Over at The New Republic’s Open University blog, Georgetown Professor Michael Kazin (a former member of Students for a Democratic Society) wonders where radical student activists have gone, using Georgetown as an example of school without protests:
It’s possible that a campus in D.C. where both George Tenet and Madeleine Albright are faculty members and where Bill Clinton gives a speech every semester or so isn’t the best place to find a groundswell of independent activism. Or maybe “the student movement” has become mostly a subject for historical study, a phenomenon that crested decades ago and survives more as a desire of the left—young and old—than as a prospect for the future.
But Kazin—who I admire as a progressive scholar and particularly for his excellent biography of William Jennings Bryan—might be missing out on what politically engaged students are doing these days. For starters, he eliminates all students who focus on electoral politics as an outlet for their activism. Students today have a pragmatism and willingness to work through the “establishment” that students of the sixties seemingly didn’t. Voting turn-out among young people has increased for the second election in a row, and anecdotally I know of many students who worked for candidates to help stop the war. Instead of protesting against a pro-war Congress, students political activists took part in electing one that’s anti-war.
But what about independent activism at Georgetown? Part of this is the culture of the campus (this isn’t Wesleyan) but in the last three years, the Georgetown Solidarity Committee waged a landmark, nationally recognized living-wage campaign including protests and rallies in solidarity with campus workers, that ended with the successful unionization of campus subcontractors and a University living wage. (Incidentally, a certain liberal Georgetown magazine covered and editorialized about the campaign extensively.) As well, the pre-eminent national student organization dedicated to fighting the genocide in Darfur—STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition—was founded at Georgetown, and has now spread to over 300 campuses across the country.
Kazin also wonders why students aren’t protesting the Iraq war, a valid point. One reason might be because most people at Georgetown, as he notes, are already against the Iraq war, as is the rest of the country, and the question of what to do to get the troops home is larger than any protest slogan can encapsulate. Another might be that the anti-war movement as it exists today has been so hijacked by anti-globalization and anti-Israel groups (ANSWER, anyone?), among other issues, that it’s impossible to have a coherent protest, much less make the anti-war movement a big-tent group.
There are two other problems with Kazin’s question. One is the idea of “the student movement” as a monolithic entity. Students have diverse interests from the community level up to the national one, and plenty of different ways, within and without the establishment, to express them; we don’t think of ourselves as “student activists” but just “political activists.” We have Kazin and his fellow SDSers for making young people a relevant political constituentcy in the 1960s, but that’s a battle that doesn’t need to be fought again—maybe in that sense the student movement is now only a subject for historical study. The second problem comes up when Kazin shares another writers’ fear that a new generation of activists would “repeat the self-destructive antics young radicals like us indulged in during the late 1960s.” Many liberal and progressive students today aren’t interested in re-fighting the identity and culture wars of the New Left; that’s probably why so many of us like Barack Obama—he’s not interested in that, either.
In the end, how important are the noisy trappings of activism—the protests, the fliers, the sit-ins—compared to the actual work of changing policy? Left-leaning students at Georgetown are working in different ways than their predecessors, and while no one—I include myself in this—is doing enough to face the challenges of the day, I’d urge Kazin and others who remember sixties activism to hesitate before they judge us as failing to engage.
Posted by Tim Fernholz, Managing Editor
Entries (RSS)
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I think the 50s, 60s, and 70s in the U.S. showed us how important the activism is, and how effective it can be. I for one am glad for all the progress made then by activists. Discuss it at Activism Forums.
March 2nd, 2007 at 10:01 pm
As a member of Georgetown Solidarity Committee and one of the March 2005 hunger strikers and living wage victory, I appreciate the Voice is pushing back on Kazin’s slightly out-of-touch belittling of Georgetown activism.
However, I disagree with Tim Fernholz’s claim that today’s youth activism is focused on so-called “pragmatic” inside-the-beltway politics. Besides GSC, STAND and the “pragmatic” pre-politicians at Georgetown, Fernholz has left out a lot of powerful activists on campus (I don’t mean to criticize, I just want to show it’s about more the politics): MEChA has constantly educated the campus about issues that affect Latin@s such as immigration, including with the massive protest last semester against the Minutemen; Students for Justice in Palestine tirelessly organize well-attended teach-ins and highly visible actions (e.g., the provocative mock apartheid wall); the Black Student Alliance and Muslim Student Association recently did a powerful day of street theater in Red Square to commemorate Malcolm X’s assassination; H*yas for Choice has fought incredibly hard to give us all access to health information and condoms, facing opposition straight from the Vatican; GU Pride successfully fought for LGBTQ resources on campus; Take Back The Night continues to push sexual assault into the spotlight on a campus where discussion about gendered violence is all but silent.
If Kazin seeks radical activism — meaning activism that actually seeks to overhaul our broken and unjust political-economic-social system — then working for policy change alone doesn’t make the mark, right? But many of our campus groups ARE radical, in exposing and challenging systemic racism, sexism, etc. This type of radical activism is overlooked by Kazin, Fernholz, and many self-indentifying “radicals” and “activists” alike.
Fernholz is right that sometimes you have to be pragmatic and focus on policy, but Kazin is right that pragmatically working within the “establishment” can only be seen as a short-term quick fix. Until we work together to shake off white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia; until workers have the same say over their own jobs as their wealthy bosses; until we create a new system that is truly inclusive and democratic rather than driven by the wealthiest of corporations — until then, no amount of policy work within the “establishment” can ever fully fix the deepest problems of our society. This is why so many groups (certainly not just ANSWER) tie together issues of war, globalization, Palestine… it’s all part of one deeply undemocratic system, and while we need to focus our efforts and strategies, we need to be conscious of fighting an entire system rather than getting lost in squabbling over one bill on the Hill.
March 4th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Tim is right that today’s students are more “pragmatic.” Students are working within the system. But this pragmatism isn’t working. Tim writes that students are working for anti-war candidates. We voted out the Republicans in the fall. 65% of Americans are against the war, and a majority favors a timetable to withdraw. Yet we can’t get the Democratic-majority (albiet barely in the Senate) to make a difference in the administration’s Iraq policy. The previous poster makes a good point - there is something undemocratic about the system.
Tim also argues that we are more engaged in the system than our 60s predecessors - but there’s no proof of this. If anything, evidence shows the opposite - we’re less engaged today. In the 60s, voter turnout was above 60% for each of that decades 3 elections. (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php).
Even if young people are equally as engaged in the political system as their 60s predecessors, but seek to change policy through lobbying instead of activism, their methods aren’t working. Those who have engaged in radical activism are precisely those that have been most successful. Tim asks, “how important are the noisy trappings of activism—the protests, the fliers, the sit-ins—compared to the actual work of changing policy?” Pretty important, considering the Solidarity Committee, whose members fasted for weeks, as the most successful example. MeCHa’s protest of Minuteman leader Jim Gilchrist stands out as well.
Now, I may not be familiar successful cases of behind-the-scene lobbying. But, on Iraq, at least, such lobbying isn’t working. I am outraged by this war, but I always think that I can’t do anything about it. Tim thinks we see ourselves as “patient, political activists.” I for one am engaged in Washington’s politics, but I don’t think I, nor us students, are going to make a lick of a difference on Iraq if we’re patient. If we are really fed up with the war, young people need to show that they’re outraged - by demonstrating loudly.
November 27th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
[…] I’m not all about self-promotion (just mostly about it) but here’s a link to an article I wrote at Campus Progress, an online web-magazine for college progressives. The article is a response to a different and silly piece by a writer named Courtney Martin, who accuses our entire generation of not being angry and active enough about political issues. Needless to say, I disagreed. The relevant Georgetown factor is that my response grew out of a blog post I wrote here almost a year ago, and obviously my own first-hand knowledge of student activism comes from spending my time reporting on the work of our own various activist groups. Anyways, a query: do you think college students, and Georgetown students, are doing enough to change the world? Or are we co-opted by the man? […]
November 28th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
A great piece; thanks for this. Just a note on STAND, which Tim notes started at Georgetown back in 2004. In the short time since its founding at Georgetown, it’s actually grown to over 700 active high school and college chapters worldwide.
Right now STAND chapters across the globe are planning events for DarfurFast. On December 5, students will forego one luxury item - candy or a cup of coffee - and donate the money they would’ve spent on that item to protect civilian women from being raped in Darfur. Just three dollars - less than the cost of a latte - can contribute to the protection of one woman for one year. Visit http://www.standnow.org/darfurfast for more information.
Don’t stand by, STAND up!
November 28th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
It’s a good question, but certainly should be asked more generally as well: not just we Hoyas (I’m actually an alum), but are we all doing enough to change the world?
There is a pervasive cynicism among all people today, not just young people, though it seems particularly tragic among the youth. But the points made above are nevertheless true: many Georgetowners, many college students, and many other individuals are highly involved in important activism today. Members of the corporate media, who form the dominant narrative of our times, don’t spend much time on stories of individual activist movements, so even well-educated professors like Michael Kazin can neglect to understand what’s happening just under their noses.
That said, it saddens me how many well-meaning, kind-hearted fellow Hoyas choose careers in money management or sales. We’ve been given a unique perspective on the world, and obviously been privileged receive such a prestigious education, so don’t we owe it to the world to give back?
But making money off of other people’s labor is easy. Changing the world is hard.