I applaud your protest
http://wildcat.arizona.edu/opinions/i-applaud-your-protest-1.436185
By Gabriel Matthew Schivone
September 8, 2009
Mainstream voices of popular culture, as demonstrated in Remy
Albillar's recent column ("I protest your protest," Sept. 4, 2009),
dismiss protests as ineffectual, led by small groups of the young and
crazy who hate the world and are always blathering about something
wrong with society.
Such critics, whether today or in 1960, always seem to think that
criticizing activists is actually a new idea.
Historian Howard Zinn opens his 1964 book on the activities of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, "The New Abolitionists"
with the line, "For the first time in our history a major social
movement, shaking the nation to its bones, is being led by youngsters."
The youth of 1964 are now many of the critics who label today's youth
as "spoiled" and "apathetic" and "silent".
Political analyst Noam Chomsky recently spoke with me via telephone
from his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the
levels of student activism today, and in the 1960s. After all, from
both our student peers and elder professors, we hear a lot about how
students of today differ very greatly from those of the good-ol' 1960s.
GS: What do you think of the levels of student activism today? I
mean, we hear a lot about how, you know, "the students are more
apathetic today, it's not like the '60s," etc. What have you observed
in terms of student levels (of activism) today?
CHOMSKY: When people talk about "the '60s," what they are thinking of
is about two years. You know, 1968, 1969 roughly. You know, a
little bit before, a little bit later. And it's true that student
activism today is not like those two years. But, on the whole, I
think it's grown since the 1960s. So, take the feminist and the
environmental movements … . I mean, they're from the '70s. Take the
International Solidarity Movement that's from the '80s. Take the
Global Justice Movement, which just had another huge meeting in
Brazil. That's from this century. Plenty of students are involved in
these things. In fact, the total level of student involvement in
various things is probably as huge as it's ever been, except for
maybe the very peak in the 1960s when the war was a huge issue. Or
the Civil Rights Movement in the South that trained many students
that was the early '60s. It's not what I would like it to be, but
it's far more than it's been.
GS: Where do you think (of) these rumors about "passivity"? I think
(the rumors are) an effort to induce passivity. In fact, the you
know, the standard picture of the '60s that's presented is that it
was a terrible time. It was what's called "the time of troubles". You
know, students were going crazy, everything was falling apart, and so
on. That's not what was happening. What was happening it was a time
when the country was starting to become more civilized thanks
largely to the impetus of the activist students.
CHOMSKY: Well, you know, elite sectors and centers of power don't
like that lesson. They don't want that lesson to be learned. They
want students to be passive and apathetic. In fact, there was a
pretty big backlash to the '60s. One of the reasons for the very
sharp rise in tuition is to kind of capture students. You know, if
you come out of college with a huge debt, you're gonna have to work
it off. I mean, you're gonna have to become a corporate lawyer or go
into business or something. And you won't have time for engaged
activism. The students of the '60s were at that time, you know, the
society, the culture was much more open. I mean, a student could take
off a year or two and devote it to activism and think, 'Okay, I'll
get back into my career later on.' Now, that's much harder today. And
not by accident. These are disciplinary techniques.
Applying historical context and critical inquiry to some of the
activism on our campus returns some interesting insight into the
subject of protest and its effects.
Most relevant is our university's recent termination this July of its
fourth largest business contract with Russell Athletic, owned by
Fruit of the Loom, Inc. According to a June 29 report by the Fair
Labor Association, Russell failed on a number of basic code
regulations regarding worker freedom of association, "good faith
negotiations" and worker compensation, following the closing of its
only unionized factory in Honduras.
Being someone directly involved in the backroom meetings and
on-campus events that brought two witnesses of Russell's crimes as
guests before the university community, I can reflect that the cut
came out of a certain dynamic between the student group
Sweatshop-Free Coalition, the UA Faculty Senate Task Force for
Monitoring Labor and Human Rights Issues, and the university's
affiliation with independent labor monitoring group, and the Workers
Rights Consortium. Where did these entities come from? The Wildcat
archives reveal a huge groundswell of anti-sweatshop movements on
campus about 10 years ago. The predecessor group to SFC was Students
Against Sweatshops, which led a campaign of direct action that
included tactics from marches and rallies to sit-ins and a lockdown
of the Administration Building wherein students chained themselves to
all the main entrances of the building as a form of protest of the
administration's failure to address the students' needs and wishes on
this issue.
In the Wildcat issue (April 22, 1999) reporting the first sit-in of
then-UA President Peter Likins's office by 67 students, Likins is
quoted as saying to the SAS activists, "Peter Likins wouldn't be
focusing on sweatshop issues had you not brought it forcibly to my attention."
It was from these negotiations that the official partnership with the
WRC labor monitoring group and the Task Force for Monitoring Labor
and Human Rights Issues were created.
Certain freedoms we have today, notably taken for granted namely
being able to wage a successful campaign directed at criminal
companies such as Russell are the result of young people, students,
taking it upon themselves to win over from those in power the
freedoms that are usually very reluctantly given. Just as the Civil
Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s brought Americans enjoyment of
free speech (contrary to popular misconceptions that free speech
miraculously came from the Constitution), the SAS movements brought
all of us today the enlarged capabilities of, in the first place,
detecting criminal behavior when it becomes connected to our
university, and secondly of travelling a more transparent avenue of
expelling any link of corruption from our campus.
Many of our privileges and freedoms today are owed to our ancestors
who made protest, dissent and resistance to various forms of
injustice their active curriculum. It is our duty to do the same for
generations to come, despite the same old words of deterrence.
--
Gabriel Schivone is a junior majoring in art, literature and media studies.
.
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