Citizen student

[imomus]

The photo below (Anja Niedringhaus, AP) shows a classroom in Jebaliya, Gaza. The name cards represent pupils of the Fakhoura School killed by Israeli army shells last month.



But Israel's actions in Gaza have affected classrooms elsewhere. "We are a group of students concerned about the university's continuing support for Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank," University of Plymouth students say on their occupation blog, "indicated by the university's investments with BAE Systems who have sold 236 F-16 fighter planes to the Israeli state, and its silence over the recent atrocities and human rights abuses perpetrated by Israel in the Gaza Strip."



"As a result we have occupied room 202 in the Smeaton Building in solidarity with the people of Palestine and to directly protest against the university's complicity in Israeli war crimes.... The occupying students would be keen for lectures to continue in this room without interruption. We are willing for a small group to remain unobtrusively at the back of the room, as a symbolic presence."

Cue obligatory flip references to Citizen Smith, the counter-revolutionary UK sitcom from 1977 in which "a young Marxist urban revolutionary living in Tooting, South London, is attempting to emulate his hero Che Guevara. Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the Tooting Popular Front (in reality a small bunch of his friends) the goals of which are "Power to the People" and "Freedom for Tooting". In reality, he is an unemployed dreamer and petty criminal whose plans fall through due to laziness and disorganisation."

But in this case it isn't just a "small bunch of friends". The UK, over the past month, has seen an extraordinary (and under-reported, though The Guardian did post an article) series of student occupations. There are or have been occupations at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Goldsmiths, Sheffield, the University of East Anglia, Cambridge, Bradford, the London School of Economics, Queen Mary, King's College, SOAS, Byam Shaw and Leeds, each with its own occupation blog (click the links for heartening photos of "revolting students" strumming guitars, preparing vegan food, picketing, pamphleteering and generally acting as if it were 1968 all over again).



Many students have been demanding -- and getting -- scholarships at their universities for Palestinian students; another way classrooms in Gaza and classrooms in the UK are now being linked, and a vindication of the occupations in itself. In some colleges the protests have widened into issues about budget cuts and a streamlined "Education PLC" attitude.

The Gaza shelling may now be over but, as Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports today, many (including Hillary Clinton) are extremely frustrated by the attitude of the Israeli authorities to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza:

"When Senator John Kerry visited the Strip, he learned that many trucks loaded with pasta were not permitted in. When the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee inquired as to the reason for the delay, he was told by United Nations aid officials that "Israel does not define pasta as part of humanitarian aid - only rice shipments." Kerry asked Barak about the logic behind this restriction, and only after the senior U.S. official's intervention did the defense minister allow the pasta into the Strip. The U.S. senator updated colleagues at the Senate and other senior officials in Washington of the details of his visit.

"The issue of humanitarian aid is central to a major debate between Israel's foreign and defense ministries. The former supports broadening the amount and types of aid, while the defense ministry opposes anything it considers "concessions" to Hamas. A senior source dealing with humanitarian aid issues on the Israeli side said that Gilad has prepared a list of "humanitarian aid items" and refuses to broaden it. "Authority is in the hands of one person, and he is not willing to help," the source said. "This is outrageous. Why should a senior American official issue a protest on pasta in order for us to recognize that we need to allow it into the Gaza Strip?"

Comments

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not staying that at all. Protest is great, in theory. But these kids are protesting in ways that are least likely to create actual change, and I think they're well aware of this.

When hundreds of thousands of people converge on World Bank/WTO meetings in order to voice disapproval and outrage at neo-colonial policies, I feel like those people are gathering in a way that can create actual change. They're at the locus of the event, and they are there with a largely unified goal, as far as public exposure is concerned.

The likely effect of a few students occupying a dining hall at NYU is to, what, ensure that other students won't be able to take meals there for a few days? And the real, actual goals are what? To stand in "solidarity" with the people of Gaza? What can NYU honestly do about that? Okay, fine. They can give a dozen scholarships to Palestinians. Cool. But what beyond that? It is nowhere near being the locus of anything they're seeking to confront. "Standing in solidarity" is just a cheap way of saying "Hey, thanks for giving us a reason to get all activisty, beautiful brown people of Gaza!"

The reason why it pisses me off is because it's more an activism test-bed than a site of real activism. And the vast majority of these privileged kids will be done with this phase once they graduate and move on to bourgeois upper-middle class lifestyles. It doesn't do society a bit of good to let these idiots off thinking that they've done something special. We have enough empty activism as it is. There's no reason to promote it with positive reinforcement.

