Youth

On Wednesday March 2nd students from different schools in Glasgow met
at the Centre of Contemporary Arts to officially launch the Glasgow
School Student Union (GSSU).

Recent developments at the University
of Glasgow have cut across the relative lull that set upon the student
movement following the mass demonstrations of late 2010. Student
activists occupying an old post-graduate and mature student social club
on the one hand, and the announcement of a raft of cuts on the other,
have provided combustible material that has seen the movement reach a
new plain and wider layers than it previously had.

Following the revolutionary upheavals
that have spread from Tunisia to Egypt, and which are inspiring
solidarity protests throughout the Middle East and the world as a whole,
the University of London Union Marxists decided to postpone their
discussion on Marxism and the State to discuss the revolution in the
Arab world. Egyptian socialist and SOAS student, Walaa Quisay, was
invited to introduce the discussion on a movement that the whole world
is watching.

In light of the recent student
demonstrations, particularly the events at Milbank tower during the
first protest, the question of "direct action” tactics has once again
been raised.

This leaflet is available for download for comrades intervening in the
student movement against the cuts, in particular the demo against the
abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) this Wednesday. Click here to download.

Joby
Hart, who attends Abbey Grange high school, has been involved with the
recent wave of political activity by school students in Leeds and the
surrounding area. Joby is part of a layer of young people radicalised by
the attacks of the Tory government and its Lib Dem stooges, and brought
into activity by the occupation at Leeds University last year. While
Militant Student is not in full agreement with everything that is said,
Joby is all too aware of the wider implications of the struggle, and the
need for the working class as a whole to come together and defeat this
government. Luke Wilson from the Leeds Trades Council spoke to him.

School students took to the streets of
London against coalition education reforms again on Wednesday, this time
to demonstrate against the abolition of a grant, the Education
Maintenance Allowance (EMA), a weekly payment for 16- to 18-year-olds
whose household income is under £30,800 to encourage them to stay in
education. Students travelled from as far away as Sunderland and
Cornwall to protest against the scrapping of the EMA. The allowance had
already been closed to new applicants.

On Tuesday 11^th
January, Edward Woollard, an 18-year-old A-level student from Hampshire, was
sentenced to 2 years and 8 months imprisonment for dropping a fire-extinguisher
from the Millbank Tower during the student protest on the 10^th
November 2010. Whilst we cannot and should not condone the actions of Woollard,
it is clear that the courts – along with the government – are clearly trying to
make an example of this individual student as a threat to any future
protestors.

In response to the 10th November demonstration, students across the
country decided to go into occupation. Before Christmas there were 30 of
such occupations. Coupled with the increasingly militant demonstrations
against the Government’s attacks on education, these university
occupations are hugely significant in so far as they have radicalised
not only students at the occupied universities but also school students
and even people outside of education.

The events of the past two months represent an important shift in the
consciousness of British students. Having grown up knowing only
economic boom, previously labelled as “apathetic” by the media, stood up
and made their voices heard. Their message is simple and has found an
echo across many layers of society: “We will not be forced to pay for a
crisis we did not cause!” This wave of protests and occupations has
swept even the most deeply entrenched prejudices of the last period from
the political landscape, leaving many (both on the right and the left)
trailing in its wake.