 | № 43-44 (3193-3194) | 24.03.2006 |
Gold is easily told
"Our blood is hot, yet our mind is cold"
French students continue to protest. Every morning thousands students take bottles with gas mixture and stones instead of books and go marching to the streets. These streets especially by the Sorbonne, in the intellectual heartland of France, had become a no-go area for anyone not involved in the fighting, police tries to calm down the young people and the government finds the situation critical. The occasion is a new job contract being brought in by the government to tackle chronic unemployment; to Russian measure it is vain. Kazan students have not less problems, why do not they protest?
- "Have you ever taken part in any protest actions?" - we asked the students of the Kazan state university, which were whiling away the time by it’s main building (we are used to call the Kazan university "the cradle of the revolution" after all).
- "Yes of course, an "Anti-AIDS" action – they distributed condoms for free, you know, there were very many people there! Many girls were there too..." - remembered the fourth year student of the faculty of law Dinar.
It turned out that Dinar’s parents pay his studies on the prestigious faculty and he does not even know how much do they pay – they take care of everything. For he knows about social problems only by hearsay, he really does not know why could he protest – life is so beautiful!
- "Protest is good, yet it can have serious consequences... For example the following has happened one day: some young people were standing in front of the main building of the university, they were just chatting, not protesting against anything. Then a big university boss came with his "Mercedes" and the students hindered him from parking. So he came out of the car and took away their student’s identity cards, they had many problems then. And you are talking of protesting..." - the first year’s students of the same faculty told us such an edifying story. They did not assumed their names and added that Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), who was banished from the faculty of law of the Kazan university for taking part in students’ unrests, does not serve as an example to them. "May be they will set up a monument to us, yet when we are dead we don`t give a damn".
- "Our blood is hot, yet our mind is cold," - declared Arthur, the third year’s student of the faculty of journalism. "French students have not achieved anything with their manifestations yet; the government is not going to repeal the law. What is the use of protesting then? We’d better live and study calmly. We have already had enough troubles."
- What troubles?
- The thousandth anniversary of Kazan, for example. The whole city war ruined, as after real war! And now Kazan is rebuilt and we should smash all up? It’s a pity...
Nevertheless the students of the Kazan university recognized that the revolutionary spirit is not dead finally: "We are with French students in our thoughts! Yet we need a good kick. Or something extraordinary should happen. If they will totally abolish the free education in Russia, we will also throw stones..."
Representatives of different parties and movements were convinced many times that it is very hard to bring students to the streets for protest. There was an action in Kazan against draft deferments and only five people were present. Yet seemingly it concerns everyone!
- "We do not have power to protest!" - the third year’s student of the Kazan technical university Airat Arslanov explains. "The students nowadays have not only to study but also to work. We have many problems, as French students have, there is no stability; the unemployment is very high and so on. Yet I do not remember any serious protest actions by students in Tatarstan and in Russia on the whole. We are not revolutionaries..."
- "Students, as the whole nation have tolerance and fear in their genes," - finds Albert Abdullazyanov, the president of the Students’ union of the Kazan state technical university. "In the high schools the administrative forces are very strong, the students fear that they will be sent down at once for any actions. By the highest standards our students are not able for protest because their parents are not. The most part of youth is politically indifferent, they do not have any civil position and it is all the same for them. Our students can take part in a protest action if it is allowed or, even better, if it is ordered. They marched in the autumn against abolishing of additional payments for budget workers. The leaders could raise the students. The question is which goals do these leaders have. Warmongers and the crowd of young people is a dangerous explosive mixture."
The practice shows that there are not any real "impetuous" youth leaders in Tatarstan. The leaders of the youth movements, which were organized in the Republic at the last time, arrange positive actions such as "Smile at the city", declare their harmlessness and the willingness to collaboration. So Kazan is not going to face any students’ unrests in the nearest future.
Olga MACHNEVA.
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