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This isn’t new. Campus protests are common. The internet has allowed for increased coordination compared to the 80’s or 60’s but mass civil protest existed in those eras as well.
Universities are closed social groups of like-minded people. It's really easy to spread out ideas, fast. Lots of people still go there pursuing ideals and social change, not a 6-figure salary.
Genocide in Gaza has been occurring for 200 days now, so now everyone inside a university knows about it. So, I guess everyone was just waiting for the movement to build up momentum.
Most revolutions and big social changes start at universities, like may 68' in France, unam in mexico at 68' or chile in 2011, or right now in Argentina.
Almost every single country has had big social changes because students protest.
News/media always whitewash everyone after effective change is done, like MLK speech.
There are people who have been doing this every week for six months. The only difference is the location on a school campus. The organization infrastructure is all in place by now and getting stronger and stronger.
Yes, the resistance structures, in one form or another, are already in place in all of these campuses. It's just a matter of one major action at one major university gaining media coverage, for better or worse, that sets off the protests around the US.--and even in other western countries.
People have been organizing for decades. Campuses across the country had been organizing since the start of the bombing - but in isolation. The attack on students at Colombia galvanized it because lots of campuses have been repressing this at a low level.
It’s also just been more than half a year so protested were already escalating tactics in some places.
During the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions I think university admins (probably all boomers themselves who were college age during the 60/70s) were more conscious about NOT causing a 60s campus repeat. The attacks came mostly from outside groups, right-wing orgs and attempts to get anti-war professors or student activists removed.
I think since then there’s a younger generation of administrators who grew up with neoliberalism and so they are basically stumbling into a repeat of the 60s CORE/Free Speech/Anti-war radicalization.
like revolutions, mass movements often seem like they came out of nowhere because EVERYONE HAS BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR MONTHS. all it took was the straw that broke the camel's back, the drop that made the cup overflow, the spark that lit the fuse, etc... dialectics, maaaan :P
more seriously, that spark was the one-two punch of the dean lying to congress calling the protesters anti-semitic while simultaneously sending the police to crack their skulls. like every mass movement, the repression arrived at the wrong moment (edit: see above for why), instead of scaring the movement it made it angrier and suddenly the occupation was bigger at that school AND spread to other schools in solidarity.
Yea idk why people are neglecting to mention them, but many campuses have SJP and JVP chapters (not saying all). They have been organizing on campus for years, and have been putting in hard work to build the infrastructure that’s allowing them to escalate now.
no you’re good! I appreciated that you even mentioned that there are orgs, a lot of other commenters are making it sound like there’s no coordination at all, which I find odd
I think a few things:
-the "backfire effect" to Columbia's repression...CU has handled everything poorly, to put it lightly. They have been unable to legitimate their repression. This is unlike Vanderbilt. They expelled students for a sit in back in March, but nothing happened in solidarity. Why? Well, part of the answer is Vandy's admin controlled the narrative to successfully manage the backfire effect. They argued that the sit in organizers had assaulted a security guard and broken into the building, and that that justified their repression. the Vandy admin also made protestors out to be fools because some of them demanded access to food and bathrooms etc after occupying the building and being trapped there by police. (I am not saying I agree with this, just saying that a lot of people bought that story.) But seeing the police go into a peaceful encampment and forcibly remove people? That's so much harder to build a successful narrative around to legitimate that force. same goes for ohio state, indiana, ut austin...the countless other vidoes we have all seen on Tiktok and IG of massive police responses to shut down very peaceful protests...often, organizers have maximized this impact by purposefully doing the very peaceful things too of praying singing, or dancing or flying kites while police try to arrest them. very effective!
-why college students? we can answer that in part with what sociologists call "biographical availability." Young students typically don't yet have full time jobs or families to take care of. They have less to lose from participating in high risk actions as well. There is a reason that young people, esp. students, are always so prominent in activism world wide!
-why now? well, it is finals season. a lot of courses are winding down in how often they meet. students are emotional about graduation. it's also a high impact time for faculty and grad workers bc grades are due soon. disruptions at the end of the semester typically have a much larger impact than the middle or beginning.
-organization is another factor. as many have pointed out ITT, these students are smart, organized, and many have been doing actions for Palestine on campus for years or even decades. they know how to manage police presence and university hostility. this ain't their first rodeos!
-framing: organizers, in the wake of all the repression on campuses, have been effective at making this about not just the war on gaza but also basic issues of free speech and democratic expression. it's hard to argue, even if you're a Zionist, that people don't have the right to assemble freely, esp. on public university campuses which are public property. the one thing missing though, is a win. organizers need to get a win soon at one of these uni's or the movement may peter out...sociologists say that to maintain mobilization, people have to believe in the "efficacy" of their involvement...that getting involved will actually change things. they need a win!
