This article is from a talk given by Peter Bohmer at the March in Solidarity with Palestine which took place in Olympia, Washington, on 4 May.
Student movements have played a major role in radical history and revolutionary struggles. For example, France in May 1968 began with a student strike and then spread to worker occupation of many factories. They didn’t win their demands although they gained substantial increases in student rights and wages.
On May 4, 1970, 54 years ago from the day of this demonstration, four students were killed at Kent StateUniversity for protestingthe US invasion of Cambodia by the Ohio National Guard. On May 15th, 1970, 11 days later, two students at Jackson State Universitywere killed by Jackson police resulting from anti-war protests at the college. It is important we commemorate the students killed and wounded at Kent State. It is equally important we commemorate those killed at Jackson State.
900 colleges went on strike in May 1970. They had a coordinated set of demands which included immediate withdrawal from Cambodia by the U.S., freeing all political prisoners and ending university complicity with US war against Vietnam.
This powerful and spreading movement, primarily but not only on college and high school campuses, forced President Nixon to withdraw from Cambodia that the U.S. had recently invaded.Nixon had first said the student strike wouldn’t influence him. As a result of the student strike and related actions, many colleges ended ROTC, which prepared students to become military officers after they graduated. This was a common demand.
Most effective was students going on strike, closing down their universities and then opening them up as free or liberated universities with a curriculum developed by students and supportive faculty. Common classes and workshops included the history of Vietnam and Indochina, the history of U.S. foreign policy and foreign intervention, the Civil Rights and Black Freedom Movement, Marxism, Revolutionary struggles, Women’s Liberation, art, silk screening, U.S. history, labor history and many others.
I am reminded in May, 2024 of the global movement of 1968. The US war against Vietnam was raging. There were powerful movements across the globe calling for immediate withdrawal of the US from Vietnam and in many cases in solidarity with the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the North Vietnam Army fighting against the US and the South Vietnamese Army.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, April 4, 1968. There were major uprisings in many cities following his assassination, mainly in Black communities. Social movements increasingly linked the Vietnam War and US imperialism to racial and other oppressions in the U.S. It is important for us to do that now.
1968 was the year of the Columbia University student occupationthat demandedthe end of the university’s complicity with the Vietnam war and that Columbianot buy up land in Harlem to build a gym for Columbia University, displacing residents. Black students did a simultaneous occupation. There was serious repressionat Columbia; 700were arrested and many more were beaten by the New York Police Department. There was a subsequent occupation there, later in the spring of 1968. The repression furthered resistance at Columbia and beyond and increased the popularity of this movement among students.
Militant student protests demanding the ending of university complicity with the Vietnam War and demands for Black studies and for increased enrollment of Black and Latino students and faculty spread throughout the U.S., peaking in May 1970. They began mainly at elite public and private universities but spread far beyond them.
There are analogies to today. The campus pro Palestine movement in the U.S. today and globallyare demanding a permanent Israeli cease fire in Gaza, the end of the Israeli siege, no invasion of Rafah, the freeing of the Israeli hostages and the thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Let us demand nomore military aid to Israel and the end of the Israeli occupation andending complicity with the US and the Israeli war against Gaza and all Palestinians. It is truly a war against the people of Gaza, not just Hamas. Also, against the Palestinian population in the West Bank; 500 have been killed by Israeli settlers on the West Bank and the Israeli Military.
In spring 2024, there has been an encampment and occupation of the same building at Columbia than in 1968. Although the New York Police have arrested more than 100 people, the student led movement is continuing an encampment. They are demanding, like1968, Columbia divest from corporations and investment funds connected to the Israeli genocidal war, and against displacement of Harlem residents by Columbia expansion. They have studied and learned from but not copied the 1968 uprising.
The spreading Gaza solidarity movementthroughout the U.S. and beyond is inspirational and so important. It includes where I taught political economy for 34 years, The Evergreen State College (TESC) where a student led encampment has led to the Evergreen President making a public statement calling for a cease fire, andin support of the International Court of Justice ruling that Israeli genocide is plausible and Israel should stop attacks on Gaza. The TESC administration signed an agreement to reveal their investments and take steps towards divestmentincorporations doing business with Israel and profiting from the war. The next step towards a substantial victory will require an ongoingcampaign for divestment to prevent backsliding. The student movement at TESC needs to build broader, larger, and more inclusive movements that are welcoming, inclusive and deals better with differences in ideologies. We need an ongoing campaignthat continues in the fallof 2024 that does not rely on negotiations alone to end TESC complicity with Israel. The future negotiators should be accountable to the student led movement. Thank You to those involved!
President Biden said on May 2nd, this growing student movement will have no effect on his support for Israel but those inpower always say that protests won’t change their actions. They lie.We can make them eat their words.
