In my previous post I discussed how media shape the narratives by which we interpret the world. I used as its example the near-hysteria surrounding changes in the capital-gains attribution rate that the media have fuelled.
The same narrative structure seems to be permeating coverage of the widespread campus protests and activism surrounding Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza. To follow the 'official' narrative, such protests are little more than rabid demonstrations of anti-Semitism and promotion of the destruction of Israel.
For the uncritical mind, that story is all one needs to know. However, for those not content to glide along the surface of world events, it is woefully inadequate and grossly misleading. There is much, much more to the demonstrations than the cartoonish portrayals media are promulgating.
First, we hear of how violent the campus demonstrations are. However, in every news video I have seen, the 'violence' seems to start when the authorities move in to oust and arrest the demonstrators. I wonder if anyone has coverage of the minutes before the police arrive. Were the demonstrators rampaging, or were they simply strongly proclaiming their goals of highlighting the atrocities being committed in Gaza, as well as demands for transparency and divestment from Israel by the universities?
Another part of the narrative given special emphasis is that some Jewish students feel unsafe on campus because of the demonstrations. While I don't doubt that there have been incidents where direct threats have been made, one has to consider a couple of things: is the very act of criticizing Israel part of what is making students feel unsafe? Protests are, by their nature, uncomfortable events for many. As well, students need to acknowledge and accept that there are many Jewish students who are part of the protest.
Both points seem to be addressed in a NYT article:
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators across the country say Israel is committing what they see as genocide against the Palestinian people, and they aim to keep a spotlight on the suffering. But some Jewish students who support Israel and what they see as its right to defend itself against Hamas say the protests have made them afraid to walk freely on campus. They hear denunciations of Zionism and calls for a Palestinian uprising as an attack on Jews themselves.
Many Jewish students taking part in the current protests say they are doing so as an expression of their Jewish values that emphasize social justice and equality. Encampments have hosted Shabbat dinners and Passover seders. At Columbia, one student said that donors have supplied kosher meals.
Samuel Law, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin who is Jewish and involved in the protests, was inspired by the encampments popping up around the country. “I strongly believe that the university should be there for us to care about what we care about,” he said.
For me, the protests are reminiscent of the many campus demonstrations and sit-ins that took place in the sixties during America's war on Vietnam. The protestors were often portrayed as Communists and/or disloyal to their country. The very act of putting one's beliefs on the line became, to many Americans, an act of alarming subversion. One remembers the Kent State massacres, and we are reminded that freedom of expression is very, very conditional. Like today, express your views freely, but only if they accord with our version of the status quo.
Such an approach is ultimately counter-productive, as noted in The Guardian, never a slave to conventional narratives.
The aftermath at Columbia University should be instructive for other universities facing similar protests, the repression and suspension of students leads to more sustained protest and broader participation. More students join in, if only just to witness. By suspending so many students, they now have very little to keep them from organizing and drawing attention to the encampments popping up across the US.
There is some truth to the popular protest slogan: “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”
Perhaps I am an outlier in all of this, but the very act of protest, in my view, is a vital part of any democracy. To delegitimize such is to deny democracy itself, and more than that, it is a repression of the human spirit that seeks justice.
At the beginning of this post is an excerpt from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. On first glance he seems to be endorsing people who drop bombs when he says to [f]ear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live ... for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. However, what he means is that when efforts at suppression and repression end, (i.e. the bombs) it means that the human spirit, or Manself, as he calls it, has withered and died. If we consider bombs both literally and metaphorically, it means to fear a time people have stopped "fighting the good fight," i.e., standing up for their beliefs and inviting retribution; the consequent impulse to squelch us is no longer needed.
And that, without question, would be a truly a dystopian world.
UPDATE: Thanks to Anon for a reference to an article by Justin Ling, which you can read here.
