My Campus, the Metaphor
| By RyanWerder - Sep 28th, 2006 at 10:52 am EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Publications | Campus Progress Blog |
For an hour on Wednesday, The Diag - Michigan's large brick plaza in the center of campus - was transformed into a swarming metaphor for America's progressive movement.
It had everything: LGBT activists arguing and protesting an uber-conservative preacher handing out tickets to Hell; students giving speeches on freeing Palestine and leaving Iraq; organizers rallying their communities to speak out against a xenophobic "catch an illegal immigrant day;" Democrats and non-partisans out registering voters. Basically, the only free space was the inlaid brass "M" in the center of the Diag which guarantees failed Blue Book exams if stepped on.
The other activity present in abundance was chaos. The time between noon and one o'clock was supposed to be a unifying rally for all interested groups on campus to come and make a powerful statement that racist events such as "catch an illegal immigrant day" are not welcome on our campus. T-shirts were made, state-wide press was called in, and student groups arrived en masse. As they arrived, however, they were greeted with a complete frenzy of activity with a healthy dose of rain to make things even more muddled.
Apparently, the unity rally coincided with the middle-eastern solidarity rally. The group there to protest xenophobia on campus had the numbers and the press. The middle-eastern students speaking out for Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq had the noise permit and sound equipment. Meanwhile, the preacher was still preaching, the voters were still registering, and the unaffiliated students squeezing through the Diag were being bombarded by what could only, at times, have sounded like, "doyouwanttoregister? Haveyouheardaboutimmigration? Freepalestine? Homosaregoingtohell!"
Ideally, these groups could have all coexisted in an organized way on the Diag. The immigrant activists could have put on their event with the press and students they brought together after the middle-eastern students spoke. The students shouting down the hate-spewing preacher could have toned it down during the middle-eastern speeches. Instead, everything was rolled into one massive blob of activism.
The speakers for the middle-eastern student organizations spoke powerfully and dramatically about the issues affecting their friends and families from behind a massive banner proclaiming "We Stand In Solidarity With Iraq Palestine Lebanon!" Fifteen minutes later, the organizers of the immigration-focused rally were speaking behind the same banner trying desperately to explain how the two events flowed were related to each other rather than speaking on the issue of American immigration itself.
The mistakes arose when "cause" was sacrificed for a broader ideal of "activism." Each event for that hour had very distinct messages regardless of how valiantly connections were linguistically attempted. Each event catered to generally disparate constituencies. By pulling together everyone into everything, no one was entirely satisfied and anyone could be confused.
It's true that the progressive movement has many bridges built between its distinct parts. We aren't ever truly splintered or isolated. We have activists throughout the camp who can be at each other's throats one day and leading a rally together the next. The challenge is to find the connections that work, and leverage those alliances while being careful not to walk across an ideological canyon without a bridge.
The Diag today was a microcosm of how things can go wrong and where only a little tweaking would have made the efforts exponentially better. Progressives could have owned The Diag today. Instead, we only made a mess.
It had everything: LGBT activists arguing and protesting an uber-conservative preacher handing out tickets to Hell; students giving speeches on freeing Palestine and leaving Iraq; organizers rallying their communities to speak out against a xenophobic "catch an illegal immigrant day;" Democrats and non-partisans out registering voters. Basically, the only free space was the inlaid brass "M" in the center of the Diag which guarantees failed Blue Book exams if stepped on.
The other activity present in abundance was chaos. The time between noon and one o'clock was supposed to be a unifying rally for all interested groups on campus to come and make a powerful statement that racist events such as "catch an illegal immigrant day" are not welcome on our campus. T-shirts were made, state-wide press was called in, and student groups arrived en masse. As they arrived, however, they were greeted with a complete frenzy of activity with a healthy dose of rain to make things even more muddled.
