Last month in Greece thousands of students took to the streets to vent their anger against a society which has consistently been letting them down. The demonstrations got me thinking about how Maltese students and the population in general express their views about decisions and situations they collectively oppose.
While I don’t condone the violence in Greece, I can understand it, and even admire certain elements of it. Yes, a few ‘anarchists’ took advantage and wreaked havoc, mostly on symbols of authority - faceless riot police (an easy target, since their helmets hide any trace of emotion and humanity) - and capitalism, such as American franchises like McDonald’s and Starbucks’.
It should be mentioned that true anarchism is not about violence and destruction. The vast majority of protestors were frustrated and disillusioned youths, fed up with their government’s incompetence, widespread corruption and sheer lack of job opportunities.
Many Greeks go to universities in the UK and elsewhere, in the hope that a foreign degree and a second language will increase their chances of employment when they go home, but even these find it hard to find a job, because finding a job is based on nepotism and having the right connections. The reason why they decide not to continue their education in their own country is because it just isn’t good enough, since lecturers have themselves escaped in search of better wages and working conditions. Sound familiar?
Here in Malta, and all over the world I suppose, from an early age we are taught to obey and conform. Something which I think exemplifies this is when, as children at pre-school and the early years of primary, we were given pictures to colour in, rather than being encouraged to draw things ourselves. I don’t know if this is still the situation today, but I hope a few things have changed since my childhood.
Another memory I have is learning prayers rhythmically and by heart (I could never remember the words of the ‘Kredu’, and used to just mumble my way through it). With this last point I am not trying to brag about my early laissez faire attitude towards the Christian faith (OK OK I am a bit), but to show that we were treated mostly as parrots, or empty vessels waiting to be filled with mediocre rubbish.
I expected less people to turn up for today’s protest against the lecturers’ strike. However when you think about it, 400 students out of 10,000 isn’t that many at all, just 4%, and that’s including busloads of Junior College students.
I’m not sure how many students attend JC, but if you include them the percentage of students who attended would go down even more.
I myself didn’t attend, for the simple reason that my support goes to lecturers, the majority of whom work hard. I believe that dithering in the middle doesn’t solve anything. You should objectively look at both sides of an argument, decide for yourself who you agree with the most, and take sides accordingly. Nothing of any importance has ever been achieved by attempting to be completely neutral. Also, I don’t think KSU could take a really strong stand against the government, like say a proper demonstration in front of Castille, because many of its members have Nationalist connections, and a few even work for the PN media. I wonder, if it was a Labour government in power, would their reaction have been the same?
As I write this, the directives have just been lifted, but if I’m honest part of me wanted the exams to be postponed, as I have so many assignments to do that it will be difficult to keep up. I admit that that’s a bit selfish from my part, especially with regards to the Erasmus students who would have been really stuck had the strike gone ahead. But as one commentator on The Times said, while children are being massacred in Gaza, students in Malta protested because exams might be postponed. Only in Malta.
The truth is, I don’t think Maltese students would protest seriously and en masse for anything. Except maybe if stipends were to be removed, then all hell would break loose. In our fragmented society, most students are only concerned about their own interests, and not, if you’ll excuse the hackneyed phrase, the greater good. There is no sense of unity whatsoever.
Matthew Bonanno
3rd Year Communications (Hons.) student. Member of Insite the University media group..