It’s never been easier to get your voice heard. If you don’t wanna post comments on the many local news sites, you can start up a blog, visit forums, create a Facebook group, or Twitter your gripe to literally thousands of like-minded readers.
Granted, people may not wanna listen to your grumblage, but that’s hardly the system’s fault now, is it?
So quite why anyone would wanna vandalise a 200-year-old Dartington Estate statue to make a vague statement about (we assume) the decision to move the College of Arts campus to Cornwall is anyone’s guess.
Last week, vandals prised off a plaque on the statue in the estate’s Higher Meadow causing £300 damage.
The stolen plaque reads: “For Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst from the community of Dartington on Foundation Day 1967.”
It was replaced with a laminated sign saying: “Relocation. A performance for what will be missed, length, who cares.”
Well, that told them, didn’t it? Way to stick it to Ver Man.
A Dartington Hall spokesman said: “While people may have the right to protest, damaging works of art in the gardens is not the way to do it and they should have a constructive dialogue.”
The simple truth is that some people will leap on any excuse to explain away their desire to smash windows, damage property, swear at mayors, or even gun down soldiers in Northern Ireland. Some people, as Alfred the butler wisely acknowledged, just wanna watch the world burn.
Or is it our fault? After all, today’s teenagers have grown up watching the likes of George Bush and Tony Blair struggle to come up with a cogent explanation for their violent actions around the world. What kind of example does that set?
Take a piddle against the PRSD statue and post your thoughts below please.
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Despite its sometimes snooty attitude, Dartington revels in its position in the artistic community. The decisions it makes affects that community, and when members of that community feel aggrieved and feel they have no recourse, they protest. The damage that seems to be done doesn’t sound like it affected the integrity of the artwork.
It is the perceived ‘cushty’ situation of the cliques that can make the hoi polloi feel powerless, where decision-making is sewn up and accountability appears non-existent. There is a climate, exacerbated by the banking shenanigans, that if you belong to the commercial ruling class you can get away with anything, especially if you shrug your shoulders and say ‘that’s business’.
Frustration breeds protest, and whereas men of violence will latch on any excuse to become bellicose, does that epithet extend to green custard throwing, plaque peeling or heckling?
The custard thrower used the platform to explain her grievance in an intelligent and eloquent manner. What the heck does ‘Relocation. A performance for what will be missed, length, who cares’ mean?! Are we protesting via the medium of haiku these days?!
… There was a protester from Totnes
Who couldn’t keep in their distress
They attacked a statue
in the form of haiku
and a statue was made in a mess…
Dartington statue,
Covered in green custard would
Look a trifle odd
Ouch.
Seriously you can’t compare swearing at a mayor to shooting ruddy soldiers in Northern Ireland? Truth is, there is a lot of genuine, heartfelt and justified anger out there. I don’t think all examples of direct (or militant) action can be dismissed by accusing the perpetrators involved of finding “any excuse to cause trouble”. That seems quite reductionist to me and, dare I say it, quite Nu Labour. And no, I don’t think they just want to watch the world burn either. I think, on the whole, they want the world to stop burning so they aren’t afraid to bring kids up in it. People are realising that they have been sold out by a spineless cabal of rulers and that their taxes have been used to further prop up an unfair and exploitative economic system for three decades too long now. Add to this the correct and proper anger that has lingered since New Labour’s illegal, tortuous foreign policy blunders and their utter disregard for the rights of the individual to privacy and ancient legal freedoms, and you have a seriously potent mix. The Police reckon that middle-class professionals could even cross the protest threshold and join the fray this year, as their jobs, livelihoods and homes become little more than ‘collateral damage’. It was slightly silly to deface a piece of artwork and I don’t really condone it yet, I predict a lot more of this stuff as we begin what the police are already calling: The Summer Of Rage. If and when it does kick off, I have a feeling that it could get pretty ugly; especially when you mix in an evidently zealous, politicised and heavy-handed police force, keen to try out their newly-granted powers and immunities (it is now illegal to film a police officer on duty) and armed with Jackboot Smith’s newly-imported taser guns. This minor, repairable vandalism might seem like a drop in the sea if the proverbial brown stuff really does hit the fan. When the chips are down, The Joker prophesied, these civilised people will eat each other. Let’s hope not, eh? Next.
‘Summer of rage’? Isn’t that what the writer was talking about in the first place? After all, what good is smashing a few windows when you can’t even be bothered to vote? Surely the point of the story is that blind, unfocused rage is a waste of energy and ultimately solves nothing – like a toddler crying for its bottle. The point is you’re supposed to grow up and verbalise your anger. As the Joker said: ‘Never rub another man’s rhubarb’.
Well I was kind of verbalising my anger there Bill. Sorry if you missed that or if it got your goat up. I tried protest once but it wasn’t kind to me and changed absolutely nothing. I still support it as a concept though and might even do it again. I just thought the point of the story you refer to was a little muddied is all. I agree with the part about world leaders setting criminally-bad examples of how to resolve problems, and historical studies clearly show that rises in crime and civil unrest during periods of conflict and crisis can and do occur. The phrase “summer of rage” is not my invention neither. Google it and you will see who it came from.
I remain doggedly bothered to vote, but do feel disenfranchised by a three-party democratic system which offers no real choice. For a lot of people, certainly for me, it does feel like the ruling classes have effectively pulled the ladder up behind them, closed the curtains and are failing to engage in any kind of dialogue with us, the little people. Increasingly, it seems that they view us as a problem population to be managed, spied-upon, lectured and patronised. Open revolt might be the only way to get a snap election at the very least. Jack Nicholson’s Joker also said: “You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.” Enough of the Bat-talk now though, or else i’ll have to wheel out my ‘Harvey Dent is Barack Obama’ theories and no one really wants that. It’s late and you probably have work in the morning