[silenceinspades.livejournal.com]

i get what you're saying, but it comes across as 'these kids aren't cool enough to join my cool activist club.' which they probably aren't, but not letting people eat lunch or whatever for a couple of days, if that leads to one scholarship or makes one person think about this topic that wouldn't have otherwise, it seems easily worth it to me.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

I'm not part of any club, at least not that I'm aware of. I don't recall commenting on these peoples' clothes, or taste in music. I did comment on their social class, because I think that's an important part of why they're at NYU, and therefore why they're at this occupation in the first place. I do think that this kind of tourist activism--more often than not merely a short phase in the person's life--has a deleterious effect on activism in general. The reason I make this argument is because this type of activism seems to emerge primarily from social guilt, and serves the purpose of justifying the subject's reintegration with the upper-middle class modes of living upon transition back into the "straight world." Upon engaging in this tourist activism, a person can assert that he/she "made a difference," that he/she is down with the cause of social justice and whatever else, while indirectly feeding into the system of excess that, in part, makes social injustice inevitable.

I've never understood why people, especially people in America, think that any consideration of a person's social class in this kind of critique is a low blow. The ways in which upper-middle class people come to justify the lifestyles for which they feel--at one discrete point in their lives--legitimate guilt, are important to examine, I think.

[silenceinspades.livejournal.com]

equally detrimental to activism would probably be 'activists' telling people they aren't allowed to protest or attempt to affect change because their parents have money.

come on, we all know rich kids have bad taste in clothes.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The student class of today is the political class of tomorrow. I don't think we should dismiss student politics -- the world would be even more right wing without it. But sure, people drift right as they get older, and closer to power. (It would be a sorry state of affairs if Hillary Clinton were further left than British undergraduates.)

One thing I didn't talk about in the piece, but which is relevant, is the idea that these occupations might be part of an ongoing radicalisation of the British middle classes -- a radicalisation predicted by the British Army in a brainstorming excerise (http://imomus.livejournal.com/277568.html) a couple of years ago as something that might be happening by 2035. Well, the financial crisis has shortened that time lapse considerably. A senior UK police officer this week predicted a summer of recessionary rage (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/23/police-civil-unrest-recession), saying "middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests".

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Seriously! Protesting is protesting. If activism is the sole province of hardcore dirt-poor lifers and anyone else is a 'dilettante', then it's never going to become a mass popular movement. You need rich kids and dilettantes and people with the wrong brands of clothes and who don't like the same bands you do. You need headcount, and not everyone in that headcount is going to be the same. the left in this country is soo concerned with bullshit purity tests, no wonder it's marginalized so effectively and everyone thinks a centrist like Obama is actually leftist/liberal. He tapped into a lot of dilettantes and rich, middle class and poor people.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

I'm not concerned with a "purity test." I wouldn't have any problem with these NYU/New School type protesters if they were actually doing something useful, instead of pretending to do something useful in order to justify the mundane lives of excess most of them will certainly reintegrate into once they leave college. These people, by and large, are building neither the value nor the ranks of the longterm activist movement in the US.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But just imagine a Palestinian state where people were able to integrate into "mundane lives of excess"! Just imagine a Palestinian state where people could afford to forget all about their own longterm activist movement! Or actually be activist about people far away, much poorer and less privileged than themselves! Would you condemn that Palestinian state on moral grounds too?

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make, but I think it's something like "If these tourist-activist protests help raise Palestine up to the point where they too can engage in the luxury of tourist-activism, then isn't the tourist-activism worth it?"

But the point is kind of that this tourist-activism, as played out at NYU and the New School, at least, isn't actually going to make any progress toward that end.

Again, tourist-activists can engage, by happenstance, in valuable protests. It happens all the time. But this momentary retro necro meme of the "campus occupation" isn't really going to get us anywhere.

I mean, even in the 60s and 70s, the campus occupation was centered on ROTC buildings. This is "Think globally, act locally" at its best. Occupying a university cafeteria in solidarity with Palestinians is like sleeping in my garage to protest the continued existence of Baby Ruth bars. The two things have nothing to do with one another. I am nowhere near the locus, or a locus, of activity that is meaningful to protest.

[mrobot.livejournal.com]

hear hear!

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Who said anything about a right to protest? Obviously speech goes both ways. They have a right to protest, and I have a right to criticize them.

