Wrong Time, Wrong Place, Very Right Idea
Posted by Nik Myers on February 1st, 2009
Satellite image of Cambridge University’s Sidgwick Site courtesy of Google maps.
Oh good, another person’s opinion about the law faculty protest. Hooray. Great topic for a first post. Bear with me though, for I would like to talk, not about the specifics of this protest, but of this kind of event in broader terms. Last Tuesday in the Times, Jonathan Sacks described a loss of objectivity among academics as one of the, “flashing danger signs” of a resurgence in global hate. What I would argue is that students have a duty to protest on issues they consider important, but that the protest of the past week was a bad place to start.
What was wrong with the protest? The location for one. Critics would say that the law faculty was chosen due to its warmth, vending machines and wifi, while the protesters might retort that it is a high profile place which many students visit on a regular basis. Either way, is it really fair to disrupt the workings of law students (the vast majority of whom voted against the protesters in polls held at the start of lectures [Varsity]), when the focus of the protest is against the university itself? Why not camp outside the Old Schools building, or in front of the CUSU offices? And why was the Israel-Gaza conflict chosen as being worthy of protest, when the Russian invasion of Georgia, a struggle just as complex in its history and with as much moral ambiguity, merited relatively little attention? The attention that this protest attracted effectively highlights the paucity of student activism in this university, while the lack of wider coverage it received shows how uninterested the public at large is in our opinion - neither the Times, Guardian, Independant, Telegraph nor Financial Times newspapers gave any coverage to the protest. Ask a local about the protest, and if you get something other than, “What protest?” then you’re doing better than me. Student activism should not be the exception, neither should it be completely ignored.
But why should the onus be on us, as students, to protest and raise awareness about such matters? Very simply, because we can. Our geographical proximity makes it possible to physically congregate easily, an act which carries more impact than an online poll ever will. The flexibility of many of our schedules makes it possible to spend between us every hour of the day in one place. And our energy, hardiness, and ultimately youth make it possible to do these things where others cannot. We are uniquely gifted in our set of circumstances, and would be selfish to use this opportunity merely in the pursuit of pleasure (and no-one would tell you that the sole purpose of attending university is to educate oneself). Peaceful protest is an option very open to students, and a great way of highlighting unjustice or outrage.
This Monday the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, is coming to deliver the Rede Lecture, by appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of the university. It is, I think, unnecessary to list China’s alleged human rights abuses here - suffice to say they go far beyond the occupation of Tibet. The lecture is being delivered in the music faculty on the Sidgwick site, which will be closed to its students for the day. A protest has been organised from 2pm outside the faculty, with some reports suggesting that people will be travelling from across the country to it.
A student faculty taken over for a speech by the leader of a hugely unjust government, at the request of the head of the university? I will be interested to see how well attended by students the protest is.
Filed under: amnesty, arabisraeliconflict, humanrights, socialjustice on February 1st, 2009
Where to start with China? The consensus (whether we’re talking about trade, the Olympics, or lectures) is that engagement is better than getting their backs up.
I remember Steve Redgrave saying it was right to parade the Olympic torch through London, because a boycott would have achieved nothing — whereas this concession allowed protesters to be seen.
Do I agree? I don’t think so. The Olympics gave overwhelmingly positive coverage to a terribly repressive regime. But the “engagers” have a point too.
I think the invitation to the Chinese premier to speak somewhat gives the lie to the argument - which was constantly pushed by university officials during negotiations with the Cambridge Gaza Solidarity campaign - that the university cannot take ‘political’ actions.
Why not protest in the university against the Russian invasion of Georgia? It was August. We were on holiday. I’m not pretending that there would have been action like this if that war had happened during term time; it’s a fact that the Palestine issue raises a lot of people’s emotions for historical and social reasons. A lot of the criticism we received along the lines of “Why Gaza and not Darfur/Zimbabwe/Georgia?” implies that, because there are so many problems in the world, to try to do something about one of them is somehow unfair. I don’t buy this at all, surely it’s just more realistic?
We chose the Law Faculty because we were in there at a film showing and discussion when the decision to occupy was taken. We couldn’t have moved somewhere else at 8.30pm and done it. And yes, the Wifi was incredibly important allowing us to update our blog as and when things happened.
That we received no national press coverage was not for want of trying. If we had stayed there until we were dragged out by our collars (as happened in Nottingham and Birmingham) I daresay we would have got in the papers. But the uni would have also withdrawn its offer to go towards meet some of our demands, and we were there for the people of Gaza, not to make the uni look bad.
Hope this comment clears up some things. Glad to read something that says students should be protesting more. I agree we should do it because we can - we should do it because the world needs changing.