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Violent student protests: A sign of the times?

Today is neither the best nor the worst of times

Menandro S. Abanes (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, July 9, 2008

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Violent student protests: A sign of the times?

Today is neither the best nor the worst of times. But the signs of the times are leaning towards the latter.

We oftentimes see workers, women, farmers, fisher folk, drivers, professionals, urban poor, youth and students demonstrating on the streets and picket lines. Protests are peoples' expressions of their freedom, idealism, struggles and frustrations in life.

Because they are free, they choose to take their grievances to the streets. Because they are driven by an image of what should be, they propose alternatives to the current situation. Because they are struggling, they are pressed to demand their rights. Because they are frustrated, they start to question and challenge the system and regime.

Protests are one measure of a functioning democracy. In autocratic regimes protests are banned and outlawed. Since democracy is the rule of the majority represented by elected officials, influencing the majority through protests is a legal, accepted and sensible thing to do. Protests also signify the desire of people to take part in governance. They represent people's claims to their representative government.

Much has been said about student protests lately. Condemning students' protests as such is to denounce a significant part of our history. What we are now, what we enjoy now, can be attributed to student protests during past repressive regimes, including the colonial years.

Student protest is powered by young people. Studies show that the psychology of young people tends to disregard existing public norms and order. Last month's images of tearing down a wall, smashing car windows and turning over and burning a car are images of a lack of rules and disorder. Other studies show young people can view public norms on law and order as restricting and constraining.

Last week, students saw a metal fence as something that restricted them from the halls of decision-making, the House of Representatives and the State Palace. They saw it as something that had to be torn down to enable them to participate or to have a say in decision-making. The smashing of windows was the demand for transparency.

It was the urge to see what was inside. The turning over and burning of the car symbolized the students' contempt of the current situation. It was also a show of strength and power to demonstrate with their own hands their blazing frustration.

The violence in this specific student protest highlighted the level of their frustration with the existing state of society, law and order. Students usually regard government as representing the context, law and order within which they take action.

In peace and conflict studies, there is a theory known as relative deprivation. It explains violence occurs when a group feels deprived of something another group has. In this case, students almost always feel that they are deprived of their ideals and rights as citizens by their government. The students and elected and appointed officials in the government are all citizens of this country.

However, the House and the Palace have the power to decide on national issues that affect everyone. This power is deprived from the students. They feel the real power and right to decide should be rightfully in the people's hands, their hands. Last week, they simply exercised that power and right.

The violence in student protests can also be a sign of the times, moving to worse times in terms of economics. This will become a political issue if the government fails to act on the expressed need and will of its deprived people.

I dread the day when students will be joined by workers, drivers, women, farmers, fisher folk, professionals, urban poor and the middle class on the streets. It will be massive. And it could change government direction and the future and rewrite the history of the country, just like in 1998.

Or am I reading the signs too far ahead and from too far away? Then, who else will?

The writer is an intern at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta and a graduate student of the University for Peace in Costa Rica and Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. He can be reached at his blog, mensab.wordpress.com.

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