practice. Who said we are all together in this and is asking Green to advice the government on austerity measurement?! Frankly, we are not all together in this and despite the festive time on our doorstep it was not the moment to put an halt and chairs were thrown into Topshops deluding christmasy windows. Our government has to wake up – the time of luring “the generation of future” into consumerism and capitalism is about to end. They have been raised up in this bubble, they know it is about to burst and are fed up with being manipulated and enslaved into debts. As result the government is trying to shut the door for many to higher education, hence to expansion of knowledge. Education becomes more and more a commodity and knowledge is treated as the new trading good, with which a few chosen are supposed to make a fortune. But knowledge is not a solid “thing” that one can trade, it’s a constant changing and expanding energy that no one can ever own.