murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

During the summer holidays the university called in the riot police.
They broke down the barricades and arrested the students inside. This
was nothing new. It's what all the students were doing at the time. The
universities were not so easily "dismantled". Massive amounts of
capital had been invested in them, and they were not about to dissolve
just because a few students had gone wild. And in fact those students
who had sealed off the campus had not wanted to dismantle the
university either. All they had really wanted to do was shift the
balance of power within the university structure, about which I
couldn't have cared less. And so, when the strike was finally crushed, I
felt nothing.
I went to the campus in September expecting to find rubble. The place
was untouched. The library's books had not been carted off, the tutors'
offices had not been destroyed, the student affairs office had not been
burned to the ground. I was thunderstruck. What the hell had they
been doing behind the barricades?
When the strike was defused and lectures started up again under
police occupation, the first ones to take their seats in the classrooms
were those arseholes who had led the strike. As if nothing had ever
happened, they sat there taking notes and answering "present" when
the register was taken. I found this incredible. After all, the strike was
still in effect. There had been no declaration bringing it to an end. All
that had happened was that the university had called in the riot police
and torn down the barricades, but the strike itself was supposed to be
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