Review disrespected student activism

The recent protest against Bruce Babbitt and the Clinton Administration has sparked much discussion on campus about the role of student activism today. On the one hand it has shown the potential power of public protest and the ongoing need to build a strong activist network that can mobilize large and diverse groups of people to participate in united action. On the other hand, it has exposed a cynical, right-wing attitude towards activism in general on the part of some students.

Last week's editorial, "Just white noise? A hobby of protesting," (Review, April 10, 1998) may pose as constructive criticism on the organization of the protest, but in reality its aim is to promote the fashionably reactionary view that the idea of building a fighting activist movement is outdated. To describe the goal of building large, loud, and angry public demonstrations as "the same dull maneuvers" and "the tactics and ploys of yesteryear" is not only sadly conservative, but also immensely disrespectful to the rich tradition of struggle which we, as student activists, should be proud to stand in.

At the height of the movement against the Vietnam War, for example, it was understood that government officials could not appear on campuses to advertise their imperialist agenda without being publicly confronted by large numbers of anti-war activists. The tactic of public demonstrations has always been at the heart of mass movements for social change. Demonstrations are expressions of solidarity and resistance, and most importantly, are a way of gaining momentum and public support for a movement. We should look no further than the Civil Rights Movement to see that massive multiracial demonstrations that brought people into confrontation with the racist state were the decisive events that won real change.

To argue that these are "tactics of yesteryear" is to argue that something has changed in this country which makes rebuilding that kind of movement unnecessary. But gains of the Civil Rights Movement such as affirmative action, and of the militant labor movement of the 1930's such as welfare, are the very things which are under attack today. It will take nothing short of movements of the same power to win them back. If we allow a Clinton Administration official to visit campus and only talk abstractly about campus race relations, at the same time as that administration is throwing people into poverty with its racist welfare cuts, then we are truly missing the point.

What has changed is not that our rulers are kinder and more reasonable than they have been in the past. What has changed is that the traditions of struggle which have always forced change through from below are less immediate than they once were. It is true that as students we should not take for granted the specific situation we are in. All the more reason that we should be active participants in rebuilding a movement that is not solely based on campuses, but that links up with the fights of working people.

The cynical arguments made by the editors, which represent an extreme accommodation to a political atmosphere of conservatism, are particularly ineffective when we look at the success of the protesters at Ohio State University who exposed the barbarity of Madeline Albright & Co.'s war campaign in February. The direct disruption of the staged media event sparked a nationwide uproar about the illegitimacy of the government's ongoing war against the Iraqi people.

In order to rebuild this tradition of activism, political debate must be dragged out into the light of day. Politics must be made public, open, and loud. Creating culture of protest and resistance, far from being a "hobby", is a matter of learning the real lessons of past struggle.

-Peter Olson College sophomore, International Socialist Organization