A sign of things to come?

Well, now that the recent furore has calmed over my meeting with Mr. Ahern, I feel its time to raise my head above ground again. So, enough of the bullshit. Blogging about scrambled eggs and irrelevant politicians is all very well, but it doesn't do much for my blogging credentials. Lets try be serious for awhile.

Today has been a huge day for this country. At 12.30pm today, students from across Ireland became a collective embodiment of anger and rage. They took the form of a mass protest being aimed towards likely education cuts in next month's budget. They turned out in numbers and argued their case. For that, I cannot express enough admiration.

So what's the big deal I hear you say? Didn't the pensioners and public unions do the same? Well yes they did, but today was different. Today turned violent, albeit on a limited scale and through a small group of protesters. Now I'm not condoning violence on any level here, but surely this is a signifigant development and may even be a sign of things to come.

If Ireland has entered a stage where ordinary individuals feel the need to express themselves through acts of aggression, surely that raises huge questions of our society. Obviously cracks are starting to emerge and something needs to change. The question is, what and how? Todays events are all the more reason for us to collectively start asking those questions.

Remember this is only one protest. Over the coming years there is the possability of more civil unrest. There's no doubt that subsequent budgets will be painful, with sweeping cuts across all sectors, not just education. With that being the case it' s likely that we are going to see more and more protests down the line. Today turned violent but who's to say future events wont go the same, and on a larger scale. In a sense, todays events may have been the start of something. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen.