August 29. Day 242. What do we want?

Permit me to put on the rose tinted glasses for just a minute and to reflect on the good old days.

Now children, before there was Facebook or Twitter people actually had to leave the home if they wanted to protest about something.

That's right. They would take to the streets, they would march and they would wave signs and placards. Frequently there would be clashes with police and arrests (that's the not-so-good bit).

These things did not just happen in Egypt, they happened here in Brisbane and very often students were at the front and centre of the protests.

Today's students are a very passive lot.  Mostly they are not sitting around campus and debating the big issues or drinking in the university bar.

Mostly they come for classes and then they disappear and head off to work.

Student unionism - once the training ground for the politicians of the future - is pretty much dead, at least where I work.

Now with the glasses off I can say that there were some very ugly sides to those protests but at least students were very politically aware and prepared to stand up and fight for what they believed in.

So it was with great interest to me to read that a protest was being held at the University of Queensland today.

This was peaceful student activism at its best. Passionate, articulate students protesting in the Great Court followed by a march on the student union building and a sit-in.

Protesting is apparently not dead. It was just having a little rest and then re-emerging dressed as a fairy or a furry animal. Whatever it takes.