Perspectives 1.

I a few months ago I started doing some photography again and ended up with these.

 Acropolis Perspective 1. 

 Agora Perspective 1. 

Temple of Apollo at Corinth Perspective 1.

Protests, effective or no?

The occupation of the Aston Webb building provoked some interesting discussion, but one thing that didn’t rear its head as high as the others was whether or not strikes actually have a significant impact on the issues they address. Even though the action against the University is not yet over it definitely appears that it isn’t going in the direction that the protestors desire, which makes me wonder if strikes ever really work. Strikes are a common occurrence in our society and are a significant symbol of our right to freedom of speech, a thing that some countries fight to have, and we often take for granted.

Our ability to shout to the world just what we think of it may be our own, but does it simply fall upon deaf ears. Because a lot of the time it sure does feel like that. Why do we try to make them listen when they just won’t pay attention? We are supposed to live in a democracy, which does allow us the ability to protest and strike as much as we like yet it never seems to make a change.

Look at the strikes against the raise of tuition fees and it is easy to see that no matter how much of a stink we raise we are still ignored. More often than not our voices are put on mute and our higher ups just carry on as if nothing had happened. We rarely even cause a blip on the radar, but we persevere. We wave our arms and jump up and down and hope that it will make a difference one day. Maybe it will. After all striking has become a significant part of our society and it is integral to the way we function. But is it all just a hoax?

Are we being tricked into thinking that we have more power of our governmental system than we actually do? We have the power to vote, even if a lot of us neglect to do so, and we have the power to speak out and project our opinions onto the world, but sometimes I wonder if it is all just a lie. Are we just looking at our world through rose-tinted glasses? Unseeing of how we’ve had our vision clouded by our so-called freedom. We do live in a country that grants us a certain level of independence, and in comparison to other countries whose revolts end up leaving them in prison or worse.

Can we really complain about our lack of influence if we are fortunate enough to at least have a slither of influence over our world? Perhaps that is why we are so utterly determined to keep pushing. Even if we don’t always make the impact we want to isn’t it still worth it in order to get our voices out there. Although we may not always reach the audience we want to, but our actions most certainly reach out to people. The use of protests has influenced generation after generation, and they are still crucial in our world. Sometimes they may not have the desired effect, but at least we get our message out there. The world is not a simple place and it often spits us out without a second thought so we may as well embrace those moments where we can speak our minds without judgement.