"The Bottom Line: It's Not Fair"
The veneer of civilization can be stretched awfully thin. Surprising us no end. When peoples' presumed entitlements are threatened, people react and they do so in ways that really do take us aback. After all, in democratic countries of the world there is the ballot available to all citizens whereby they may voice their displeasure with their elected officials. And generally speaking, when one political party makes decisions so unloved by voters they're booted out.What to do when an election has just been concluded and the incoming political party takes steps to enact very unpopular legislation impacting on peoples' lives? When no one feels complacent about waiting for the next election to roll around? Why, orderly and civil protests. Demonstrate in numbers sufficient for the message to get across. That's what happened in Greece, and in France, and in both countries things got pretty dicey, as in volatile.
But in staid old Britain? Perish the very thought. Yet an estimated fifty thousand young people came out to demonstrate their extreme ire over the new Conservative-coalition government's plan to raise university tuition fees threefold, as the country struggles to contain its growing deficit and crippling debt. It began as a disciplined, orderly march - fifty thousand disgruntled young people; that's fairly disconcerting.
Still, you get your permit and you have the right in a free society to mount a protest. And they did, and the police presence was on site, and the message was delivered. No! to cut university funding, and definitely No! to increased tuition fees. And then all hell broke loose, as young people went on a rampage, smashing up the ruling Conservative party's headquarters.
What had started out as an orderly and civil protest degenerated into a violent assault that the police, there in clearly inadequate numbers, were unable to quell. A hard core of several hundred protesters, some seen to be swilling tins of beer, had themselves a right royal ball. Shouting their happy disgust with the government and smashing furniture that tax money will be used to replace, along with all those shattered windows.
The legitimate students, the orderly and licit crowd, identified the rowdy thugs as not of their ilk; obviously the wrong type infiltrating a peaceful protest, taking advantage of an opportunity to enjoy a good rousing bit of anarchic fun. Street punks, drop-outs, social misfits, all eager to grasp the opportunity, to have a bit of action.
Still, the message was more than adequately delivered by a 24-year-old civil-engineering student: "The choice to go to university should be based on academic ability, not the size of your wallet."
Right on, chum, in the best of all possible worlds. Is that where he lives?
Labels: Britain, Economy, Traditions, Troublespots
posted by Pieface @ Friday, November 12, 2010
<< Home