Now this is more like it. If you ever felt Britishness was ebbing away, here is one wonderful example.
A new protest group arguing *for* the new animal housing centre has been created and they plan to march in Oxford centre at the same time as Speak, on Saturday 25th Feb.
If you were despairing about the over-the-top rantings of young Muslims about the Mohammed cartoons, or the fact that the hateful and ignorant Nick Griffin of the BNP has been given a national soapbox, let this be the antacid.
Especially following last week's threat by the Animal Liberation Front that it viewed everyone and anyone with any connection to the university to be a legitimate target.
In the best British tradition, the protestors – who in recent months have grown more aggressive as public support has ebbed – will be faced with the self-same tactics but from people that disagree with them. Rather that getting het up, or violent, it looks like good humour will be the main weapon of choice.
The group is called Pro-Test and it has a website just up at www.protest.org.uk. The “organiser” of all this is a bit of a fraud in that he doesn't live in Oxford (he lives in Swindon) and isn't an Oxford student, although he has allowed the group to be portrayed as an Oxford student initiative by the media.
It seems that he was in town last weekend to visit his girlfriend and got annoyed with the animal rights protestors so quickly mocked up a similar protests banner saying “Support progress – Build the Oxford lab”. He was struck by the voilent reaction of the protestors, and by the amount of support that others living in Oxford offered.
The Pro-Test site has virtually no information about animal testing or the current dispute because, clearly, he knows nothing of the history (I covered some of it, including the protestors' claims earlier this month).
But nevertheless this should be an interesting development. Students are, if nothing else, easy to corral especially if it's fun and it gives them something to spout about.
The group has also been given a peculiar brand of legitimacy, combined with pressure to actually organise, from a media jumping all over the story. BBC Oxford spotted the “protest” while touring town for others' opinions about the housing centre and did an interview.
The media being the media, everyone else jumped on board. A documentary team that claims to have a commission from BBC2 has been filming the whole saga did an interview. The Times – which prints anything to do with Oxford at all – jumped on board. And then the Guardian produced a leader of all things about it in its Education supplement.
Now, the Oxford University newspaper Cherwell is running a poll on whether students should support Pro-Test, the animals, or whether they wish everyone would just stop protesting. At the time I write this there are only 55 responses: 60 percent in favour of Pro-Test; 9 percent in favour of the animals.
[New update: As of 3.30pm on Thursday 9 Feb, the poll now has 742 votes: March for the lab – 64%; I'd rather save the animals – 7%; Will everybody please stop demonstrating? – 29%.]
All of this has sparked an appallingly childish response from Speak.
It should be interesting to see what happens. And what the numbers of protestors are on both sides.
