Silent Long Enough! CFE Direct Action At USI Protest, Feb 5th 2003.

The last time we gathered outside government buildings to oppose fees, we were told to go home and write letters to our local TD, as a result the march barely made the news. Posing in mass photo opportunities, rhetoric and individual letters of opposition collapse in the

At the demonstration today, the CFE were determined to organise real action against the government, as USI mouthed off from a truck, quite similar to the one the cops had used to block our path to the dail at the last demo, we were organinising direct action and involving students in teh process.

As USI told us to go home, 2 seperate blocks ran past cops and barriacades and blocked the front of the dail for over two hours in a sit down protest.  Despite threats of arrest under the public order act, a mass decision was made by the 300 strudents not to move.  Eventually the police were forced to physically remove us from the road.

To really stop the reintroduction of fees we have to stop only embarrassing the government every few months on the news, and we must begin to harass them into taking action to remedy the inadequacies and inequalities of our education system. We must shift focus away from responding to their agenda, and force them to respond to ours, an agenda where educational opportunity is not mitigated by your economical and social background.

The years of complacency, respectability and negotiation in the student movement must end, and action must begin. We need to show the government how serious we are on this issue, through a campaign to mobilise students and involve students in actions such as blockades, mass occupations, lecture strikes and more, which directly affect and upset the government. There is no point sitting back and waiting for someone to organise this campaign for us. To be effective we must all get active and be involved, organising meetings, demos and groups to take action against the government. Silence got us here, and action can get us out!