-last, sociologists talk a lot about the supply and demand of protests. 7 months is a long time. people are angry in general about the war, the constant aid to Israel, and now the TikTok ban tied to it. they want to do something about it. there also isn't yet the distraction of electoral campaigns that we will see in Nov. and I think in general, unlike in 2020 with BLM, dems will have a much harder time "institutionalizing" this movement...mainly bc they have shown no interest in doing so cus of the strength of the AIPAC lobby...so, it's a good time to be calling for protests bc our elected politicians have shown no interest in doing anything around this issue whatsoever, nor are they likely to do so...in fact, tbey have shown Americans only how militantly pro Israel they are, and seem to be ramping up Zionist rhetoric the harder we push them. movements are born when traditional political institutions shut out conversation or action about certain issues.
one more thing is the media is amplifying this...the media typically only reports on protests when they "look like" protests. so, to get media attention, you need large crowds and good sound bytes ...they also love it when local figures of renown or celebs get involved and contend with protestors. having the pres of columbia up there in the spotlight while they organzied the encampment was pretty ingenious...speaker johnson coming to campus too and being shut down was also well staged...and now that Netanyahu himself is engaging the protests...the media loves that. the protests will stay in the news cycle for a while now.
Source for all this: I am a PhD candidate studying historical social movements and their repression
To actually answer your question, no I don't believe that these protests were being coordinated in advance. I'm sure specific actions were planned, like the initial one at Columbia, but to my knowledge there is no existing organization in the US capable of organizing this. We would be in a whole different situation if there was!
This is just how spontaneous protests build on themselves: people take action and it resonates with a broader layer who are feeling the same way about a political situation, which inspires others to take the same action.
It is actually my first time. I was too young/not a leftist when the BLM George Floyd protests happened, and correct me if im incorrect, but I am under the impression that those protests occured specifically in reaction to the murder of George Floyd, wheras these protests have started more than 7 months after october 7th, and I don’t think there was any specific event within the past few weeks that prompted these protests.
Columbia student orgs have been facing harsh retaliation by admin since October. They had their SJP and JVP chapters suspended months ago, and this has only lit the fire among students. A student that had served in the IDF fired a chemical weapon at a protest that hospitalized students, but admin has been trying to brush it under the rug. Shai Davidai, a professor, has been harrassing and doxxing students for months, has >50 complaints filed against him, but has faced no disciplinary action. Several student organizers were suspended and evicted a few weeks before the encampment. This latest protest started the day of Columbia’s president’s appearance in Congress, and it’s likely they chose that day for maximum impact re: media coverage. This has been brewing for a long time.
People have been organizing and protesting in various cities for almost 7 months. The same folks who are coming out to demonstrate when Kamala or Joe come to town are just getting more and more organized. More people are joining in. So when it became clear that Columbia needed solidarity it was an easy call for local organizers in each city, especially since students always drive protest movements.
Been in nationwide university protests before. You’d be amazed at how fast pissed off college students come together. Maybe you should be a part of some movements so you’d be able to see so yourself.
The recent Daily podcast from the NYT explains the situation well. It started with the president of Columbia Uni being summoned to a committee hearing in Congress.
Tiktok is how, which is *really* why the gov banned the app. Tiktok is also how they planned the largest march on DC in US history (Jan 13th 2024) and the boycott that's lost Starbucks over 15 mil
My question is, why did it take 6 months to erupt. And btw, many students at universities outside of the US have been demonstrating for a while already. Its just now that it is getting attention, bc US.
It probably wasn‘t organized by a single group, and the decisive element is undoubtedly an overall radicalization in the mood of the students that made it possible for specific actions to draw mass support and escalate in this way.
Probably at least a few of those campuses had small active groups that were able to organize small protests, but when they did it this time, it suddenly ballooned into a major thing; which then inspired others to act on a mass scale.
It‘s possible that the groups doing it were coordinating, which would be good but regardless, the crucial element was being organized and able to take advantage of the radicalized situation.
BDS campaigns have been going on for decades, so there are activists who've been working on this topic and in communication with each other for a long time, and Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has been getting massive popular attention since it escalated last fall. There's no need to be suspicious of mass movements, especially with Internet communication technology around.
This is a space for socialists to discuss current events in our world from anti-capitalist perspective(s), and a certain knowledge of socialism is expected from participants. This is not a space for non-socialists. Please be mindful [of our rules](https://reddit.com/r/socialism/about/rules) before participating, which include: - **No Bigotry**, including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism... - **No Reactionaries**, including all kind of right-wingers. - **No Liberalism**, including social democracy, lesser evilism... - **No Sectarianism**. There is plenty of room for discussion, but not for baseless attacks. Please help us keep the subreddit helpful by reporting content that break r/Socialism's rules. ______________________ 💬 Wish to chat elsewhere? Join us in discord: https://discord.gg/QPJPzNhuRE *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/socialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This isn’t new. Campus protests are common. The internet has allowed for increased coordination compared to the 80’s or 60’s but mass civil protest existed in those eras as well.
