Student Demonstrations

I welcome student demonstrations against tuition fee increases, and looming cuts to university spending. Besides individual hardship, it means the demise of liberal humanities, as universities are shaped for marketability - of courses and qualifications.

Now the movement is overflowing into protests outside businesses which evade taxes – while the poor have benefits slashed and jobs cut.

Recently, students were derided as lazy. Now they are, thankfully, re-politicised. A possibility arises of the renewal of critique. Perhaps an opening may be generated for radical, systemic opposition. If we reject the ideology of consumerism, commercialism and capitalism.

Many students are among the privileged. But not all. Many will suffer massive debts. It’s part of the roll-back in welfare generally. Now extreme cuts are demanded of local government, undermining essential financial support for any so-called ‘big society’. We, in Paddington, will feel the effects of this on local organisations.

The danger, however, is that any opposition movement will remain thoroughly defensive or reactive, and fail to move on to a positive vision of an alternative.

Will students be inspired to ‘think’, to read – more widely than their courses require? Will this immanent opposition lead to a transcendent reaching out beyond the everyday?