Free Education

I’m now going back to the previous Solnit text here, but there is one point, that was mentioned in-class when we discussed the text, which I think is fundamentally true:
I think that, like someone said in class, that we only really protest or participate in demonstrations, when the cause for the demonstration affects us directly. If it affects our lives, we’re more likely to go out onto the streets and do something about it.

I have a relatively recent (meaning last year) experience with demonstrations myself, when the government introduces tuitions fees (we don’t have these in Germany) of about 500€ at my home university in Germany. Thousands of students of my home university (me included) came to together to demonstrate for a FREE EDUCATION. We blocked the streets of the city center by walking and sitting on them for hours, we took over one of the university buildings and even walked onto the Autobahn to disrupt the traffic there (which was quite dangerous and some students were arrested for that, so we stopped doing that). All the students signed a petition and consequently sued the government and when the term came along, where you actually had pay for the first time, many simply DID NOT pay (which could have gotten you expelled).
And this happened not just in my own university, but all over the state (and the other states, where they introduced tuition fees, which not all German states did). There were big demonstration in all major cities and the students from various universities all got together at one point to demonstrate in front of the parliament building in the state capital. And the students were not alone, but joined by professors, teachers, parents of future students…etc. This went on for months and months.

Now you may ask, was the demonstration successful? Well, we got a lot of national media attention and caused a lot of disruptions, which made sure that we were being taken seriously. However, the real reason why I would say, it was a successful demonstration, is that we actually achieved what we set out to do. After two terms the tuition fees were abolished and our universities are once again free. Unfortunately, it looks like the government will try to introduce the tuition fees again next year, so it may only have been a temporary success. However, if they do, the whole process is likely to start all over again, so I don’t know what is going to happen. As the saying goes: We’ll cross that bridge when we get there (or something like that).