Photography: The Umbrella Revolution

I do not normally blog about political matters.  Not because I am not politically opinionated but because this is primarily an aesthetic blog and as such not the best venue to express political views.  Nevertheless it is not often that my generation can witness something historic, so on Wednesday armed with my camera I went down to the protests to see for myself and to participate in my little way in what is happening at the moment. Opinions and views on the aim of the protesters aside, I was nevertheless awed by the protestors.  Mostly kids, they had set up stations handing out food and water.  They had built little structures to help people climb over the barriers and had roped people in to stand holding signs saying entry and exit.  They had put up a poster in the metro entrance apologising to the general population for the inconvenience caused.  What I saw on Wednesday was indeed a most civil disobedience.  Please cast your mind back to the 2011 riots in London, the looting, the fires etc.  I leave you with this fact that I learned of recently.  Since 1994, the number of publicly funded degree places has been frozen at a maximum of 15,000. This means that only 18% of teenagers  are able to study at  a government-funded institution.  Taking out the upper 10% of the population that will be able to afford to go to university abroad what kind of future can the rest expect to have?