Campus Activists Organizing a Political Platform and Plans for Future Activism
In the midst of post-election left-wing depression, the national Campus Antiwar Network, “an independent, democratic, grassroots network of campus-based antiwar committees,” convened at Pace University this weekend to strategize and rally optimism for continued activism.
“Stop the War in 2004” united 95 students from over 30 schools across the country. Student activists came to discuss important issues, learn from each other’s experiences, and share their perceptions of the political mood in different parts of the U.S.
Despite Bush’s election, they were optimistic from the very beginning. Suzie Schwartz, GS ’05, is a leader in the Columbia CAN chapter. “During the pre-election period ... people were really organizing around the candidates, especially Kerry,” Schwartz said. She added that “people were disappointed and angry at the results of the election and are looking for a way that they can challenge the status quo of the Bush administration.”
Along with creating new strategies to build both CAN and the antiwar movement as a whole, the conference aimed to develop a structure encouraging more communication between schools and the development of more unified campaigns.
“We’ve got to make people understand what’s going on ... and what this war really means,” said keynote speaker Mike Hoffman, an Iraq war veteran and one of the founders of Iraq Veterans Against the War. “And that means you have to go past what the news is telling us ... [We] are not getting the personal stories. If people heard the personal stories, this war would be over in a second. And that’s what we’ve got to do, we’ve got to get those voices heard.”
Khury Peterson-Smith, an American student who visited Iraq with a peace delegation in early 2004, presented a personal story when he read an e-mail from a 17-year-old Iraqi woman with whom he had kept in touch.
“What does it feel like when you do not have a home where you can go and have everything you want with everyone you love, where you can feel safe ... [and] you work in a war field,” Peterson-Smith read. “If you can feel that, you will know what I feel. And that will give you the power to stop your government. What you are doing is a start ... All I can say is thank you for doing this for me and everyone here.”
Schwartz said that activists at the conference searched for different ways to structure their future efforts to rally support, and worked to find a common political platform.
Accordingly, one major component of campus organizing currently emphasizes the connections between students and the war. These include military recruiting, the targeting of low income youths with a “poverty draft,” and the possibility of reintroducing conscription.
Support for U.S. troops emerged as another pressing and contentious issue, especially when coupled with support for Iraqi resistance against the U.S. Many of the participants encouraged support for the Iraqis who are fighting US troops as a step toward stopping the war, but said they were also conscious of what resistance means to the U.S. soldiers and their families. The discussion emphasized supporting American troops who refused to fight.
“There is a sense of urgency right now,” Hoffman said. “People are dying ... right now, as I speak, bombs are falling in Fallujah ... right now dozens of marines and countless Iraqis have died. There is a sense of urgency about this and that is what we have to carry through. We have to let people know that there are bombs dropping, there are people dying ... that is what’s going to get people energized, get them back out into the streets.”
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