Democracy ≠ violence

I couldn’t decide whether to blog about the American midterm elections, or university fees. Then I saw this article, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11726822, and the decision was made.

Raising the cap for university fees is a bad idea on a number of levels. Obviously it’s bad for students- prospective and current undergraduate students may be forced financially to drop out of or not go to university, which will lead to a decrease in job prospects and quality of life. This also has the effect of increasing the rich-poor divide, as better-off students will find it much easier to study and get better-paid jobs, and not-as-well-off students will find it much harder to study at higher education, leading to not-as-well-paid jobs.
 It will also affect everyone else, too. A decrease in uni students means a decrease in professional workers (doctors, lawyers, teacher, etc), which means the services those professionals provide will be less abundant. As well as the obvious disadvantage, this also means the economy is eventually going to suffer- which right now is the last thing we want.

So the government’s cut on university funding is a bad thing. We get that.
But is starting fires and breaking windows really going to change anyone’s mind?

So, you’re marching to make a statement. Marching is good. I like marching. Marching, in its’ best form, is a way of peacefully objecting to the government’s actions, and it ensures said government can be held accountable by the public between elections.
But when it amounts to vandalising the Conservative and Lib Dem part headquarters, something’s gone wrong.

Firstly, this instantly creates the image of “sensible, coherent people making a decision” (the Coalition Government) being attacked by “incoherent, selfish thugs” (the students involved with the vandalism). There are sensible arguments against the cuts (more, I dare say, than sensible arguments for the cuts), but this image is going to induce the gut reaction in the floating/moderate public that the only people against the cuts are violent, unintelligent and have no reasonable objection to the cuts. Therefore, support for the student cause will go down.

The government must be seen to not be compromising with violent protests such as these- imagine if they decided to legalise gay marriage, then changed their mind because certain right-wingers lit fires outside registry  offices. If any MPs change their vote because of the protesters, they will forever be labelled as “cowardly”, and even “unworthy of office.”  It’s also a personal issue- you wouldn’t want to change your mind because someone threatened you with violence, as a matter of pride. So not only will the vandalism not convince anyone to vote against the cuts, it may even stop people amongst the Coalition voting that way who may have done so before.  

In conclusion, if you are going to object to the rise in fees, you have my full and enthusiastic support. But please, for the sake of everyone who stands against the cuts, prevent yourself from becoming violent during your objection.