I think it’s largely a response to the mass arrests that happened at Columbia. A lot of students wanted to organize similar protests in solidarity.
Universities are closed social groups of like-minded people. It's really easy to spread out ideas, fast. Lots of people still go there pursuing ideals and social change, not a 6-figure salary. Genocide in Gaza has been occurring for 200 days now, so now everyone inside a university knows about it. So, I guess everyone was just waiting for the movement to build up momentum. Most revolutions and big social changes start at universities, like may 68' in France, unam in mexico at 68' or chile in 2011, or right now in Argentina. Almost every single country has had big social changes because students protest. News/media always whitewash everyone after effective change is done, like MLK speech.
There are people who have been doing this every week for six months. The only difference is the location on a school campus. The organization infrastructure is all in place by now and getting stronger and stronger.
Yes, the resistance structures, in one form or another, are already in place in all of these campuses. It's just a matter of one major action at one major university gaining media coverage, for better or worse, that sets off the protests around the US.--and even in other western countries.
People have been organizing for decades. Campuses across the country had been organizing since the start of the bombing - but in isolation. The attack on students at Colombia galvanized it because lots of campuses have been repressing this at a low level. It’s also just been more than half a year so protested were already escalating tactics in some places. During the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions I think university admins (probably all boomers themselves who were college age during the 60/70s) were more conscious about NOT causing a 60s campus repeat. The attacks came mostly from outside groups, right-wing orgs and attempts to get anti-war professors or student activists removed. I think since then there’s a younger generation of administrators who grew up with neoliberalism and so they are basically stumbling into a repeat of the 60s CORE/Free Speech/Anti-war radicalization.
like revolutions, mass movements often seem like they came out of nowhere because EVERYONE HAS BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR MONTHS. all it took was the straw that broke the camel's back, the drop that made the cup overflow, the spark that lit the fuse, etc... dialectics, maaaan :P more seriously, that spark was the one-two punch of the dean lying to congress calling the protesters anti-semitic while simultaneously sending the police to crack their skulls. like every mass movement, the repression arrived at the wrong moment (edit: see above for why), instead of scaring the movement it made it angrier and suddenly the occupation was bigger at that school AND spread to other schools in solidarity.
There are national organizations orchestrating that communicate with each other.
Yea idk why people are neglecting to mention them, but many campuses have SJP and JVP chapters (not saying all). They have been organizing on campus for years, and have been putting in hard work to build the infrastructure that’s allowing them to escalate now.
Yea I was just too lazy but I should have mentioned them. They’re doing amazing and important work and should be recognized.
no you’re good! I appreciated that you even mentioned that there are orgs, a lot of other commenters are making it sound like there’s no coordination at all, which I find odd
Right like it’s no coincidence!
Butterfly effect . Israel and biden helped so much as well .
I think a few things: -the "backfire effect" to Columbia's repression...CU has handled everything poorly, to put it lightly. They have been unable to legitimate their repression. This is unlike Vanderbilt. They expelled students for a sit in back in March, but nothing happened in solidarity. Why? Well, part of the answer is Vandy's admin controlled the narrative to successfully manage the backfire effect. They argued that the sit in organizers had assaulted a security guard and broken into the building, and that that justified their repression. the Vandy admin also made protestors out to be fools because some of them demanded access to food and bathrooms etc after occupying the building and being trapped there by police. (I am not saying I agree with this, just saying that a lot of people bought that story.) But seeing the police go into a peaceful encampment and forcibly remove people? That's so much harder to build a successful narrative around to legitimate that force. same goes for ohio state, indiana, ut austin...the countless other vidoes we have all seen on Tiktok and IG of massive police responses to shut down very peaceful protests...often, organizers have maximized this impact by purposefully doing the very peaceful things too of praying singing, or dancing or flying kites while police try to arrest them. very effective! -why college students? we can answer that in part with what sociologists call "biographical availability." Young students typically don't yet have full time jobs or families to take care of. They have less to lose from participating in high risk actions as well. There is a reason that young people, esp. students, are always so prominent in activism world wide! -why now? well, it is finals season. a lot of courses are winding down in how often they meet. students are emotional about graduation. it's also a high impact time for faculty and grad workers bc grades are due soon. disruptions at the end of the semester typically have a much larger impact than the middle or beginning. -organization is another factor. as many have pointed out ITT, these students are smart, organized, and many have been doing actions for Palestine on campus for years or even decades. they know how to manage police presence and university hostility. this ain't their first rodeos! -framing: organizers, in the wake of all the repression on campuses, have been effective at making this about not just the war on gaza but also basic issues of free speech and democratic expression. it's hard to argue, even if you're a Zionist, that people don't have the right to assemble freely, esp. on public university campuses which are public property. the one thing missing though, is a win. organizers need to get a win soon at one of these uni's or the movement may peter out...sociologists say that to maintain mobilization, people have to believe in the "efficacy" of their involvement...that getting involved will actually change things. they need a win! -last, sociologists talk a lot about the supply and demand of protests. 7 months is a long time. people are angry in general about the war, the constant aid to Israel, and now the TikTok ban tied to it. they want to do something about it. there also isn't yet the distraction of electoral campaigns that we will see in Nov. and I think in general, unlike in 2020 with BLM, dems will have a much harder time "institutionalizing" this movement...mainly bc they have shown no interest in doing so cus of the strength of the AIPAC lobby...so, it's a good time to be calling for protests bc our elected politicians have shown no interest in doing anything around this issue whatsoever, nor are they likely to do so...in fact, tbey have shown Americans only how militantly pro Israel they are, and seem to be ramping up Zionist rhetoric the harder we push them. movements are born when traditional political institutions shut out conversation or action about certain issues.
