Harry DE QUETTEVILLE
Outrage may yet lead to revolution for a generation seeking change, says Harry de Quetteville
Ihave seen wars and bombs and crashes (both economic and aircraft) but only one revolution. It was 2004 in Ukraine, and along Khreschatyk, the boulevard that runs a mile through central Kyiv, a tent city had sprouted in the early winter snow, the heart of a protest movement railing against political injustice.
Teenagers and students sat shivering in the dark, huddling round braziers, sharing food, donning warm clothes and boots donated by older wellwishers. It looked fantastically uncomfortable. But that was the whole point. While others were prepared to rub along with the unfolding drama, as observers, the young revolutionaries were determined to stick it out in person. Looking back through my photos, cheery faces – smiling, optimistic – stare back at me.
The moment when their futures appeared to have been stolen was to them a moment of enormous, perhaps unique opportunity. The failings of their ruling class were too important to ignore; too obvious, too startling. They did not know precisely how change would unfold, but they knew it would come, and that they had a part to play. They were right.
Gavin Williamson is no one’s idea of a charismatic revolutionary figurehead. But somehow, this week, the Education Secretary has managed to refine a political cock-up and create a crystalline moment of outrage – a moment that once again brought young people on to the streets to signal their unanimous contempt. Behind them, thousands of parents bubbled with protective rage at their offspring’s whitewater ride: a lost six months of education, a chance to prove themselves snatched away, almost half downgraded, university places lost then, finally, spat out of the regrading rapids to be met with accusations of grade inflation.
We should not expect young people to take it lying down. This snatching away of hope is, history suggests, the most unbearable, the greatest provocation. It was a phenomenon that historian Alexis de Tocqueville first recognised in the mid-19th century in his book L’ancien Régime et la Révolution – the greatest firebrands in revolutionary France emerged not from the poorest region, but from areas where prosperity was growing; where some liberties had been granted. Having tasted the good life they wanted more. Those who can see a better life, but who find it lies just beyond their fingertips, are the most fervent revolutionaries.
Today, young people fit exactly that description: they have seen generations before them profit from an extraordinary period of economic expansion and prosperity, only to find that they will not be so lucky. After the crash a decade ago they suffered greater unemployment; their wages fell most. Today, Covid has exacerbated that: a third of 18-24-year-old employees (excluding students) have lost jobs or been furloughed, compared to one in six prime-age adults, according to the Resolution Foundation.
Those figures contribute to the shattering of a long-standing academic compact: higher education once equalled a middle-class job with a middleclass salary. Not any more. Covid, on the back of the crash, is forecast to leave graduates already burdened by student debt stuck in low-level roles, with stagnating pay, for longer – if they can get jobs at all. The great financial crash manifested itself in Occupy Wall Street and, in the UK, Corbynism. Rolling campaigns led by the young are significant – at the very least, it means the issues they are concerned around get discussed. March For Our Lives, led by schoolchildren in America, raised the taboo issue of gun control. Who now can ignore Extinction Rebellion, or Black Lives Matter?
Yet, for so long, of course, little of this has counted where it matters – the ballot box. While young people have always wielded tremendous cultural power, their political power has been muted. Turnout among 18-24-year-olds at last year’s general election was an estimated 47 per cent. However, despite the nation’s young having taken to the streets, research by the National Citizen Service shows that young people remain upbeat.
Holly Gallacher, 18, from Peter Symonds College in Winchester, Hants, has seen friends’ lives wrecked by the grades fiasco. “It’s been difficult,” she told me, just one of a series of issues, from BLM to the environment, where she and her peers feel let down. But they are not out for revenge.
“There are some negative feelings,” she says. “But our generation is positive. Our outlook is: ‘Instead of just getting angry we’d rather make the change.’” How they do so remains to be seen.