You’ve heard the story before, especially over the past decade: a European university announces sweeping reforms because of the legendary Bologna Process and EU requirements. This discussion often comes with the introductions of new fee’s for students, tighter controls on how long a student can study, and the move into a bachelor-masters structure. While all these changes come into effect, students as well as faculty are told that it has to be this way, with limited if any, consultation.
Recently it was the University of Fine Arts in Vienna that tried to make this move. But unlike many Universities where students might have disagreed, protested, and eventually gave up the fight – students in Austria have taken matters into their own hands; They have occupied their school. Highy organized, their occupation is now more than 24 days old and has spread beyond the borders of Autria into Germany and other neighboring countries.
My friend and uni student Marty joins me on this podcast from Vienna, to explain how this all started, how the occupation works, what the demands are, and what we can expect in the coming days and weeks.
Check out the website where you can find links to every aspect of the student protests and occupations.
Only a few more days of my Portugal-Family vacation remain. Today I’m quickly checking in with a video I captured in the Bica, downtown Lisbon, over the weekend. What initially looked like a demonstration coming way, very quickly turns out to be a scene from a film being shot in my neighborhood.
Kind of shame, looked like it would have been a great protest.
Just wanted to dedicate a few minutes to saluting the trouble makers outside the democrat party convention in Colorado.
While inside it is all smiling faces, boring pre-written speaches, and picture perfect pageantry, outside the convention- people are standing up, sitting down, marching, and engaging in all kinds of demonstrations related to issues of ending wars, restoring rights, and a long list of other issues todays mainstream politicians would like to keep quiet.? Of course we can’t rely on the corporate media to inform us about these demonstrations; but thankfully we have the net roots to provide information about what is going on OUTSIDE.
No it won’t result in much when all is said and done.? The game will go on and the next convention will soon kick off with even more people marching outside, with an even longer list of grievances.? But when I turn on the television and I see the political show with its long and boring cast of characters, it brings me great comfort to know I’m not alone… my people are right outside.
Click here to see a good video from today’s events demonstrating against the G8 Summit.
What I like best about this one is how it shows one member of the group speaking politely with police explaining that they are not the enemy and they will not act violently towards them. He even asks if they would please open their helmets and put down their clubs. (which they don’t seem to, but at least one cop seems to want to do so)
It has been quite difficult to get any of the many organizations involved in demonstrations at the G8 summit in Germany to talk to me. This could be because they are so busy with the never ending media requests they get (wouldn’t that be nice!). It could also be that things are so tense on the front lines of these demonstrations that the last thing you worry about is answering a phone.
Meanwhile, my brave friends Kiwi and Fabian just returned from Rostock where the first days of protests were held and some big confrontations with police took place. Here is a excerpt from Kiwi’s email to me: (note to the grammar police, she’s Estonian and above the laws of grammar)
The weekend was full of impressions. We are still dealing with some of the things that happened. As you know some conflicts escalated on saturday. It started already as the first protesters had just reached the destination of the strike (Rostock harbor). Me and Fabian were pretty much at the front but we didn’t see what happened. People from the Black Block just started running around everywhere. It turned out later
that the police had parked an empty car/bus in the very middle of the protest area + a helicopter was flying right above the main stage making any speech/concert impossible. The organizers repeatedly asked the police to move the helicopter but no action was taken. This was interpreted as pure provocation and some (I would say the BB mostly but thats a guess) tore up the sidewalk an started to throw pavment stones
at the police.
So this was pretty much at the beginning. An hour or two later the situation began to get worse. More and more police gathered at the scene of the protest. Me and a friend had just sat down on the sidewalk and Fabian was away to get st to drink as people just started to run away suddenly.
2 minutes later as we felt an uncomfortable burn in our eyes it became clear that the police had used tear gas to force people to back off. We were only a 100 meters away and I still don’t understand why drastic measures like these were necessary. In our oppinion the crowd was peaceful.
As Fabian came back we wanted to make a plan in case things got worse
but it was obviously to late. A car was burning and 3 fire engines followed by armored cars with water cannons drove into the crowd. Soon the whole place was full with tear gas and water cannons were used to scatter the protesters. The program on stage was disrupted and organizers tried to calm people down. They spoke to the police publicly
and told them to stop the provocation. In the mean time police were everywhere and people were running in all directions. Me and Fabian were cut off from our friend. Since we couldn’t see properly anymore and the situation began to get dangerous we tried to run into town but the police were blocking some of the streets so we felt really trapped.
Well these are just some of the weird ways the police acted. The rumor was actually that they tried to get as much of the riot on tape as possible so they could argue against further protests, get more freedom to act cruel or whatever. I must say it fits to the profile.
Anyway, the sad part is the way our beloved media is pulling the whole protest into dirt and not even mentioning the motives of “peaceful” protesters. There are so many great discussions – the people are doing an amazing job. But it is not in the interest of the system to let them be heard.
Hello again from Belgrade. Day 3 that I am in town and leaving soon, back to Croatia. But I’ll talk about all that later…
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During my time in Zagreb last week, I had the privledge of attending a protest against the destruction of a beloved city block. The buildings are very important for their cultural heritage, which sparked particular concern by artists of all walks of life and all ages. The plan is to destroy them and erect a shopping mall… but the people of the city have come out in force against this plan.
While inside it is all smiling faces, boring pre-written speaches, and picture perfect pageantry, outside the convention-