On Saturday I marched. Again. We keep marching. They’re still cutting student funds, and raising student fees after the lib dems promised to get rid of them. Don’t we share a value in absolutely everyone having the chance to learn and grow and go as far in school as they wish, and become everything they want to be? When I was sat down in my summer-school / job program as just another ‘at risk’ youth (albeit a shy and extremely geeky ‘not-at-risk’ one) and lectured about the evils of early pregnancy and flipping burgers, I was told specifically that education was the way out. No one said a word about massive debt for life.
The point is, marches are in part about anger. We’re angry. No justice, no peace. You know how that goes. It feels good to march and yell and stop some traffic. This issue touches everyone, no one is separate from it.
Marches are also about coming together with others, about sharing the burden of that anger, and celebrating the movement made visible on a city street. What does this resistance movement means to us? A struggle for a better world, deep conversation about how to make that happen, laughter, hard work, music, old friends and new ones, generations coming together.
There is nothing that expresses that more than the picture below:
[missing photo]
Pure awesome, no? Of course, by itself, this cardboard package insert for an ‘adult’ Teacher’s Gown and Mortarboard might just look like a fetish kind of thing. But when worn by a group of people on the streets, the personal becomes political (joke), the world around you laughs, and marching becomes more fun than it has been for a long long time. Here are a few of my friends
In action?
See what I mean? Fun. I also highly encourage bands, drums, trumpets, bagpipes, and as much music as possible, because dancing down the street still gets you there, and it is much more enjoyable. I also have an immense love for flares. They make a gray day suddenly magical. There are many more things that can make marching fun again, at least until the day we take inspiration from today’s Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and take to the streets in the millions not the thousands.
