Monday, November 20, 2006
Students and Iraq/Palestine/Israel Protests on Campus
Recently, I've been to a number of anti-war events on campus and have been really surprised by the lack of attendance. They have a vaguely retro feel to them. There are people playing songs on guitars about Irish people fighting for the Mexican side in the Mexican-American war, and lots of really old people. And I wonder if that isn't part of the reason it's difficult to get students on campus interested in such issues, because of the tendency of thinking of antiwar protestors as being the nostalgic memories of their mother--or grandmother--in their younger years. There's also a fundamental lack of knowledge of more than the basic geography or issues in the region and of how issues interact. What do these issues all have to do with one another? Which nation is developing nuclear reactions? Even--shockingly--what was the cold war? Many students in their late teens or early twenties simply don't know. And when you don't really know what's going on except for being inculcated with the idea that the "Iraq war is going badly," then how can you be outraged?
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There is a tendancy among activists, like all other people to continuously repeat procedures that have at one point or another yielded a desired result. This has been the history of most mainstream social and political movements since the Civil Rights and Vietnam-era activism. I would generally agree that activists have relied too heavily on old methods that have traditionally "worked" more or less in favor of the efforts, without understanding the complexities and variables of the times.
With this said, and in reference to "The Parroting of Fatuous Political Slogans; or, why can't WestConn students think?" it is important to note that it is difficult to know what works, or what gets students involved and "outraged" when the mentality and social stagnance of most students prevents one from attaining the most basic understanding of what "works." Or better yet, in what way might a particular issue relate to the averege student, and how can they be convinced that it is fundamentally nessescary for them to be truly informed- outside of the narrow, safe and cliched dualistic ideas that often flow from the University about social and political issues? The answer to this is beyond what my limited experience in life has taught me so far.
Old methods that have usually inspired and involved students, from my experience, have worked well in environments that already promote dissent, or where the environment itself strongly stifles dissent and in turn radicalizes students. Westconn is neither. I see it tilt in both directions from time to time, but, inevitably neutralizes. For example, there was a presentation on Palestine that criticized the brutality of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. This prompted Westconn to invite a speaker to give the "other side" by inviting a speaker who spoke highly of Israel. In an environment where dissent has to be neutralized, where the University is constantly trying to save face in order to ensure economic stability, dissent and critical thinking suffer. The University also responded to a historical dissenting forum on immigrants rights by inviting anti-Immigrant speakers who support the minutemen. Under these standards, should they invite the White supremecists that protested MLK Jr. day in Jena, LA, if the "Jena 6" were to come to Westconn?
This is simply one factor to the inactivity of Westconn students, I shall not delve into all of them for sake of brevity.
What "new" methods would attract Westconn's "type" of student to actions and events that encourage critical and perhaps radical thinking?
Would it be effective to promise to show the movie, Jackass if only people listened to a dissenting opinion about the ICE raids on undocumented workers?
I almost wish it was that simple.
I don't know what the soultion is, and admittedly have not purpose or goal in writing this response, but as long as someone is writing critically about students and activism, especially Westconn students and activists and shared many common observations of my own, I thought a response might shed some further light on why Westconn activism and critical thinking is dissapearing.
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