Hi everyone,

It’s Brenna here. A triumphant Brazilian friend taught me a Portuguese phrase this week: alegria alheia, the joy you feel at someone else’s happiness. They were using it to describe Lula’s victory over the far right. 

I’ve been feeling a little alegria alheia myself, watching the extraordinary scenes coming out of Serbia, where a student-led movement has scored a remarkable election victory. Anyone else notice that young people seem to have got rather bored of being told their student loan debt will climb up to £60k in no time at all while they will probably lose their jobs to AI? 

Today we have a piece by journalist and author Masuma Ahuja, who, having spent years reporting on young people’s lives across the globe, writes about the wave of gen Z protests sweeping countries – from Serbia to Spain, Argentina to France – and how it’s about something bigger than any one government or grievance. The rent is too high, universities are being cut, and jobs are precarious. It turns out that when everyone is privately miserable about the same things, there might be some value in getting together. Who knew?

I’m actually just back from a protest held at Goldsmiths, University of London, this afternoon, where staff have now been on strike for 142 days, the longest university staff strike in UK history. It’s quite the record for a place whose management presumably would rather be discussing efficiencies. Today, Goldsmiths students held a funeral procession for higher education, wearing black suits, lace, frills and top hats. There was a coffin, too, into which students hammered nails to mark what they see as the final blows to Goldsmiths. 

The university’s Future Goldsmiths plan, announced this year, threatens further academic and professional services jobs after an estimated 500 staff have already left the institution in the past seven years. For a story I’ve written today about the university’s wider crisis, I can reveal, through freedom of information requests, the enormous amount that Goldsmiths has spent on external consultants.

The students’ funeral procession was a way of mourning the institution's radical political traditions. Students told me that the corporate jargon used by university leadership has made it increasingly difficult to understand what is happening, let alone challenge it. 

The students I met today were mourning the possible loss of something they love, while watching their comrades in Serbia, France and Spain fight for something better. There’s a borrowed joy in seeing people refuse to accept that decline is inevitable. It’s not quite optimism, but it’s a start. You don’t organise a funeral procession for something you never loved, and you certainly don’t go to all that trouble if you think it’s beyond saving.

Now, here are the links to today’s stories. As ever, please consider giving us financial support if you read the Nerve for free. And a reminder that our first online film “watch party”, featuring the powerful documentary All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea, is happening this weekend – see below.

Goldsmiths, University of London, has shed around 500 staff while spending millions on external consultants – including £2.8m on KPMG alone – according to figures obtained by the Nerve from a freedom of information request. As staff strike over a third restructuring plan in five years, questions remain about what the university has paid for, and the links between some of its senior figures and the firms it has hired. Read the full report here.

In the past month, young people have been filling the streets, our headlines and social media feeds with calls for change across the world – from Spain to Argentina, in Albania, Belgium, Morocco, India, Serbia, Brazil, Italy, Chile, Greece, Portugal, France. Just days after a student-led movement in Serbia brought down veteran ruler Aleksandar Vučić, the author and strategist Masuma Ahuja argues that the global uprising is no coincidence but rather a logical reaction to a universally dystopian future of AI, climate change and unattainable housing. Read Masuma’s column here. 

It’s spooky season and there are ghostly recommendations for all tastes in the hotlist this week. First up, the big-screen spin-off of the charming TV comedy Ghosts is an absolute hoot, while at the Barbican in London, Hamlet Hail to the Thief reworks Shakespeare’s haunting tragedy with songs and fragments from one of Radiohead’s most portentous albums into an audacious and ambitious production. There are also top tips in music, art and comedy – including a “remarkable” show just transferred from Edinburgh festival that our theatre critic Dorian says we’ll be hearing a lot about. Check out this week’s hotlist here.

MEMBERS’ EVENT

As mentioned on Friday, the Nerve is co-hosting an online “watch party” plus Q&A for Jeanie Finlay’s powerful and enraging new documentary All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea – a David v Goliath story centred on the battle to save the fishing industry in Teesside following a catastrophic wave of industrial pollution. At its heart is Hartlepool fisherman Stan Rennie, whom veteran journalist Tina Brown has described as “the next Mr Bates” (of Post Office fame). Read the interview here with Stan that we published earlier this month.  Ticket holders will receive a link to watch the film on the US streaming platform Kinema (anytime between Saturday 31 Oct, 7pm and Monday 2 Nov, 6pm) plus a link to join an online discussion at 6.30pm on the Monday with Jeanie, the Nerve’s Carole Cadwalladr, seal activist Dr Sue Wilson and Shanida Scotland from film-makers Doc Society. Buy tickets here for $20 (roughly £15; the platform gives prices in dollars, but payments are made in pounds). Nerve subscribers get a third off and founder members a whopping 90% off using the code below. 

33% off for Nerve subscribers - NERVE_ATR_33 

Thanks for reading. We’ll be back again on Friday. If you’re enjoying this newsletter please do forward it on to your family and friends as it really helps us grow.

Brenna