STUDENT OPPOSITION TO AUSTERITY

The response of British university and high school students in recent weeks to austerity measures imposed by the Cameron administration has been immediate and explosive. To refer to this response as a movement, which would suggest an imagined cohesion or cohesive program, might not be appropriate. Maybe a term like moment is more applicable given the spontaneity and broad but uneven reach of the protests. Either way, the student response is immensely affirming. I'm not sure these protests — considered as a whole, as part of a moment — can be regarded as a rigid model for responses elsewhere (the specificity of their conditions resists this sort of instrumentalization), but the charged character of these protests allows for the possibility of imagining commensurate responses in an otherwise anemic US cultural climate.

LINKS | CLIPS:

$ The brightest high school student since Rimbaud (previously posted by Mark Fisher at the astounding K-Punk):





$ A powerfully prescient October 20 article by Independent writer Johann Hari.

$ December 16, 2010 article by Joanna Biggs at LRB on the occupation at University College London.

$ Ben Fox on Jobless Britain in New Statesman, December 17, 2010.

$ Laurie Penny Inside the Parliament Square Kettle, December 10, 2010.

$ Students protesting in Sheffield:





$ Press Conference: Coalition of Resistance & National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts, Nov 25, 2010.





$ Students at Millbank Courtyard (Tory HQ) November 10, 2010:









$ Per Reuters: Europe Faces Rising Austerity Protests in 2011.