For a deeper understanding of what’s happening on campuses across the country, read First We Take Columbia: Lessons from the April 1968 Occupy Movement. compositionThe article, published April 20 on the Autonomist website Ill Will, was written by an anonymous participant in the late protest camps at Columbia University and Yale University. The authors appeal to their fellow occupiers, remembering another occupation, another Colombia, that took place 56 years ago.
The first thing you notice is that the essay says virtually nothing about the ongoing war in the Middle East, other than a brief mention of “solidarity with Gaza.”
There is no doubt that Colombia is less concerned with anti-war or anti-Israel sentiment than with domestic revolution.
Instead, the authors divided their advice into sections with headings such as “Destructive is Effective,” “Professions Must Spread to Survive,” and “Every Profession is a Commune.” The book is divided into two sections and is shown with an example from a 1968 Columbia newspaper. Campus protests.
The symmetry between 1968 and 2024 became increasingly apparent this week as protests intensified across the United States, with students occupying university buildings, erecting barricades and bringing in reinforcements from outside radical groups. Ta.Colombian protesters Reportedly took Colombian staff temporarily hostagerefused to allow them to leave the building in a manner reminiscent of Columbia University Dean William Coleman’s capture half a century earlier.
If the current radicals seem intent on recreating the spirit of ’68, here’s what we’ve seen this week and where these events are probably heading. Perhaps there is much we can learn from those events.
“The profession draws strength from the fear of riots.”
The Occupation of Columbia 68, which began as a protest against the relationship between a Colombian think tank and the Pentagon and against the construction of a gym, was preceded by a series of events. race riots in big cities. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee supported many of these riots, some of which began in 1965. The ongoing campus protests are also thought to be benefiting from the ghosts of the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots that preceded them.
Previous protests in Colombia were the brainchild of students demanding a democratic society, although they are not named in the anonymous article. SDS Columbia was the coming out party for Mark Rudd, Jon “JJ” Jones, David Gilbert, Bernadine Dorn and others. They were leaders of what would become the domestic terrorist group known as the Weather Underground.
Some conservatives have suggested that protesters at elite schools like Yale and Columbia are destroying their post-college career opportunities, but organizers say they are actually They’re auditioning for the jobs they want. Like the Weather Underground before them, they are vying for the role of leader of the coming revolution.
“The first challenge then is to open the campus to the community.”
Although the media tries to cover up the student movement by claiming that outsiders are responsible for the vandalism and violence, the truth is that the relationship between the “agitators” and the student movement participants is never seen in the light of day. . In a recently released video from Columbia, professional anarchist and “direct action consultant” Lisa Fitian is seen instructing students to erect barricades. Fitian has played a key role in organizing chaos for nearly four decades, from the 2000 “Battle for Seattle” to the Ferguson riots and (perhaps most notably) the 2008 Republican National Convention.
“Increased occupied space requires space for increased autonomous efforts.”
There is no doubt that Colombia is less concerned with anti-war or anti-Israel sentiment than with domestic revolution. The protests we have seen are made up of a diverse mix of participating groups, from anarchists to Marxists to Islamists of all stripes. So it’s no surprise that viral videos of encampments have something for everyone. Islamic prayers, Hamas chants, praise for North Korea, black liberation rhetoric, etc. go on and on.
But strangely, many of these noisy factions exist on huge left-wing foundations; Tides Foundation etc. and open society foundation, funding multiple participant groups. Many protest organizers are connected to a larger network of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel movements.
Although many see these donors as the masterminds behind the incident, it is better to see them as gas pedals rather than steering wheels. When these groups want chaos, they turn off the tap and funnel money to the nonprofits they finance, and from there to bail funds, dozens of community groups, and street extremists.
Organizers of the Colombian protests then, as now, were acting on someone else’s orders rather than a single united front. They are a messy mess of competing revolutionary Marxist factions, organizations, and subgroups, each mobilizing participants into their own version of the principled left, with heroes from Cuba to China to Algeria. I was about to. But in the quagmire was the beginning of a struggle to determine the shape and direction of the New Left and where it would lead it.
‘This is just the beginning’
All signs point to the reality that these encampment protests are actually not about Israel or Palestine at all. The protesters say their goal is revolution, and revolution is essentially about seizing power.
Many observers say elite universities are reaping what they sow from radical students. alienate long-time alumni donors, and even threatening donations. In many ways, the main target is the left-wing forces that are increasingly likely to challenge Alexander Kerensky’s dictum, “There is no enemy on the left.” Kerensky’s fate.
If the ongoing turmoil is domestic rather than geopolitical, the path to revolution is likely to lead from Colombia to Chicago. In Chicago, various student factions, including SDS, led a large organization in 1968, leading to chaotic protests that pitted establishment Democrat Hubert Humphrey against law-and-order anti-communist Richard Nixon. The chance to fight back was lost.
At least on the surface, 2024 certainly makes a difference. The 1968 Democratic National Convention was contested, and incumbent Lyndon Johnson officially declined to run for re-election. However, back then, as now, the Democratic Party base was in turmoil. A wide range of Democratic Party supporters strongly preferred Biden will not run this year. Posted on October 7thProtest organizers have also not been shy about naming Biden as a target, symbolically but intentionally targeting Arab voters in the battleground state of Michigan to reject him in the primary. .
Already, it’s under the heading “There are signs of protests targeting the Games.”DNC 2024 Coalition MarchThe initiative’s organizers vary, but include Chicago Students for Palestine Justice, a Palestinian campus group with ties to the Palestinian terrorist organization PFLP and Hamas, which has played a role in protests at campus encampments. ing.
Other participants include the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which played a major role in the birth of the BLM movement, along with BLM’s Chicago chapter. Other groups include a series of Filipino-American organizations associated with the New People’s Army, a communist guerrilla movement in the Philippines.
But unlike in 1968, Chicago no longer has Richard Daley as a strongman. Instead, the city is led by radical supporters of the local teachers union.Mayor Brandon Johnson last year held a sit-in With Black Panther and repeated Communist Party US presidential candidate Angela Davis. This is the same Chicago where former Weathermen leaders Bernadine Dorn and Bill Ayers held court as hometown heroes, and Ayers also recently appeared in court. weigh About plans for the 2024 DNC protests.
Following the 1968 DNC protests, Weatherman seized control of the entire SDS in 1969 and began a terrorist campaign that did not end until the early 1980s.
What we see on college campuses today is not the culmination of something, but rather the beginning. The networks and relationships currently established by these extremists will be strengthened and the extremists will become even more radicalized.
What comes out of Columbia isn’t about Israel or Palestine or campus politics. It’s about revolution.
