Spring Break
OP-ED:Student activism can succeed when individuals unite and act rather than struggle alone
by Daniel Duffy
Op-Ed | 4/17/07
Posted online at 11:08 PM EST on 4/16/07
/ Last updated at 2:43 AM EST on 4/16/07
A question that seems to get asked often these days in the liberal discourse is: Why aren't the students protesting the Iraq War? Yes, activist student groups have sprung up in the face of this unjust war, but there does not seem to be any movement to speak of.
It seems that the sense of injustice in students that the Vietnam War inflamed is not the same today. I'm sure the Bush dministration is crossing its fingers as it continues to test students' tolerance for injustice. The war has long been proven to be an incredible disaster and an enormous atrocity, yet still our threshold has not been crossed.
But it's not that students aren't opposed to the war. It's just that doing something about it has been like starting a party at Brandeis. We tend to sit around and complain that no one is doing anything, yet we ourselves are not usually willing to take those first steps.
Being the first to take these steps can be scary because no one wants to take them alone. Against the war, we feel individually powerless, even as we write letters to our congresspersons or to a certain college newspaper. Our voices are little, and we hate to speak up in isolation because it makes us more aware of our insignificance. Our voices do not have the power of the authorities'.
We might as well face the facts. I will admit it first: I am powerless in the U.S. political system. There is no reason for me to climb a tree right now and refuse to come down until the war stops. A pacifist candy strike against the war would be futile. Although we are individually powerless, the continuation of the war relies on our collective complicity. The war effort depends on us to pay taxes, to maintain business as usual and to accept our individual lack of power.
What those in charge fear most is that collectively we will decide to stop going along with our routines. They fear that one day we will really challenge them by not volunteering for enlistment and not going to work until we see a solution. They fear that the war will one day be impossible to wage because we organized ourselves rather than fighting impossibly uphill individual battles.
It seems that the sense of injustice in students that the Vietnam War inflamed is not the same today. I'm sure the Bush dministration is crossing its fingers as it continues to test students' tolerance for injustice. The war has long been proven to be an incredible disaster and an enormous atrocity, yet still our threshold has not been crossed.
But it's not that students aren't opposed to the war. It's just that doing something about it has been like starting a party at Brandeis. We tend to sit around and complain that no one is doing anything, yet we ourselves are not usually willing to take those first steps.
Being the first to take these steps can be scary because no one wants to take them alone. Against the war, we feel individually powerless, even as we write letters to our congresspersons or to a certain college newspaper. Our voices are little, and we hate to speak up in isolation because it makes us more aware of our insignificance. Our voices do not have the power of the authorities'.
We might as well face the facts. I will admit it first: I am powerless in the U.S. political system. There is no reason for me to climb a tree right now and refuse to come down until the war stops. A pacifist candy strike against the war would be futile. Although we are individually powerless, the continuation of the war relies on our collective complicity. The war effort depends on us to pay taxes, to maintain business as usual and to accept our individual lack of power.
What those in charge fear most is that collectively we will decide to stop going along with our routines. They fear that one day we will really challenge them by not volunteering for enlistment and not going to work until we see a solution. They fear that the war will one day be impossible to wage because we organized ourselves rather than fighting impossibly uphill individual battles.
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