[xoskeleton.livejournal.com]

I think what krskrft is trying to say is that these kind of college protesters are "annoying and perhaps ineffectual" which is not a particularly incisive argument. Obviously they are going to annoying and ineffectual...they are 18-20 year old middle-class alt-type college kids! Have you spoken to the average 19 year old recently?
That said, I think these protests are a beacon of hope for some remnants of conciousness and sanity, if not the Palestinians. Look at the beginnings of any popular protest movement and you will see similarities.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I think you're wrong about this.

uberdionysus and I had a big disagreement over an entry he wrote in his journal about the media neglecting certain issues and not giving them the due coverage they deserved.

His angle is very similar to yours in that you're both basically accusing people of not caring enough or not caring "the right amount".

My response to you is the same response I gave to him -- where do you draw the line between genuinely caring enough and only paying superficial lipservice to an issue? It's so subjective and it opens yourself up to criticism.

You could argue that these kids are just upper-middle class tourist activists who don't really care, just like uberdionysus accused the US media of not giving a shit. But you then open yourself up -- what the fuck are you doing? Why are you buying that coffee from starbucks when you could put that little bit of money you spend aside and send it to people in need? Why aren't you spending your free time campaigning to stop such and such atrocity? It's because you're apathetic and don't give a shit right?

My view is this: Even if one person turns up to one demonstration and thats it, it's something. Rather than criticising other people for what they don't do, why don't you do something?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The "you" there is krskrft, right?

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

It's anyone who feels the need to criticise other people's lack of action. Technically I should have written "But one then opens oneself up" and so forth, because that would be more correct, but it sounds unnatural.

"From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put" blah blah blah...

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

Wait... "more correct"? Is that proper English?

[(Anonymous)]

Pull your head out of your Kumakouji, if the muscle relaxes. You seem to be addressing and/or oedipally threatening Momus by making your comment a response to his and then loading it with the word 'you'.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

I'm using social class as a lens to criticize their demonstration. Again, I'm sure a lot of tourist activists show up to WTO/World Bank protests and the like, but I have a hard time criticizing those demonstrations since they occur at the locus of an issue, bring out large masses of demonstrators, and therefore bring real, valuable attention to important issues of social justice.

All that occupying a school cafeteria does is keep a bunch of other students from being able to eat there.

Krsrkjft doth protest too much.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear people's front of Judea.

These protests aren't ideal (what is?), but do you think they chose between making an organized protest and doing this? No, they chose between doing this and doing nothing. You disdainfully call it an activism test-bed, but activism needs to start somewhere.

And the claim that you "use social class as a lens to criticize their demonstration"? Ha! Class hatred is a valuable source of energy, don't waste it on petty, jealous, infighting.
-David

Re: Krsrkjft doth protest too much.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

A bunch of well-off kids attending a $40,000 a year, private New York City university chose to do this vs. doing nothing? I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. If they were going to university in a cow town, then perhaps that argument might fly, but there are so many loci of power in NYC, not to mention media outlets willing to pay attention to well-organized demonstrations. I don't buy that it was either occupy the school mess hall or nothing. Nope, not in NYC.

Re: Krsrkjft doth protest too much.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Class hatred is a valuable source of energy, don't waste it on petty, jealous, infighting.

Ha, I want that on a t-shirt, in lettering that tapers down smaller and smaller.

Re: Krsrkjft doth protest too much.

[(Anonymous)]

Haha, yr right, my post was (unintentionally) ironic, and strikingly so. I should have settled for writing "why waste it on infighting?", but I was riding high on twinkies and Krskrft's "pur et dur"-phrasing.

I'll go back to my own activities and let krskrft sort out her/his feelings by her/himself.
-D

Krsrkjft doth protest too much.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear people's front of Judea.

These protests aren't ideal (what is?), but do you think they chose between making an organized protest and doing this? No, they chose between doing this and doing nothing. You disdainfully call it an activism test-bed, but activism needs to start somewhere.

And the claim that you "use social class as a lens to criticize their demonstration"? Ha! Class hatred is a valuable source of energy, don't waste it on petty, jealous, infighting.
-David

[xoskeleton.livejournal.com]

what the fuck is a "tourist activist"? What are people supposed to be "professional/indigenous activists"? Not too many people can or want to make "activism" the central focus of their lives. Activism is something that people do, generally when they are under political, economic, or military threat or when they feel moral outrage.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

That's simple. It's somebody who wants the feeling of excitement and/or self-importance that goes along with protesting for a cause, but doesn't care about any of the important details, such as how the protest is planned, if it's linked to rational goals, etc. In other words, they want all the romantic, necro-retro side benefits of engaging in the act, but they don't want to put any real effort into determining what their protest will represent, or how the protest will represent it.