If we can raise the social cost, we can win our demands. By this I mean Biden and the Democratic Party’s continuing support for Israel cause them to lose their legitimacybecause of growingand deepening oppositional movements and organizations in size and commitment and political consciousness and through legitimizing direct action. This increasing social cost, not in money but in the capitalist system and the Democratic Party losing its legitimacy and hold on us, canmake those in power decide to concede to prevent further left radicalization and a growing anti-capitalist movement. This is in addition to Biden’s probable electoral loss in November if he continues to support Israeli aggression.
3000 have beenarrestedon campuses in the last three weeks andthe movementfor Palestine is growing every day. Let us continue to deepen and broaden it.A positive compared to 1968 to 1970 is much larger faculty involvement todayandmore off-campus community activism against US support for Israel. Also positive is a greater commitment today in the Free Palestine movement for gender, LGBT and environmental justice than in the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid movements.
There were major protests in Chicago in August 1968 at the Democratic Party Convention of leftradicals and anti-war liberals, against the Vietnam War and the pro war Democratic Party candidate VP Hubert Humphrey. This year again there will be a Democratic Party Convention in Chicago with a pro war candidate, Joe Biden. I don’t want Trump to get elected, but Democrats must learn though our actions in the streets, including Chicago, if necessary, they will not defeat Trump and the Republicans if they continue this genocidal policy.
South Africa
A common view from the 1960’s to the mid 1980’s was the apartheid system in South Africa, separate and unequal was powerful and very difficult to end. Like Israel, another apartheid state, South Africa also had nuclear weapons.
Apartheid, although not racism, was ended, led by the South African people and the African National Congress (ANC). The global anti-apartheid movement played an important part. The Palestine solidarity movement can do so today.
The anti-apartheid movement forced the U.S.government to stop sending weapons to South Africa, toend U.S. government loans and from international financial institution to South Africa.We increasinglycaused divestment by banks, other corporations, churches, universities, cities, states, and pension funds. Boycotts were a key tactic, as was direct action of many types such as sit-ins and occupations and blockades. A common tactic was building shantytowns on universities, e.g., in the 1980’s at UC Berkely. They are similar toencampments today.
We forced US policy to change, even over Reagan’s vetoes of government sanctions.The white ruling class in South Africa agreed to end apartheid although the victory was only partial as white economic power and capitalism continue in South Africa today.
Like today, college administrations, the US government and corporations first said that protests wouldn’t affect them and then offered inadequate reforms that the anti-apartheid movement overwhelmingly rejected. As the anti-apartheid movement grew within South Africa, in the US and globally, the South African apartheid system lost support globally and was increasingly challenged from within despite growing repression. Full divestment and other major changes in policy were increasingly won.
Growing resistance does matter!It has caused the Biden administration to change its rhetoric and to halt at least temporarily sending some bombs and munitions to Israel. This is totally inadequate, but the Democrats and Biden are feeling the heat from the diversity of tactics of the growing Palestine solidarity campaign. Let us educate about the Israeli and U.S. war on Palestine, reach out more and turn up the street heat. We can get Biden to stop support and aid for Israel.
Let us learn from the past, both positive and negative lessons!
There are mainly positive lessons from these movements and actions. The courage, boldness, and willingness to take risks are as necessary today as in the past. So is being visionary, and radical in the sense of anti-capitalist, and organizing social change from the bottom up. Positive also in the anti-Vietnam war movement was not accepting the so-called experts claims of why the Vietnam war was right, andthatthe Democratic Party and voting was the solution. Also not accepting the outside agitator charge being used again on campus encampments against community members not directly connected to the campus. Its intent is to divide us. And not accepting that demands should only be for minimal reforms, and that social change must be slow and gradual and LEGAL. No Justice, No Peace!
Negatives from the 1960’s that we can learn from and improve on–often arrogance, elitism, sectarianism, not reaching out to workers and too often writing off people. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-working working classpractices were not sufficiently dealt with in the student and social movements of the 1960’s.The Vietnam war became very unpopular, but the anti-war movement never gained majority support. We should learn to do critical support rather than unconditional support of anti-capitalist movements and liberation struggles. We can learn from the past and do better today.
We can’t end US imperialism without ending capitalism, but we can stop US support for Israel. Israeli ongoing mass murder couldn’t continue without US military support.
Let us also in thelonger run overthrow capitalism and create a participatory and environmentally sustainable socialism where poverty is ended globally.
It is our responsibility to act in ways big and small to act in solidarity with Gaza, to end US support for Israel and support Palestinian self-determination. Let us support ajustsolution where all people living in Palestine-Israel have the same rights, Palestinians and Jews, an anti-Zionist society or societies, where Palestinians have the right to return inside the 1948 border that Israel imposed.
You can get involved by joining Palestine Action of South Sound (PASS), the main organizer of this demonstration. We welcome you! Check out our website, Palestineactionsouthsound.ghost.io
In closing! Be strategic, our aim is not to prove how radical we are, but to win!
Let us build multi-generational inclusive, growing, and boldvisionary organizations and social movements. Be persistent. We are off to a good start!
Free Palestine
Power to the People
Si Se Puede
The Struggle Continues
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