Beginners guide to politics: Why don't protests work?

All good protests have placards. (Source: ucloccupation)

The Yorker politics team knows that university is filled with a lot of opinionated people.

So many in fact that those less interested in the political world can find yourselves stuck in a pub in a heated discussion amongst your friends wishing you’d paid more attention in those “citizenship” classes. As they spiel out phrases such as “Marxism”, “full employment” and “neo-liberalist structures” you’re struggling to keep up.

But fear not, The Yorker’s Rosie Hazell presents a (somewhat whimsical) guide to Politics, so you have the basic facts at your disposal to hold your own with that flag-waving hippie who keeps visiting your kitchen…

Admittedly whilst you may have enjoyed eating non fair-trade chocolate, buying cheap clothes and watching ‘mainstream’ films without being moaned at for the day, you will have been wondering where that flatmate who always wears angry t-shirts and moans at you for shopping in Primark disappeared to for the day on Wednesday? You tried to ask them but they just replied something along the lines of ‘exercising my rights’?

They were probably in London, protesting over one of two things. Either higher tuition fees and the ‘privatisation’ of Universities, or over corporate greed. Or if they are a particularly angry flatmate - both.

It was estimated that 2,000 people protested this Wednesday, November 9 over the issue of rising tuition fees and the ‘privatisation’ of universities. In plain English, they were concerned about the fact we are paying three times less for university than next years’ freshers: we can buy at least an extra 7 Jägerbombs every day of University and still be in less debt than them.

But surely, I hear you asking, it should be future students who have something to complain about? This is true, but I’m proud that we get angry about things that don’t even directly affect us; we’re willing to complain for other people. Also, never underestimate how much fun getting angry at middle-class men in suits is.

But regardless of my position on student fees, does protesting actually work? For over 10 years, protestors have been camped outside parliament, widely ignored by everyone but the occasional tourist. Indeed, in the whole history of British politics, only the poll tax riots in 1990 have ever achieved anything. Although by being one of the major factors behind former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s resignation, it was fairly big achievement!

The problem is that governments, having achieved a ‘majority’ of sorts at election time tend to presume that this majority will then support all of their decisions. I tend to think that this is one of the biggest mistakes that can be made by politicians. Can Cameron seriously believe that because you voted for the Conservatives, you agree with all of their policies from the economy to education to foreign aid?! This is precisely why referenda should be used more widely, but that’s an issue for another day…

Yet the impact of protests is wider than just the votes in Parliament. Although these recent protests don’t seem to have affected the government’s decisions in any way, they have been reported relatively widely in the media. That means more people hear about the cause - so they are not entirely ‘pointless’. That said, as soon as even the tiniest hint of violence surfaces, any media reporting will be entirely negative, which serves only to hinder their cause.

Protests are a tricky and complicated business that needs to be planned to perfection. Big enough to get media attention, peaceful enough for that attention to be positive. Disruptive enough to get you noticed, not too disruptive that you frustrate people. It’s a skill that very few protectors manage to achieve.

It is difficult to determine whether your rookie flatmate’s protesting this week was worthwhile yet; the media coverage seemed relatively positive but not as high on the news agenda as the organisers (National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts) would have hoped for.

Protests are a risk. They can turn everyone against you and your cause. But for most protesters it’s a risk worth taking, for their own piece of mind if anything- at least they tried to change things. Besides, a dreary Wednesday in November is bound to be improved by a day-trip to London.

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