A Student's Rebellion
A STUDENTS REBELLION
(http://socialistworker.org/2009/02/24/student-rebellion-catches-on)
A student rebellion catches on
Before anyone writes off today's students as apathetic, they should consider what the new wave of student occupations has begun to accomplish.
February 24, 2009
ONE OF the many upsetting aspects to being in your forties, is hearing people your own age grumbling about "young people" the way we were grumbled about ourselves.
Old friends will complain, "Youngsters today have no respect like we did," and I'll think: "Hang on. I remember the night you set a puma loose in the soft furnishings section of Pricerite's."
There's also a "radicals" version of this attitude, a strand within the middle-aged who lament how today's youngsters "Don't demonstrate like we did," because "we were always marching against apartheid or for the miners, but students these days don't seem bothered."
It would seem natural if they went on: "The bloody youth of today; they've no disrespect for authority. In my day you started chanting and if a copper gave you any lip you gave him a clip round the ear, and he didn't do it again. We've lost those values somehow."
You feel that even if they did come across a mass student protest they'd sneer: "That isn't a proper rebellion, they've used the Internet. You wouldn't have caught Spartacus rounding up his forces by putting a message on Facebook saying 'Hi Cum 2 Rome 4 gr8 fite 2 liber8 slaves lets kill emprer lol.'"
It doesn't help that many of the student leaders from the sixties and seventies ended up as ministers or journalists, who try to deny they've reneged on their principles by making statements such as: "It's true I used to run the Campaign to Abolish the British Army, but my recent speech in favor of invading every country in the world in alphabetical order merely places those ideals in a modern setting."
Also it's become a tougher prospect to rebel as a student, as tuition fees force them to work while they're
(http://socialistworker.org/2009/02/24/student-rebellion-catches-on)
A student rebellion catches on
Before anyone writes off today's students as apathetic, they should consider what the new wave of student occupations has begun to accomplish.
February 24, 2009
ONE OF the many upsetting aspects to being in your forties, is hearing people your own age grumbling about "young people" the way we were grumbled about ourselves.
Old friends will complain, "Youngsters today have no respect like we did," and I'll think: "Hang on. I remember the night you set a puma loose in the soft furnishings section of Pricerite's."
There's also a "radicals" version of this attitude, a strand within the middle-aged who lament how today's youngsters "Don't demonstrate like we did," because "we were always marching against apartheid or for the miners, but students these days don't seem bothered."
It would seem natural if they went on: "The bloody youth of today; they've no disrespect for authority. In my day you started chanting and if a copper gave you any lip you gave him a clip round the ear, and he didn't do it again. We've lost those values somehow."
You feel that even if they did come across a mass student protest they'd sneer: "That isn't a proper rebellion, they've used the Internet. You wouldn't have caught Spartacus rounding up his forces by putting a message on Facebook saying 'Hi Cum 2 Rome 4 gr8 fite 2 liber8 slaves lets kill emprer lol.'"
It doesn't help that many of the student leaders from the sixties and seventies ended up as ministers or journalists, who try to deny they've reneged on their principles by making statements such as: "It's true I used to run the Campaign to Abolish the British Army, but my recent speech in favor of invading every country in the world in alphabetical order merely places those ideals in a modern setting."
Also it's become a tougher prospect to rebel as a student, as tuition fees force them to work while they're