Wars of my forefathers

Much has been written about the Government’s announced budget cuts to education: more than half a billion euros from higher education and research, with a focus on starter and incentive grants. TU Delft itself is now expected to do more with less: increase the number of students, decrease the number of students per teacher, all while reducing costs. Back home, we have a phrase for this: making a whip out of manure, then making it sound like a police siren.

The University of Amsterdam writes that these are the largest cuts since the 1980s. The other side of the coin is that one might say that over the last 40 years, funding for higher education has either remained constant (indexed to inflation, at least) or increased. I may have studied systems theory too much, but all I can see is a cycle. Eventually, I assume there will be a reckoning, and policymakers might be faced with an underfunded education system that does not achieve its goals. More funding will be allocated, and education and research output will increase until someone decides to tighten the belt once again. And on and on.

Seeing this, it is easy to become cynical. After all, why fight against these (and any other) cuts if we’re going to end up in the same situation in the future? People go out into the streets and protest against austerity, budgets are eventually restored come the next political cycle, and then cut again come the next. It seems like there’s no winning condition.

Every single generation has to fight the same battles again, and again, and again

Here’s the crux of the problem. To quote British Labour MP Tony Benn, ‘every single generation has to fight the same battles again, and again, and again … there’s no final victory and there’s no final defeat’. My first reaction was unbridled horror: I have to fight the same battle my parents did? It’s not fair, but it does make sense. There will always be those who would take away the gains that my parents fought for, whether it be a functioning democracy, public goods, or general well-being, for their own private profit.

If there are those who would take away what those before us fought for, then we need to fight for them too. For things to get better, however we may define ‘better’ – be it less inequality, more public transport, free access to education, a stable climate – dogged persistence is required. Sure, things may get worse before they get better, and we might get a bloody nose. But while you can say that it’s not your business and you don’t want to get involved, the person on the other side, who stands to profit from your loss, will definitely get involved.

In the Lord of the Rings, wise Gandalf says that all who live through troubled times wish that they hadn’t. However, ‘that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us’. What will you do with yours?