For hour after hour the 24 hour media machine ‘reported’ from the foyer of the Milbank building in central London. Although just yards from the headquarters of the British secret service MI5, the assembled crowd or protestors and the accompanying hordes of journalists were largely oblivious to their mysterious neighbours. The angry buzzing of the Police and BBC helicopters that hovered over head occasionally drowned out both Protester and Hack alike, whilst outside and inside a building that houses the headquarters of the British Conservative party, several thousand predominantly young human-beings attempted with their own diverse methodologies, to project their voices into the Great Media Narrative.
Despite the success, at least in terms of numbers, of the largest demonstration against deep education cuts and a threefold increase in tuition fees seen so far. The pre-ordained narrative laid down by the chattering classes so tried and tested, was to be too strong yet again. Just as with the protests of Seattle in 1999 and Copenhagen ten years later, this narrative was not one concerned with the future chances of a generation, or even the masses of human beings that had come from far and wide to voice their outrage; but rather instead, of the ‘violent minority’ of ‘masked’ and ‘hooded Anarchists’, a ‘tense atmosphere’, ‘angry scenes’ ‘disgusting chaos’, ‘arson’ and the failure of the rule of Law. But why exactly are we accepting this narrative? Laid down to us as it is, by the very same people that have the strongest interest in maintaining the status quo.
The instant that the first window was smashed, it was all over for anybody hoping for the long dormant journalistic talent of Fleet Street to maintain some proportion in the coverage of a subject of such national importance. With one or two exceptions, this media narrative was monolithic. The coffin was nailed firmly shut when the cowardly head of the NUS Aaron Porter appeared on the BBC within hours claiming to be: ‘absolutely disgusted’ at those who as he claimed were: ‘in jeopardy of undermining the entire protest’. In that one pithy sentence, the head of the NUS, the man responsible for advocating student rights and mobilizing support against the Tory cuts in the first place, had surrendered an important sound bite to this famished media narrative, a morsel to be regurgitated throughout the syndicated mediascape.
Later in the day, as if to add further insult to injury - men, women and children with real fears for the future educational welfare not of themselves, but of complete strangers, were reduced to no more than ‘loutish thugs’ by Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. Thousands of demonstrators who were not themselves students, but nonetheless spoke both for the future and the past garnered no media attention at all. They too had been ‘undermined’ my the ‘violent minority’. A little detail by the way, which seemed to quickly drop out of the mainstream media coverage, was that whilst the windows of Tory HQ were being torn down, those doing so were cheered on by a crowd of thousands.. This was not a ‘violent minority’, but the tip of the majorities spear plunging deep into the soft underbelly of the Conservative beast. Almost every person in that crowd I would think, would have happily led the charge. To the media and politicians however, this sort of thinking is outside the boundaries of permissible discourse.
Of course the explicit message was always going to be one of condemnation for any and all ‘violence as a legitimate means of protest’. But this only highlights yet again the paradox involved in the corporate media’s reporting of demonstrations in general. Violence is sexy. It sells. It captivates. Once caught by the voyeuristic media lens, scenes of violence are repeated endlessly throughout the news cycle. How many times will we be made to watch and re-watch the scuffles between riot police and ‘criminals’ over the coming days? Jonathon Jones at the Guardian Newspaper offers a mixed analysis of why the media (not all but most) has taken the view that is has, on the one hand asking: “Are the media exercising their nasty arts to make students look like a mob? and answering ‘no’, but then going on to say: “This image has made the front pages because it is exciting. Its violence is liberating to contemplate, in a dangerous, Dionysian way.” For Jones, the violence is not newsworthy in and of itself, but rather precisely because it appeals to our most primitive emotions. Well fine, but is he telling us this is all we have to expect of our journalists today? No more than an extended freak show - a lesson in emotional manipulation. I ask myself.
I also wonder, how exactly one goes about ‘undermining’ a protest anyway? What is a legitimate protest and what is not? To my simple mind, a protest is where an individual, or more likely a group of individuals decides to perform a largely symbolic action in the name of a particular cause, in the hope that this totemic act of resistance could in some way effect actual change. Throughout history there have been many struggles for human dignity, equality and solidarity. Many of these struggles feautured a violent component to their methodolgies. Can we honestly say that when we look back now, we should unequivocally condemn those members of the suffragettes willing to break the law for the dignity of women? Must we condemn in the strongest terms the members of the Nelson Mandela’s ANC for their often violent struggle for equality in South Africa? Must we label as ‘disgusting’ and ‘undermining’ all those that use violence in solidarity with the Palestinians?
I’m not trying to equate the protests over British higher education cuts and fees to any of the historic (and ongoing) struggles I mention above. But don’t be fooled by how the media has framed the issue. My heart beat rose and my adrenaline pumped when I saw the plated glass begin to buckle, not out of any prehistoric blood lust, but because for the first time in my life I was conscious of the roaring voices alongside me, all as alienated from Westminster as I was, who demanded in their own way to be listened to by a giant with no ears. Perhaps I got ahead of myself when I claimed they had cut into the underbelly of the beast. But we certainly stamped on his toes, and ears or not, the giant's gaze is sternly fixed on us, just as it should be. CJL
