statement of support
We stand in firm solidarity with those taking action, both nationally and
internationally – students, lecturers, workers and anarchists - in the fight against the
so-called “austerity measures”.
We reject the rhetoric of “austerity” and “sustainability”, which is being used to
obscure the ideological character of these cuts: under the guise of ‘harsh, but
necessary’ fiscal measures, the government is currently laying the foundations for a
very long-term process of socio-economic
restructuring. Beneath the suggested neutrality of these cuts – in their being a
‘necessity’ and as “we’re all in this together” – the restructuring is directed, -
transparently - towards the benefit of big business, the UK’s competitiveness in the
world market and towards global capitalism, more
generally. This means that it is directed away from the public, collective good.
We strongly oppose the increasing transformation of higher education institutions
into engines that drive innovation and economic growth, into research laboratories
for the “war on terror” and for surveillance markets and into machines for the mass
production of an exploitable workforce. The trebling of tuition fees is an outrageous
condemnation of our future generations to a lifetime of even greater debt, as well
as amounting to an overt attack on the working classes. Education is a right (not a
luxury commodity), for everybody (not for wealthy individuals).
We stand in solidarity with those victimised or arrested following the recent
London demonstration. We reject the “absolute condemnation” by the so-called
“representative” of the student Left – his right honourable Aaron Porter – of what he
publicly referred to as the “despicable” actions of
a “small minority”, which ruined a perfectly peaceful protest. Such predictable, knee-
jerk moral positioning is counter-productive, divisive in fact, to our cause, in addition
to being simply a total misrepresentation of the real character of that day.
We call upon all sections of society affected by job losses and budget cuts to rise up
and take direct action, in the form of protests, strikes and occupations and to join
in the national ‘Day of Direct Action’ on 24th November. Direct and collective action
will not only strengthen and intensify national and international struggles, but more
crucially, is the only viable response to the assumption that we will remain passive
spectators of the loss of our public services.
To strike and to occupy is not only to rupture everyday relations of wage-labour and
private property, but are also ways of transforming the relations between people, of
transforming people.