On this day, despite the protests, the plan to raise the cap on tuition was carried by 323 votes to 302. Like the Wu Ming in Italy, would anyone like to have a go at summarising a message of protest from the names of the books on their shields? Feel free to use the comments section below.
Their Manifesto Read:
The Book Bloc joins the student and public sector workers’ protest to affirm and defend what is under attack:
Our universities and public libraries, literacy, thought, culture and jobs. In the past few weeks our attempts to do so peacefully have been met by police with batons, riot shields and horses. These are not isolated incidents of brutality but part of a system of institutional violence. By bringing books into the streets we are drawing attention to the violence at the heart of the neo-liberal ideology of the Con-Dem government. When the police kettle us, baton us or charge us we will not only see police violence against individuals but the states violence against the free thought, expression and education.
This is the list of most of the books that took part in the London Book Bloc Yesterday:
Deschooling Society – Illich
Brave New World – Huxley
Unto This Last – Ruskin
The Coming Insurrection – The Invisible Committee
Endgame – Beckett
Just William – Cropton
Negative Dialectics – Adorno
One Dimensional Man – Marcuse
Society of the Spectacle – Debord
A Room of Ones Own – Woolf
The Idiot – Dostoyevsky
Our Word is Our Weapon – Marcos
The Permaculture Way – Bell
Sense and Sensibility – Austen
Alice in Wonderland – Carroll
Waiting for Godot – Beckett
A polite objection:
I sent this picture to a friend of mine who works at the University of Bremen, and is expert in Adorno and the Decolonial turn. She replied:
‘Good to see something happens, but what’s missing: cesaire, fanon, wynter, spillers, lewis, quijano, de sousa santos, davis, etc. etc. etc… are the students all white? or don’t they understand that what happens to universities has something to do with global crisis, and thus, with (de)colonialism?’
Does your friend think that Subcomandante Marcos has nothing to do with de-colonialism? Anyway, anyone who tries to make the point of “what’s missing” is clearly missing the point.
Scott: I sent the link to the picture on Thursday, so she did not have the opportunity of looking at comments and find the list of books you provided yesterday. But, between us, you are right, the Zapatistas have a lot to do with resistance against current neocolonialism and the decolonisation of culture. However, the way you dismiss her comments is a bit too similar to the usual way in which any reference to Non-Eurocentric perspectives is rejected as irrelevant. Probably a less rushed reaction and a reflection on what it has been said in the South could be more productive.
You are missing:
Specters of Marx – Jacques Derrida
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
No, not all of us were ‘white’. And we just picked our favorite books that were somewhat relevant.