Thursday’s fees demonstration was the first protest I’d ever attended. Well, that’s not true. I once got a kebab shop in Stroud Green to stay open an extra ten minutes after a concert by ‘picketing’ it with fellow concertgoers. We even chanted ‘Yes We Can!’ as the harassed proprietor let us in. It was a victory for direct action, plus we all got burgers out of it. Democracy tasted good that night. I’d say Thursday’s protest was only slightly better organised. And seeing as the result of this protest was the government raising tuition fees anyway, and the result of the kebab protest was a delicious late night snack, I reckon the latter (Ti-YUM-anmen Square, as I really shouldn’t call it) wins out.
I didn’t have a clue what was going on on Thursday. When I arrived in Westminster at noon, I couldn’t figure out where the main, big, headline-news protest was. Online, there were conflicting Facebook events – the NUS were on Embankment, there was a march starting in Bloomsbury, and there were plans for a generic protest outside House of Commons. Checking the Coalition of Resistance website on my phone, the top story was something about a sit-in in a sixth form. This was presumably because whoever ran the website was on the march and had forgot to update the site. I actioned my ‘Permanent Plan B’—to get snacks.
The Tesco by Westminster tube held the first actual signs of a protest. A long queue of students and anarchisty-looking types were evidentially buying up kettling provisions. Mainly water, sausage rolls, mints (presumably bought by people hoping the spirit of cooperation brought about by a new age of protest would get them laid). In the queue, although I didn’t talk to my fellow protestors or make any eye contact whatsoever, I began to feel part of a movement of brothers. It was mainly a quite slow movement toward the checkout, sure. But in many senses it was also a movement towards freedom. Clutching my sandwich and five bags of mints, the words of Abraham Lincoln began to stir inside me - “government of the people…” For some reason the title music to The West Wing echoed in my mind, as I imagined holding a placard, perhaps in the manner of Delacroix’s lady Liberty, shouting some improvised slogan that sums up the spirit of the age, my bared breast catching the mid day sun as the riot police look on in fear, as the orcs did when Gandalf arrived at sun rise in Lord of the Rings. By the time the checkout girl asked me if I wanted cashback, I realised all the other protestors had gone. Perhaps Parliament Square is my best bet, I thought, and I arrived to the place devoid of protestors but full of riot police.
I saw several would-be protestors file in ones and two into Parliament Square, see there was no one there, and then sidle up to the police in a slightly sheepish manner asking where the protest was. The police helpfully told them most protestors would be in Parliament Square in an hour or so, with a roll of their eyes. This was pretty embarrassing, really. I couldn’t imagine Jesse Jackson strolling over to the cops in Selma asking them where everything was ‘going to kick off’.
This total lack of unified organisation on the part of the protestors, at this stage, put the police at ease. I saw two armed officers ‘guarding’ the muffin counter at Nero. As we all know, there are no public toilets anywhere on mainland Britain, so I used the Red Lion pub. To my surprise, the cubicle door opened showing an officer in full riot gear who had just finished, trying to get his utility belt back on. I stared into his eyes, he into mine. Protestor and riot cop. “God, that was a bit of a mission” he said, referencing the number of zips and belts he had to negotiate. “It’s out of bog roll, but there’s some more by the taps”. He left, leaving me a bit confused. “Screw you, The Man” I whispered tentatively.
Sure enough, things soon kicked off in Parliament Square. Thousands of students streamed in and started chanting, then some guys with scarves around their mouths started climbing on things. I don’t know when it was that all cunts decided to buy scarves, but there had clearly been a rush on at M&S that day and the prick brigade was out in force, with their lower faces running no risk of getting a chill. These two dozen or so hoodlums—that’s right, I’m not afraid to call them hoodlums—quickly started causing trouble. Some of them started burning things on top of a dumpster. I shouted at them to get down, and was drily labelled ‘a fuck’ by the lead wordsmith. In front of me, I saw twenty or so photographers rush to take pictures of them. Behind the photographers, thousands of students stood around placidly. I asked the photographers whether they would mind taking pictures of some protestors who “aren’t cunts”, a request which they dutifully ignored.
Then someone threw a glass bottle at the police, which missed my head by inches. At the same time I saw some mounted officers arriving just outside the square. I saw a fellow with a particularly nice woollen scarf collecting bricks to throw at the police. It was at about this point that I decided I’d done my bit for future generations, and that the microwave curry I had defrosting at home probably needed to be eaten soon anyway.
I felt some degree of shame at leaving my fellow protestors. But watching the news that night, seeing footage of the same scarf-wearing idiots from earlier, I decided they were more let down by lack of organisation than by me leaving to eat my curry. The thing about a mass protest is its impact is only going to be media-based. As such, image was the important thing. And the handful of scarfy twats burning things provided a more striking image than protesting peacefully. It’s obvious that scarf-wearing fire starter is a more interesting story than, say, a sixth-former holding a sign about the cutting of EMA. That’s why you have to provide an even more interesting but positive story of your own. Though an umbrella organisation, the Coalition of Resistance is united in wanting the most media impact possible. Through a combination of iPhones, customizable Google Maps and the huge sound system someone provided (which was only used to play drum and bass), it should have been possible to organise some eye-catching moments of direct action.
During the civil rights movement in the US, news footage of King’s supporters praying in the middle of the road whilst the police manhandled them sent a surge of sympathy through the country. That was aless media-savvy generation, without the technology we have now, protesting for a much broader and more complicated issue. The reason civil rights in the US and my kebab movement in Stroud Green were both so successful is that they can both rightly be portrayed as causes most people would sympathise with. I suppose the lesson is - if you’re hungry for change, you have to make other people hungry for change. Mmmmmm….change….
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