Apparently, the unity rally coincided with the middle-eastern solidarity rally. The group there to protest xenophobia on campus had the numbers and the press. The middle-eastern students speaking out for Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq had the noise permit and sound equipment. Meanwhile, the preacher was still preaching, the voters were still registering, and the unaffiliated students squeezing through the Diag were being bombarded by what could only, at times, have sounded like, "doyouwanttoregister? Haveyouheardaboutimmigration? Freepalestine? Homosaregoingtohell!"
Ideally, these groups could have all coexisted in an organized way on the Diag. The immigrant activists could have put on their event with the press and students they brought together after the middle-eastern students spoke. The students shouting down the hate-spewing preacher could have toned it down during the middle-eastern speeches. Instead, everything was rolled into one massive blob of activism.
The speakers for the middle-eastern student organizations spoke powerfully and dramatically about the issues affecting their friends and families from behind a massive banner proclaiming "We Stand In Solidarity With Iraq Palestine Lebanon!" Fifteen minutes later, the organizers of the immigration-focused rally were speaking behind the same banner trying desperately to explain how the two events flowed were related to each other rather than speaking on the issue of American immigration itself.
The mistakes arose when "cause" was sacrificed for a broader ideal of "activism." Each event for that hour had very distinct messages regardless of how valiantly connections were linguistically attempted. Each event catered to generally disparate constituencies. By pulling together everyone into everything, no one was entirely satisfied and anyone could be confused.
It's true that the progressive movement has many bridges built between its distinct parts. We aren't ever truly splintered or isolated. We have activists throughout the camp who can be at each other's throats one day and leading a rally together the next. The challenge is to find the connections that work, and leverage those alliances while being careful not to walk across an ideological canyon without a bridge.
The Diag today was a microcosm of how things can go wrong and where only a little tweaking would have made the efforts exponentially better. Progressives could have owned The Diag today. Instead, we only made a mess.
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And I think it is important for Americans to understand human nature regarding the reality of our species.
This book review helped my understanding:
The Demographic Struggle for Power: The Political Economy of Demographic Engineering in the Modern World
From review:
"The Demographic Struggle for Power is one of the most straightforward and factual accounts now available of how ethnic animosity creates conflict and violence. In a study that focuses on the Balkans but covers all parts of the world, Prof. Bookman takes for granted a central fact of human nature that multi-racial dreamers ignore: Ethnic identity and the desire to preserve it are among the most powerful forces on earth. Perhaps because she is a Slav, Prof. Bookman does not find it necessary to account for group consciousness or to apologize for it. Her purpose is merely to catalogue the policies to which it gives rise."
Source:
Link
But, if you'd rather be a condescending ass instead of thoughtfully consider your philosophical statements before making them, you keep on keepin' on.
But, if you'd rather be a condescending ass instead of thoughtfully considering your philosophical statements before making them, you keep on keepin' on.
One thing I was confused about: you keep referring to "middle-eastern" students and groups as the only ones standing in solidarity with Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. Though you might be right on the groups (I'm not sure who cosponsored that), I'm positive there were not just students of Middle East descent who were standing in solidarity, and I think to make a statement like that is a pretty big assumption. As a South Asian (definitely not in the Middle East), if I were at UofM, I would have been there alongside some of those folks (as were a couple of my South Asian friends who are still active on campus) and I definitely don't like my identity being labelled on behalf of what I'm standing for. It'd be like assuming everyone at a rally for Israel is automatically Jewish. Though the majority may be, it's just not the case.
But, you still had a great point, and I definitely agree - we need more organization to make the progressive movement more cohesive and much less chaotic.
Middle-eastern students were most certainly not the only ones standing in solidarity for Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq. I personally agree with much of what they were speaking and others on the Diag were in support of their cause as well.
What I was referring to is that the *speakers* were middle-eastern and it was their students orgs who brought that aspect of the day's activity together. My apologies if I made it sound as if only middle-eastern students were standing up for the middle-east.
As I wrote in the post, the issue was the converse: There were too many people standing up for too much all at once... including Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq.