‘Dispose. Divest. We will not rest. We will not stop.’
This emphatic statement was raised on a dark Tuesday night by hundreds of pro-Palestinian students, from Columbia University in New York City, who took over Hamilton Hall (faculty building) after the institute passed a deadline to either vacate the camp or be suspended. The takeover of the hall is in response to the university’s totalitarian rule that has threatened to expel students who have bolstered the Palestinian cause. The young voices have simple demands: to cut ties with Israel in any form. However, the State’s response to this peaceful yet emphatic protest encampment has been in the form of apprehensions. As a response, frustratingly, police officials from the New York Police Department (NYPD) have apprehended dozens of Columbia University students and cleared the occupied hall.
The takeover of the hall is in response to the university’s totalitarian rule that has threatened to expel students who have bolstered the Palestinian cause.
The demonstrations at Columbia University commenced over 10 days ago on April 18 to outspread larger mobilisation among university students all over the United States of America showing solidarity with Gazans and the ongoing genocide that has killed over 34,000 Palestinians. Students’ backlash at Columbia has ignited a similar fire in other universities – the University of Texas, New York University (NYU), University of South Florida, Tulane University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), to name a few.
However, the peaceful demonstrations have been dealt with by a draconian autocratic response in the form of suspension, closure of protest encampments and arrest warrants. According to the New York Times report, so far over 1,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been arrested from U.S. universities.
US campuses: epicentre of pro-Palestinian protests
New York University
‘These repulsive tactics mean nothing as compared to the deaths of over 34,000 Palestinians,’ said a student from New York University who was threatened to be expelled by the administration as her squad continues to demand justice for Palestinians, in a press conference. Slogans like ‘suspension for Gaza is the highest honor! Viva Palestina’, were raised on April 30 in the university vicinity. As per the latest news updates, brave students at NYU have continued to ‘flood the encampments for Gaza’ despite arrests.
Tulane University
As pro-Palestinian demonstrators are currently spreading like bushfire across US colleges, according to a live report by Al jazeera, as many as 14 students have been taken into custody at Tulane University, New Orleans, on accused charges of ‘unlawful demonstrations’ and ‘trespassing’.
University of South Florida
According to a live report by CNN, 10 pro-Palestinian students were apprehended at the University of South Florida this Tuesday. Protesters were taken into custody after police officials, according to the media report, termed their demonstration as ‘no longer peaceful’.
Protesters were taken into custody after police officials, according to the media report, termed their demonstration as ‘no longer peaceful’.
University of California in Los Angeles
University of California in Los Angeles became the most heated centre on Wednesday after a solidarity encampment, in support of the Palestinian cause, at the campus received attacks by Israeli supporters. As a response to the ongoing violent clashes, the university administration announced the cancellation of classes on the campus. Nonetheless, students have continued to demand to divest from Israel which has fuelled hatred and continues to terrorise people in the name of “security” and “nation threat”. Benjamin Kersten, a Jewish pupil at the university and pro-Palestine supporter, while speaking to CNN, asserted that he is very proud of the young voices who have led this protest.
‘Student pressure on universities to divest from conditions of apartheid has worked in the past and it will work again with sustained pressure,’ he told CNN.
Student activism and its strength: from anti-Vietnam War to pro-Palestinian protests
History definitely repeats itself, and this is a classic prototype to witness it. Of course, this genocide – that has claimed the lives of as many as 35,535 Palestinians and left wounded a shocking 77,704 persons in the Gaza Strip as per the region’s health ministry – is gruesome. Nonetheless, it is a critical time to be alive and brave to once again remind us of the echoes of student activism that has never failed to disappoint us.
Yes, the world seems unfair and its leaders continue to support a war that has destroyed the lives of thousands of Palestinians not just through air missiles but also through starvation, lack of healthcare facilities, mental and emotional aftermath of war and much more that remain concealed under a heap of official data files in Gaza.
These young students have continued to take inspiration from past grotesque wars, and the overtaking of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University is a familiar example.
The overtaking of Hamilton Hall in 1968
In 1968, which was the time of the Vietnam War, the same eight-story building was occupied by students who listened to the songs of Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan and Nina Simone (counterculture prodigies and musicians of that time).
According to Stephen Davis’s Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend, it was in March 1965 when the then-American regime started bombing Vietnam. It was also the year when thousands of young gallants, of Jim’s age, were pushed to the South-East Asian country to combat in the war. In a matter of four years, the military of the United States managed to push as many as 543,000 combat troops which were positioned in the Asian country.
Juxtaposedly, at the same time, there were innumerable musicians/artists who were writing songs of peace and revolution to fight racism. Among them was Bob Dylan who wrote and sang ‘For the times they are a-changin’:
‘Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’’
The year 1968 was an important year to recognise American student activism when hundreds of young pupils organised a protest against the Vietnam War as well as the Columbia administration’s aspirations to construct a gymnasium. According to a Reuters report, brave students, back then, held a march at the construction site, tore down fences and obstructed themselves in the interior side of the administration building, i.e.Hamilton Hall.
If we introspect the protest on an intersectional (racial) level, history also tells us that a day later Black protesters and students gave the building a new name ‘Malcolm X Liberation College’ and requested their white comrades to vacate the hall in order to make sure their specific demands were heard. A common demand among both (White and Black students) was to end the war and show resistance against the then military draft that compelled students to join the war after graduation.
The university called the cops following seven days of student unrest. The then police took custody of several Black (peaceful) protesters, while other staunch demonstrators were injured by the cops. The repercussions were that over 58,000 Americans and approximately 2 million Vietnamese died during the protracted war.
After 56 years, history has repeated itself. 2024 students are following the footsteps of the 1968 students at the same university, in the same hall and profoundly in the same month – April.
After 56 years, history has repeated itself. 2024 students are following the footsteps of the 1968 students at the same university, in the same hall and profoundly in the same month – April. Numbers have changed, students have new (revolutionary) faces, slogans are new, and there is a new war. But what has not changed is the essence of student activism and the fact that they are always on the right (righteous) side.
They have continued to be inspired by the songs of resistance by the same musicians and artists – Jim Morrison’s ‘The Unknown Soldier’, Bob Dylan’s ‘The times they are a-changin’’ and Nina Simone’s ‘Ain’t Got No, I Got Life’ – who ignited the fire of free speech in the society way back, 56 years ago.
References:
https://www.history.com/news/vietnam-war-hippies-counter-culture
