“The students themselves see a political dead end. None of the established parties represent their views – the leadership consists of older men whose rhetoric represents a different age and style, and thus, there is some generational conflict”.
The above quote could be any 21st century journalist who has opened their laptop and witnessed the tide of discontent.
However, it is actually from the Economic and Political Weekly – in 1968.
The 1960s are touted as the ‘golden age’ of student protests. The wake of World War II, and the beginning of war in Vietnam, triggered mass anger towards government foreign policy. In 1965, 250 students protested outside the American embassy in Edinburgh. In 1972, University of Stirling students protested university accommodation rent prices during a royal visit. Clearly, the nostalgia for a ‘bygone era’ of the youth in revolt is alive and kicking.
“Students don’t take themselves or their causes with the same deadly seriousness as we baby boomers used to,” complains Francis Beckett for The Guardian, in a piece titled Student protests of yore: A 60s rebel looks back.
But the hallowed activism of the 60s may not be as shining as it seems.
As Jessica Thorne points out in History Workshop, post-war universities were expensive, and overrun with conservatism. Student anger towards politicians profiting from education spread like wildfire, kicking the free-school and anti-war movements into high gear. Student groups banded together to push forwards.
However, this change in attitude was largely unaccepted by the general public, and the mass media was quick to paint students as violent and ignorant.
Seem familiar?
The sentiments motivating the activism of the 60s live on. Anger at aggressive governments is clear as students march in solidarity with Palestine, and a protest here on campus as Alistair Campbell delivered a guest lecture last year. An ongoing housing crisis is marked by continuing protests, and housing rallies here on campus too. However, Daisy Nash comments in Epigram on the rise of ‘slacktivism’ in our all-too-online world.
Image Credit: Scottish Socialist Youth
“It is much easier to like a post advertising a #MeToo march than to follow through with attendance,” she states.
Nash stresses that the decline of in-your-face disobedience is beyond laziness. Conditions imposed over the pandemic and the Police Bill ensuring grave consequences for protesters are shoving activists indoors, with a screen as the only way out. Carola Binney also comments in The Spectator that, with skyrocketing rent, tuition, and corrupt university management, students are too uncertain about their own futures to worry about others.
(Oscar Webb- Independent)
However, the rallies, the Instagram infographics, the activism groups, and the op-eds all prove that fighting student spirit is still alive. Our online world means students can acquire the knowledge and skills to back it up. The revolutionary class of 2025 must band together, educate each other, and organise.
Image Credit: UCU Stirling
In the twenty-first century, the revolution will be televised, and live.
Featured Image Credit: Shafik Mandarin/ Al Jazeera