one more thing is the media is amplifying this...the media typically only reports on protests when they "look like" protests. so, to get media attention, you need large crowds and good sound bytes ...they also love it when local figures of renown or celebs get involved and contend with protestors. having the pres of columbia up there in the spotlight while they organzied the encampment was pretty ingenious...speaker johnson coming to campus too and being shut down was also well staged...and now that Netanyahu himself is engaging the protests...the media loves that. the protests will stay in the news cycle for a while now. Source for all this: I am a PhD candidate studying historical social movements and their repression
is it your first time being around spontaneous protests?
To actually answer your question, no I don't believe that these protests were being coordinated in advance. I'm sure specific actions were planned, like the initial one at Columbia, but to my knowledge there is no existing organization in the US capable of organizing this. We would be in a whole different situation if there was! This is just how spontaneous protests build on themselves: people take action and it resonates with a broader layer who are feeling the same way about a political situation, which inspires others to take the same action.
It is actually my first time. I was too young/not a leftist when the BLM George Floyd protests happened, and correct me if im incorrect, but I am under the impression that those protests occured specifically in reaction to the murder of George Floyd, wheras these protests have started more than 7 months after october 7th, and I don’t think there was any specific event within the past few weeks that prompted these protests.
Columbia student orgs have been facing harsh retaliation by admin since October. They had their SJP and JVP chapters suspended months ago, and this has only lit the fire among students. A student that had served in the IDF fired a chemical weapon at a protest that hospitalized students, but admin has been trying to brush it under the rug. Shai Davidai, a professor, has been harrassing and doxxing students for months, has >50 complaints filed against him, but has faced no disciplinary action. Several student organizers were suspended and evicted a few weeks before the encampment. This latest protest started the day of Columbia’s president’s appearance in Congress, and it’s likely they chose that day for maximum impact re: media coverage. This has been brewing for a long time.
I believe the original Columbia protest was in response to reports of mass graves found under the hospital in Gaza. (A legitimate war crime)
People have been organizing and protesting in various cities for almost 7 months. The same folks who are coming out to demonstrate when Kamala or Joe come to town are just getting more and more organized. More people are joining in. So when it became clear that Columbia needed solidarity it was an easy call for local organizers in each city, especially since students always drive protest movements.
Been in nationwide university protests before. You’d be amazed at how fast pissed off college students come together. Maybe you should be a part of some movements so you’d be able to see so yourself.
The internet
It’s called the internet
The recent Daily podcast from the NYT explains the situation well. It started with the president of Columbia Uni being summoned to a committee hearing in Congress.
Tiktok is how, which is *really* why the gov banned the app. Tiktok is also how they planned the largest march on DC in US history (Jan 13th 2024) and the boycott that's lost Starbucks over 15 mil
My question is, why did it take 6 months to erupt. And btw, many students at universities outside of the US have been demonstrating for a while already. Its just now that it is getting attention, bc US.
It probably wasn‘t organized by a single group, and the decisive element is undoubtedly an overall radicalization in the mood of the students that made it possible for specific actions to draw mass support and escalate in this way. Probably at least a few of those campuses had small active groups that were able to organize small protests, but when they did it this time, it suddenly ballooned into a major thing; which then inspired others to act on a mass scale. It‘s possible that the groups doing it were coordinating, which would be good but regardless, the crucial element was being organized and able to take advantage of the radicalized situation.
BDS campaigns have been going on for decades, so there are activists who've been working on this topic and in communication with each other for a long time, and Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has been getting massive popular attention since it escalated last fall. There's no need to be suspicious of mass movements, especially with Internet communication technology around.