A rebirth of student
* Lebanon / USA very "daring" in their actions, inspired by their quasi-mystical views of martyrdom. And they knew also how to win the souls and minds of the population, by making a very clever use of the significant funding they got from Iran, thus organizing all kinds of social services to the benefit of the
THE protest against the International Monetary Fund and the World impoverished population. To be sure, they also took advantage of the ideological Bank highlighted a significant and well-needed rebirth of student winds which blew much more in their activism on college and university campuses in the United States. direction than in the direction of a left which became utterly demoralized by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
What are the implications of the Hezbollah victory for the relation of the political forces in Lebanon? For the Palestinian refugees there? And for the entire region?
One thing is sure. This victory will greatly enhance the appeal of the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and of the Islamic fundamentalists in the whole region. In Lebanon, the Hezbollah faces an objective limitation due to the religiously very composite character of the population. The Hezbollah are inherently unable to win over Christians, Druzes, or even Sunni Muslims, in any significant numbers.
They are no threat to the Palestinian refugees, since their Islamic universalism make them champions of the Palestinian cause. In that sense, they are actually competitors to the Palestinian political forces in Lebanon, whether Arafat loyalists or left dissidents; at best they can contribute to strengthen the Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist tendencies.
In that sense too, their victory is a bad omen to Arafat, obviously, as I have already explained. Among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas are the only ones likely to be boosted by Hezbollah triumphalism. More generally, we can say that this victory will be precious for the whole Islamic fundamentalist movement in countering the negative impact of the recent events in Iran. Those who thought they could already bury Islamic fundamentalism (a French orientalist" recently produced a book heralding the terminal decline of this phenomenon) are blatantly refuted. As long as they have no real competitor for the embodiment of the aspirations of the downtrodden masses, and as long as the social effects of "globalization" are with us, the fundamentalists will also be part of the picture, with ups and downs naturally. *
4 International Viewpoint #322 June 2000
CHRIS CLEMENT n good part, students who turned out for the protests on April 16th and 17th
_busied themselves prior to that event by revitalizing campus activism in such struggles as the anti-sweatshop campaign, environmental movements against corporate polluters, and international labor solidarity. Earlier this year students at several universities, including the University of Michigan, Purdue, and Duke, held sit-ins in their respective administration buildings to demand that their universities discontinue purchasing school t-shirts and sportswear from companies which contract with sweatshops overseas.
About two years ago, students initiated United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) to coordinate and strengthen their efforts on their campuses and to reach out to other activists in the labor unions and neighborhoods. There has also been some activity on other areas, such as defending indigenous peoples in Columbia and Nigeria against destructive practices by oil corporations.
### Renewed activism
But this renewed activism has not been simply limited to international issues. More students are becoming involved in domestic affairs, especially those concerning poverty, racism, and the alarming boom in the prison population. In New York City, many students protested against police brutality in the deaths of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond. Washington DC metropolitan police arrested college and high school students for practicing civil disobedience during a rally to defend the life of political prisoner and death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal.
What is behind this somewhat sudden and very visible upsurge in activism on campuses? One would be hard-pressed to find answers in the mainstream news media which have largely dismissed student activists as spoiled Ivy League brats who have nothing better to do. This depiction does not even come close to describing the average student in the US, many of whom are activists.
While the media portrays college activists as "brats" or as young "hippie wanna-be's" looking for an issue, activism on university campuses is, in fact, a product of troubling trends that force students to work and study and, ironically, leave them uncertain about their future. In the past ten years, the cost of college tuition has increased by 145% whereas federal financial assistance for education has increased by only 40%; loans from private lenders are becoming the primary source of aid for college students. As a result, more and more college students are forced to hold down jobs where they work between 25-40 hours a week and attend classes full-time.
### Too many classes
Students are also enrolling in far too many classes per semester in an attempt to graduate as soon as possible, hoping that gainful employment awaits them after college. However, the reality is that even college-educated people are having difficulty finding work; if they do, the chances are that the salary and benefits (if there are any) will not be enough to survive and pay off the student loans that many students
Indeed, the leading source of accrue. employment in the US are temporary agencies that, although pay above minimum wage, do not offer health benefits or job security to their employees. There is no doubt that these conditions have driven some students to activism.
