Intellectuals Unite by Alice Pike

Guest blog by Alice Pike, London College of Fashion

For me, activism is in the blood.  My grandmother, Jean Pike, was a part of the first anti-cruise march from Pembrokeshire to London in 1981, and was there at the beginning of the Greenham Common peace camp.  She would travel up and down the country on her Vespa chasing cruise missile convoys, facing police batons, arrest and eventually she was sent Holloway prison in 1983. When I was younger my parents would travel down to London with me to go to demos against the Iraq war and campaigning for free education.  I never got that free education but I did gain an understanding that you don’t have to sit back and do nothing when you disagree with your government.

Me and Mum

My grandma amassed a huge collection of badges over the years, which I loved sifting through as a child.  ‘Reluctant Housewives against the Bomb’, ‘Jobs not Bombs’, ‘Stop Trident’ and, my favourite, ‘Gardeners for a nuclear free fuchsia’.   Some of these are still relevant today; we still live in a country with nuclear weapons.  Our government plans to spent excessive amounts of money renewing Trident, whilst enforcing austerity on the rest of the country.  Weapons of mass destruction will not protect us against terrorism, a bomb designed to wipe out entire cities can’t stop individuals. It is out-dated and dangerous, draining resources that could be spent on education, the NHS and renewables. Any politician who can morally justify using a nuclear weapon and possibly killing thousands of innocent people shouldn’t be allowed to run a country.

When I was at the Climate Change march in November with Climate Revolution 70,000 people turned up.  It was amazing to be surrounded by so many people who shared my views and wanted to make a difference.  I plan to attend the Stop Trident demonstration on 27^th February and I hope to have the same experience there.

Students and young people have a reputation for not caring about politics and the world around them but in my experience that couldn’t be further from the truth, most of the time we just don’t have an outlet to talk about these issues.  With cuts to education and the end of maintenance grants, it does often feel like this government has it in for my generation.  That’s where Climate Revolution’s Intellectuals Unite comes in.  Through Intellectuals Unite I am working towards setting up a group at my university where students can come together to discuss the things that matter to them and listen to speakers who they otherwise wouldn’t get the opportunity to hear.  When young people speak out they are often dismissed as being naïve and too inexperienced to have an opinion, but we do and activism gives us that voice.