Risky Business: Protests Across Generations

Modern Universities: Teaching Conformity

This here is an image of the famous (at least at the University level) Mario Savio, one of my political heroes. Savio was a very outspoken UC Berkeley Student fighting for student and civil rights in the sixties. This photograph not only captures Savio's intensity and the anger of the police force, but beyond the focus point there are people: hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Savio and his peers united, coming together to protest and stand and fight for what they believed in. Our modern generation is at a loss for what to fight for. We often wonder what is worth fighting for, or even how to fight for that which we may be passionate about. This is not because the school systems, the politics, and the community are so perfect that we should not work for change. This is because we have been raised to be content with our surrounding environment and conform to the status quo.
As I have gotten older and more confident in myself, I have firmed my personal and political perspectives. I will now confidently affirm that I am a self-defined leftist liberal (non-violent though!). I was having a conversation with a friend last year when I admitted that a career in politics might interest me. After saying that I added: “Even if I want to be a politician I will never get voted into any office; not without softening my political platform first.” I thought about that statement when I was reading several of Mario Savio’s speeches this term. I knew that I could not stand as an individual with strong, maybe sometimes radical, political goals and earn votes. I could not strive to make the political changes from within the political sphere unless I changed my goals to fit the status quo. EVERYTHING is about the status quo. Uniqueness does not fit in; does not get in, a concept taught, enforced, and maintained by politics and the university systems. As Savio said back in the sixties, "the university is well structured, well tooled to turn out people with all the sharp edges worn off, the well rounded person." Students were, and still are, generally taught not how to be individual and unique, but how to fit in with society. By abandoning our positions to join the majority, we accept what is the majority and blind ourselves to what needs to be changed. There is a veil over our eyes, held by the status quo. Mario Savio lifted that veil in the sixties, but since then it has fallen back, increasingly heavier. He taught his peers and perhaps the whole student generation of the sixties to deny the goals of the status quo and fight for what they personally believed in. This generation now still holds specific issues at heart that do not conform to the status quo but are either too timid to make that opinion clear or just do not know how.

Carolyn Knox On Protests

As a person with very close personal involvement in politics and political protest, Carolyn Knox has powerful words of wisdom to share on this subject. Regarding anti-war protests, she said, "People make such a risk when they feel they have no choice. This feeling can come after tangible/personal trauma or as a result of perceived/shared trauma within a group. Obviously, we do not have a draft--that keeps the American middle class from feeling the cost of this war in a personal way. In our time, we have not quite hit the line where--as a group--we identify with Middle-eastern people who are victims of our governments' imperialism. The Vietnamese were easy for us to feel close to: They were fierce but peaceful, agrarian, peasant people who believed in democracy and had great respect for women. Middle eastern people are relatively wealthy, male chauvinist, homophobes, who are easy to make fun or/and demonize. That fractures grass roots organization on their behalf and confuses us in general. I believe that issues around American torture and off-shore prisons are the clearest issues that Americans can feel strong opposition to right now. As/If Homeland Security invades personal space more in this country and evidence of torture off-shore grows--we may see more people in the street."
There have been far fewer anti-war protests occurring for Iraq than for Vietnam (at least physical protest, ignoring written works, etc). Knox offers a couple reasons why, according to her perspective. First, a draft no longer exists. Men and women who go to war go by choice. During the Vietnam war generation, there was huge concern that those who declared war (or didn’t officially, in this case) were acting on a highly controversial cause and would bring in people to fight who did not support the war in any way. There were much higher potential personal costs during Vietnam, proving stronger incentive to protest actively.
Second, an interesting thought, is that American people identify easier with the Vietnamese than the Iraqi people. Stereotypically, the Vietnamese are more peaceful and democratic (ideals America associates with) then the Iraqi people who we tend to demonize. The Iraqi people represent our opposites who we are less likely to protest in support of. American people may be adamantly in opposition to the war, but not necessarily in support of Iraqi politics, which I can see how that may inhibit some grassroots movements that support change, but not through war.

Carolyn Knox, University of Oregon, interview

Johnson Hall Sit-In

The preceding two documents stem from the Johnson Hall sit-in at the University of Oregon in 1970 (1) in which protesters established a congregation place in the University building and remained there after hours to express their opposition the the war in Vietnam. Sixty three students were arrested (2). That 1970s generation of students faced the same risks that me and my peers faced in 2002: authority opposition, trouble with the University, legal repercussions, etc. They did not back down like we did though, they followed through with their sit-in. Two factors may have made the difference between the success of their sit-in versus the abandonment of ours. The Vietnam generation students had a more personal relationship with the war due to the draft, and they also had some authority support in President Clark.
In his letter to President Clark, Attorney General Lee Johnson blatantly ignored the cause and goals of the protest, focusing only on the legal issues. He described the sit-in saying, "students are singing and making music and loud noises" (3). He devalued the admirable action of the interested, active students. He was not curious about the students' messages, but only in the violations of the laws that he listed as the trespass statute, disorderly conduct statute, and unlawful assembly statute that "can result in arrests and criminal prosecutions" (4). The 1971 University of Oregon students risked lot in violation of multiple laws to get the attention of people in power, such as Lee Johnson, but the attention being given was strictly in reaction to the illegal actions. The students had their attention, not their messages.
President Clark worked to reverse the type of attention his students were getting, standing in support of their non violent action. My fellow class officers and I had worked to find a school authority who would provide value, support, and our credibility with no success, but President Clark filled this role for his students. While not necessarily condoning the illegal aspects of the protests (certainly not those violent actions that a few students engaged in) he wholeheartedly admired and supported them (5) for their activism and probably put his job on the line to do so. He assured his students that "if we are forced to take police action, we should take it reluctantly and in sorrow" (6). Police action ended up being taken and more than sixty students were arrested, but the students sent their message. They could not bring the troops home themselves, but they were certainly going to articulate that that was what they wanted.

Sources:

(1, 2) A Brief History of the UO, http://www.uoregon.edu/~uocomm/newsreleases/facts/history.html
(3, 4) Lee Johnson, letter to President Clark
University of Oregon Archives
(5, 6) Robert Clark on the Johnson Hall Sit-In
University of Oregon Archives