Fishburn Hedges

10.12.2010

Hasta la revolución! Or something. As a fairly-recent graduate, my generation that was regularly condemned for our apathy and lack of protesting zeal. Compared to the current fire extinguisher-throwing, police-baiting rioters currently occupying the universities and being kettled by the Met, we were seen as a little bit quiet – unnaturally calm about the way the world works.

It’s true few of my peers ever took to the streets in anger. But that, to my mind, is a good thing.

Not because apathy is to be welcomed – far from it – but because protests can be seen as a symptom of political failure.

It sounds like an abstract thought, but democracy really is about legitimacy: giving political leaders the licence to enact a programme based on a slightly hazy concept of popular will. If everyone broadly believes a government is legitimate, then everyone will broadly accept its ways of making laws. People won’t necessarily agree with everything it does, but they will accept that it’s been arrived at by a fair process. And for those of us in public affairs, we might come up with some pretty creative ways of informing policymakers about an issue: but that’s quite different from undermining the fundamentals of our political system.

What’s more, protesting is a sign of impotence. The vote in the Commons isn’t going to be swayed by burning Christmas trees in Parliament square: if you’re taking to the streets to make your point, chances are you’ve already lost the argument.

So when students are on the march, concerns over the actual fees policy are only part of the issue.

Agree with them or not, I’d argue when there are no protestors on the street, democracy is probably working ok.

And when there are, it’s probably not. 

Posted by Gordon Hector