Youth protest: Death of the protest

Anyone remember Kevin Gately? He was a 21-year-old Warwickshire student who was killed in 1974 while attending an anti-National Front demonstration in Londons Red Lion Square. He died after a violent clash involving the police and rival protesters.In decades gone by, it seemed that street protests involving young people were a way of life. There was the anti-Vietnam war movement, the Anti-Nazi League and the huge Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) demonstrations in the early 1980s. In 1990, the Poll Tax demonstration in Trafalgar Square had MP Sir John Wheeler asking in Parliament for an inquiry into why so many young people came. Much of the current generation of politicians and power brokers was raised amid this tradition. But todays young people seem to have lost their appetite for the mass protest. Aside from the anti-war demonstrations in 2003 and student fee protests, there have been few large-scale shows of discontent by young people in recent times.Modern activistsKierra Box, 21, is founder of the Hands Up for Peace initiative and is every inch the modern young activist. She believes young people want to make a difference but in new ways. Marches tend to be very unpleasant they can be cold, wet and time consuming. Also, when you try to go home you can find the police have closed the stations, she says.Thats why she and a group of friends asked young people to make handprints and artwork as their own personal statement against the Iraq war. This eventually grew into the Heads Up movement to educate and involve young people in active democracy. Box ridicules the notion that the younger generation are lazy or apathetic, but concedes that they dont always understand the best way of getting their voices heard. This means they can end up taking matters into their own hands. For example, if you hear that your estate is a dangerous place you might carry a knife because no-ones talked to you about how to change things, she says. It is a pragmatic response just not a good one. Box wants to see a commitment from Government to listen and respond to those young people who engage in legitimate protest that will make it much easier to police those who chose illegitimate means.Few who work with young people accept the charge of disengagement or accept that the spirit of youth protest has died. Dan Smith, international campaigns officer at the British Youth Council (BYC), believes were actually seeing more engagement now than in the 90s. He says that the most famous marches of the golden era were tiny affairs compared with the Iraq war demonstrations. He adds that there has been a fundamental shift in the way individuals protest, fuelled by books such as Naomi Kleins No Logo, which took aim at the so-called global brand bullies, and films by the likes of Michael Moore. Young people also continue to play a fundamental role within pressure groups, he believes. You see a significant youth presence in non-governmental organisations [NGOs] such as CND or Greenpeace, and at the same time young peoples involvement in formal party politics is dropping, says Smith.NGOs have caught on to this and are exploiting new ways of recruiting and involving young people. Now they use remote volunteering techniques, including social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, to find members as opposed to standing on a street corner giving out leaflets. The BYC tried this approach for its campaign to raise awareness of the issue of homophobia in Poland. Within a week there was a Facebook group and we had 70 people signed up without us really doing anything, says Smith (see boxout). Human rights charity Amnesty International says it is prospering from the involvement of young people and has seen an increase in the number supporting its cause. Verity Coyle, student network co-ordinator, says that its activism groups have grown from 82 to 115 groups since 2004. She believes theres still a desire to take action about human rights, detention without a trial and issues such as human trafficking. Young people are engaging, its just that they are doing it through non-traditional routes, she says.Coyles colleague Anne Montague, who co-ordinates some 600 groups of 11- to 18-year-olds, also finds no lack of motivation: Weve built up that network without really trying, which implies theres still a concern among young people to take action.Traditional protestsMontague finds a strong desire to get involved in stunts and embassy demonstrations and Amnesty is currently drawing up guidelines so that it can involve more under-18s. The main problem is getting time out of school rather than a lack of motivation, she says.But what about the traditional organisers of political protests? Ben Robinson is national organiser of International Socialist Resistance, a youth association with links to the Socialist Party. We do see young people coming on protests there is a lot of anger about, he insists. In the past few years, weve seen the movement against the war, which saw two million people take to the streets, and a lot of walk-outs by school students, as well as action against increased student fees and cutbacks in education. But Robinson concedes that the failure of marches to change politicians minds, such as the anti-war demonstrations, could have left some young people thinking whats the point in taking part. Robinson believes that you cant just have demos but you need young people involved in trade unions and organised campaigns: The recent PCS [Public and Commercial Services union] dispute saw a lot of young people on the picket lines. Where young people have the opportunity to get involved and fight back, there is a willingness to do so. The fact that there is currently no single issue that strongly unites young people could explain the lack of significant mass youth protests in the past few years, he believes: In 1985, 250,000 young people staged school walk-outs against the plans for youth training, but that was around the time of the miners strike. Weve no big example pushing people out to protest today.ParticipationThe BYCs Dan Smith believes the lack of mass protest could also be a testament to the growth of organisations such as his own that allow young people to meet policymakers and bring about change. In the UK, were not doing too badly in telling young people that there is a way out and there are things you can do, he says. But he cites the example of France, which experienced mass youth riots in November 2005 and which doesnt have a strong non-formal youth sector, as a case of what can happen if young people feel disillusioned with society. Stuck out in the banlieues, those French young people are literally outside the mainstream. Here in the UK there is a chance to be involved in civil society. Melody Hossaini, a trustee and co-founder of the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP), shares Smiths view that things are improving in Britain. Participation initiatives such as UKYP are creating new ways of getting young people heard and gradually eroding the need for mass protest. She points to the fact that there are now more than 300 members of the youth parliament who have been elected by 375,000 young people often with a bigger turnout than in adult elections. This is making politicians take note. Were gaining an influence, says Hossaini. Sometimes going on the streets is not always the best way to get a response. The important thing is to start building a dialogue.