So the good old English gentry had their precious "Boat Race" disrupted and everyone's angry. A man was arrested we're told. "Why was he in the river blocking the boats...?". It doesn't matter apparently, judging by the near universal media silence. What's more important across the spectrum is to widely condemn the man for spoiling a sporting day out on the river. Yet, the truth is, he was making an articulately defined protest, as set out in his own prewritten manifesto. Clearly the British media have decided this isn't worth you knowing.
As we all know, this wasn't any day out on the river, it was the elites day out on the river. Their river. A day where the real characters of the wind in the willows come out to play and network with one another on the banks of the Thames. Meanwhile, the usual bunch of nouveau riche and starry eyed wannabes come along for the fun family spectacle... but I digress.
Does anyone else not think it's utterly appalling that the media by and large have totally ignored this mans protest? I mean he wrote a whole manifesto for Christ's sake. However the resounding narrative we are suffered to is of condemnation. An army of condemners, staffed by sports star toffs past and present. Even the head of the British Olympic association Lord Moynihan capitalised on the incident for justifying increased Olympic security (as if there wasn't enough already). He simply contemptuously dismissed the man not as a protester, but as an idiot. Idiots don't matter, even those with degrees from LSE and articulate manifestos.
This may seem petty on my part. "Josh, how can you be so mad at a friendly boat race where a guy spoiled the fun?". The primary reason is that it's a textbook example of how the media narrow the margins of debate and set the agenda for your brain. When a woman in years gone by chucked herself in front of the king's horse, the moment was eternalised as a tragic display of heroism in the pursuit of political and economic equality. When our most recent individual however, obstructed two boats in the middle of the river Thames; boats containing the future elite, boats symbolically cruising to a no doubt prosperous future. The media of the day couldn't give a toss. "So, he had politics did he?... So what? Look at this angry rich guy with muscles, and Matthew saint Olympian Pinsent, he's pissed too". Cue the video of the impromptu assembled middle class baying mob, taunting the man as he's carried out in to a police truck. "Good" the British public vitriolically spit at the screen. "Get a job you bum".
How typical this is of our hypocritical culture in the UK. A country where we rejoice in the history of past democratic protests, yet see no connection between the ghosts of then to the men and women of now. Protesting instead becomes a spectator sport, with gentlemanly codes of conduct decided by the powerful. Protest isn't about picnic blankets, this isn't Henley Regatta, it's supposed to cause trouble, that's why it's effective...or used to be. You can't regulate democratic outrage, try as they may.
It's not good enough for the elite of this country to gallivant around in a fantasy teletubby land of socials, bright sparkly glitz and glamour like human magpies. Meanwhile the world burns around them and all they can cry out for is sympathy that their insulated cocoon has been breached by a riff raff agent in a wet suit.
So fuck their boat race and shame on you (complicit public/media) for ignoring a brave man. Instead we hear such sickly sentiments "My team went through seven months of hell, this was the culmination of our careers and you took it from us." Meanwhile the protestor tries to highlight rampant inequality and privilege that disadvantage the serf majority. The very same privilege that allows this young man to row for his "career". What a splendid luxury to row for your career, showing simultaneously utter ignorance to reality, combined with the typical sense of entitlement. People work hard their whole lives in degrading jobs and gain nothing in return. Someone tries to highlight this and we should pity the rich rower boy whose fantasy was tarnished?
Instead, Lets imagine a different scenario. Let's imagine that a man in Syria or Libya swam in front of boats to protest the lack of political equality in their respective nations. No doubt the image would be on the front of Time magazine, with easy comparisons made to 'tank man' in china, or 'shoe thrower man' in Iraq, black power salutes at the Olympics or conflagrated monks in Tibet. No. In Britain. The land of rabid class, there is no voice for those who dare challenge the British elite. The reason we condemn the man and ignore his cause is the typically arrogant British assumption, that our decaying relic of privilege and inequality, the UK, is a shining light of democracy that need not be questioned.
As the protestor himself wrote: "to enslave requires the audacity, cunning and daring to take advantage of our natural kindness...our respect for authority, our desire to please, and our apprehension about 'causing waves'".
A country that so instinctively condemns acts of democratic resistance is no democracy at all. The 'waves' such people make, propel our democracy forward. The mans name was Trenton Oldfield and this is his manifesto: http://elitismleadstotyranny.squarespace.com/