Furthermore, students searching for answers to why their futures are so bleak have an increasingly tough time finding
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activism
them in the classrooms. A growing cor- and World Bank representatives!)
poratization of the universities has yielded greater and greater emphasis on vocational programs and courses designed to suit the needs of corporate America at the expense of critical inquiry and broad-based knowledge. The Michigan Virtual Automotive College, for example, was created using resources and faculty from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University for the exclusive purpose of training employees of car manufacturers in the state.
### Corporate penetration
Corporations such as Nike have also penetrated the universities with paid internships; university administrations have eagerly allowed them on campus hoping they will pick up the slack left by the lack of adequate financial assistance Meanwhile, the average courses in the humanities and social sciences praise books proclaiming the triumph of capitalism and the purported failure of alternatives whereas any literature even slightly critical of the system is dismissed as part of crusade for "political correctness."
Many departments in the discipline have attempted to acclimate by tailoring their programs to correspond with national security agencies belonging to either the government or private firms doing political consultation for corporations. Hence, many students have turned to activism because the universities have done a lousy job of doing anything other than turn out bodies for a workforce without job security or a living wage that celebrates the free market's golden age — an image that simply does not mesh with reality.
The protests last November in Seattle and April in Washington, DC, as well as smaller activities throughout the country, demonstrate that students are not satisfied with the trajectory of college programs and the accompanying ideology that have been foisted upon them. Students have capitalized on all the attention these demonstrations have received to expand their base on campus.
The mainstream news media have also focused obsessively on, what could be characterized as, the [presumed] "Unbearable Whiteness of Activism" and the small numbers of students of color at the April 16 and 17 protest. (One wonders why reporters have not balked at the very real and "unbearable whiteness" of IMF
A productive starting point for analyzing participation by students of color is recognizing that, in fact, they were present. Most of the students who represented Howard University and American On April 16, they participated in direct action by blocking several delegates attempting to attend the IMF/World Bank meeting. Later that day, they joined with other people of color and other allied groups for an impromptu march down Pennsylvania Avenue. Participants danced and sang the lyrics of Bob Marley and hiphop star DMX!
### Street party
Perhaps this may have seemed as if people of color were just having a party in the streets; in some ways they were! The understanding was that they were protesting the destructiveness and morbidity of IMF/World Bank policies by celebrating life. Their contribution to the protest was intended to create a space in student activism where other people of color would feel familiar and welcomed enough to join.
However, a significant number of students of color have different interests and areas of activism than their white counterparts — among them, police brutality and the disproportionate number of Blacks and Hispanics in prison. Those who want to diversify the make up of activists involved
USA * in struggles such as the anti-sweatshop campaign, international environmental protections, and the reform/abolition of the IMF, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization have the hard but promising task of developing connections between those issues and the ones that concern students of color.
Several activities are underway to do so. USAS' current plans to develop a movement to protest corporations' use of well-below minimum wage prison labor holds some promise for reaching out to people of color who have been working on similar efforts. Students may also do well to build upon the recent AFL-CIO denunciation of workplace raids against undocuimmigrant workers by the Immigration and Naturalization Services.
The IMF/World Bank protests showed that students, for the first time in almost three decades, want to organize and fight back. A major limitation of the series of demonstrations and protests has been that participants have relied mostly on disruptions — civil disobedience, shutting down meetings by corporations or complicit institutions — as the key to winning struggles.
### Need for organization
Granted, disruptions are essential and indispensable tools for success; however, there is a fundamental need for organization and the development of solid dedicated leaderships who can build between demonstrations. Just a few weeks after the protest, students held a meeting at George Washington University to discuss what they learned and what ought to be done now; emphasis was placed on the desire to do more than wait for the next round of demonstrations and the need to organize by having clear lines of responsibility and accountability.
In this context, socialists have several principles for organizing; the three most important are self-empowerment of all activists in the movements, the building of a cadre of conscious and tactful student leaders, and the development of a revolutionary vanguard that can help win reforms and also build a project to create a society in which hard-won demands will have optimal results. In the current environment, socialists will find that if they are serious about working to build and win movements, students will not only welcome but also seek out their assistance. * International Viewpoint #322 June 2000 5