Student protests over Israel’s war on Gaza are roiling US university campuses, in what could be the most significant student movement since the anti-Vietnam war protests in the late 1960s.
Although protests, rallies, sit-ins and marches are hailed as hallmarks of American history, they are sometimes met with condemnation and anger, and perhaps the use of law enforcement and aggressive actions to end them. This is what is happening now with pro-Palestinian protests in US campuses, in what could be interpreted as a national paradox, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Gaza War Protests
Students in many US universities set up camps and staged demonstrations calling on their universities to separate themselves from companies that advance Israel’s military efforts in Gaza. Police have arrested more than 2,300 students during the protests, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles and flash-bang devices to clear tent encampments and buildings.
President Joe Biden on Thursday rejected calls from protesters to change his approach towards Gaza, while insisting that “order must prevail.” He said: “Dissent is essential for democracy. But dissent must never lead to disorder.”
The Ghosts of Vietnam
The current anti-war protests, and the deep generational divide they reveal, could summon the ghosts of anti-Vietnam war protests. On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students and injured nine others during an anti-Vietnam protest at Kent State University.
In 1968, the demonstration movement unleashed unrest across the country and spilled into the national political domain, causing violent clashes between the national guard and protesters at the Democratic national convention in Chicago.
According to the Guardian, anti-war groups are planning large protests at the Democratic Party’s convention next August, to be held in Chicago.
American Paradox
The first amendment of the US constitution preserves the right to assemble and to speak out against grievances. Americans cherish that right and recognize the social actions of the past generations that achieved progress towards equality.
However, some of those activities can cause anger and opposition when they interrupt life’s routines, and suspicions that those protesters are looking to sow chaos and disorder, according to AP.
Robert Shapiro, professor of political science in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and an expert on public opinion in American politics, said: “The public at large disliked the Civil Rights protesters. The public at large disliked the Vietnam War protesters. And the public at large disliked the women’s movement protesters … and all of the protests that basically have occurred going forward.”
But that doesn’t indicate that protests haven’t had an impact, even if it’s not immediate. “Public opinion changes on the issues as a result of the effectiveness of the protests doing one very important thing, raising the visibility and salience of the issues,” he added.
Shapiro said that the Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011 drew attention to economic inequality in the US. He noted: “People were paying more attention to the conversation thereafter. The issue of economic inequality in the United States has become, and remains, more visible.”
More Protests, More Opposition
Pro-Palestinian protest encampments started April 17 at Columbia University and spread out to other universities. Opposition to protests has grown as well. Administrators, facing pressure to restore order and normal functioning, have said they support the right to speak but “not to disrupt life for other students or violate conduct rules.” They have called police to clear campus encampments all over the country, arresting many students.
However, “disruption is the point” when it comes to protest activity, said Celeste Faison, co-national Director of the Movement for Black Lives network, a coalition of organizations that came together following the Black Lives Matter protests in 2014.
She said: “It’s always in those uncomfortable moments and those uncomfortable pushes that change is possible. What historically has created change in the United States are those who are willing to put their bodies on the line, their voice on the line, their communities on the line.”
Andrew Basta, an undergraduate student at Chicago University who participated in the encampment at the campus on Tuesday, said: “It’s not only fair, but it’s actually, I think, a responsibility on us to be disruptive, to change our lives accordingly and to resist.”
Defaming Protesters
Some people are worried that the current campus protests could lead to chaos and violence, calling for “orderly protests.” Faison, of the Movement for Black Lives network, said: “It’s a romanticism of the past that it’s actually not true. For instance, media covers Martin Luther King with a lot of love and reverence. But we know: Back then, he was presented in media as this anarchist disruptor.”
“At the end of the day, we have a really bad pattern of defaming protesters when they’re in the fight, and then celebrating protesters when they get the win or after they take the risk,” she added.
Charles McKinney, associate professor of history at Rhodes College, who studies the Civil Rights Movement, described this as “ideological appropriation.” He said: “The state’s role then is to incorporate those values while being ambivalent about the process in which those values were incorporated into the nation.”
This consolidates the idea that the power of protest lies in impacting the conversations in the culture, and not necessarily in convincing people in the present.
According to Robert Widell, Jr., associate professor of history at the University of Rhode Island, who has studied political movements, “It’s effective in, at the very least, altering the terms of debate and changing the way that people think about a particular issue or a set of issues, or just putting it in people’s brains that something is happening here.”
