Dear gair rhydd,
I initially wanted to write this as a complaint about the apathy of today’s students after I attended a national protest against what I consider to be an unequivocally appalling development in the history of Wales- the welcome-mat of £14billion that the UK government has paid to a consortium of arms companies in the development of a military academy here in St Athans, South Wales – and once again noted the exceptionally poor student turnout.
I have often been underwhelmed by the student presence at any number of local and national protests. But after attending last Saturday’s Societies Awards, where the multitude of creative capacities that our Union encompasses were celebrated at the highest level, I was reminded of the creativity, imagination and power that students possess when working in solidarity.
We have demonstrated that we clearly have the power to construct innumerable positive effects when we want to. Why then, does this capacity not translate to arguably more pressing political issues with longer-term impacts, such as protesting against the introduction of an international privatised killing academy in our back garden?
For the sake of my own sanity I have decided that, in this instance at least, this is not due to apathy or defeatism, but lack of awareness. We have failed to inform the public about the issue. This can be begun to be remedied by reading more at www.cynefinywerin.org.uk. Meanwhile, I implore all those with more than a fleeting interest in the world to cast their nets wider and look to join a group who work to confront and campaign on such issues. There is even one in your very own student’s union. It is called People and Planet and it needs more people who care and can make a change. I now know that there are many such people, right here in Cardiff.
E. Bridger
1. Mark
“We have demonstrated that we clearly have the power to construct innumerable positive effects when we want to.”
Really? When, exactly, did this miraculous event occur? When did student protests change anything? It certainly didn’t over Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq or even over top up fees. So when has student protesting made any difference whatsoever to anything?
Secondly you have failed to offer any real criticism of the St Athan Defence Training Academy aside from the usual leftist hyperbole that military equates to death and therefore any establishment involved with military training equates to a death camp. The Training Academy is going to be a university style institution where members from all three branches of HM Forces will come to complete phases of their specialised training under the auspices of one command and a single institution. For example an RAF Intelligence Officer goes to Chicksands to complete specialists training in intelligence and imagery analysis where as a RAF Engineer will go to another part of the country as will Provost Officers and RAF Regiment Officers and so on, and the same goes for the Army and Royal Navy. The St Athan Defence Training Academy will bring in members from all three services to complete all this specialist training together. Not only does this obviously have beneficial economic considerations by ending duplication of training institutions but more importantly will help encourage the ethos of combined arms operations, which are essential to modern combat, to Junior Officers and NCOs from a very early point in their careers. Obviously the Academy is going to have some minor economic benefits to the local community but that is largely irrelevant, the point is the Academy will not do any harm at all to the local area in specific or Wales in general.
So unless you are a naive socialist weasel who likes to jump on any anti-military bandwagon simply for the sake of it there really is no reason to oppose the St Athan Defence Training Academy.
In short grow up and get a life.
2. Jon
Britain needs a military force. Since we have this need I would want our military to be the best in the world. If that means that a new training facility is built then so be it. I would like to think that everyone else would want the people who are protecting our interests and security to be the best trained at what they do too.
How long do you think we would last if our military went down the pan? Unfortunately we don’t live in a utopia where it wouldn’t matter if this happened. If that is what our armed forces need to become better then we should give it to them.