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| Why real passion takes more than skipping classWhy real passion takes more than skipping classby Anthony Marek 3/28/07 He was, I don't doubt, clenching his teeth at noon on March 20, but President Bush and his plan for democratizing the Middle East somehow eked out another day of murdering American children, blood for oil and other undemocratic acts, despite the tiny but predictable opposition hooting in Washington Square Park. To show the world that they really meant it this time, the same tired crowd decided to bare their balls and actually walk out of class, or - as I imagine was most often the case - sleep through morning classes and show up in the park, Kool-Aid mix in tote. Walk out of class? What was the occasion for this irresistibly 1960s-esque light bulb atop a compassionate liberal student's little engine that could? The fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. As convinced as I am of American high school and college students' raw misery at the prospect of playing hooky, the significance of the fourth anniversary is lost on me. Anniversaries are celebrations of past birthdays and weddings. But the protesters are handling this meaningless date the way a furniture store would - it's an even number, and it looks pretty on big banners. For all the unfettered hate that the average war protester harbors for the Bush administration, it would be hard for the protester to deny an important direct benefit conferred upon him by that war - something to protest. That seems counterintuitive, I know. Call me a cynic, but I can't imagine the Washington Square crowd in a state of stasis. If the war were to stop short, would everyone smile and go back to their dorms (and go to class)? If it's not war, it's going to be something else. Never mind if that something else has to be made up. Sometimes, to the chagrin of student activists, there are just fewer problems in the world than there should be. Enter Killer Coke, whose unsubstantiated corporate hate still haunts the university, and the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, who opted to disrupt the entire southeast area of Washington Square Park, including Bobst Library, because they reasoned that their free tuition, stipends and cheap housing were pennies compared to what a union could fish out of the administration. Public displays can be useful in some cases, but with college students, there is seldom anything behind them. Students don't have the professional connections or clout to get anything done, even in large numbers. Donating a few dollars to a cause so that professionals can accomplish something is their best bet, but their limited resources are more likely to be spent elsewhere. Why not write to their representatives and tell them to stop signing checks for the war? Autocratic as Bush's administration may be, he is powerless to continue unfunded military action. No earlier than last Friday, Congress debated and ultimately recommended a 2008 troop pullout, but is nowhere close to the 290 votes needed to override Bush's imminent veto. Perhaps that could have been changed. A critical flaw of disgruntled student activists is the patently false retort that someone who declines the pizzazz and glory of walkouts, protests and boycotts must not care about what he says he cares about. Olga Diaz, vice president of the NYU Campus Anti-War Network, made that mistake in conversation with me last week, saying in reference to the small turnout that the students "had failed them," calling the students "lazy" and "pathetic." For the record, Olga didn't go to class that day. I'll leave it to you to split hairs about who's being lazy. Renouncing the theatric lifestyle of megaphones and sidewalk chalk hardly makes one pathetic or even apathetic. It takes not one iota of thought to hold up a sign and jeer. But when I tried to hold the hand of Sara Broderick, president of CAN, by logically defending her confusing statements - for instance, that the war in Iraq "is in many ways linked to racism and xenophobia" - she gradually recoiled. First she told me that "Bush attacked Iraq based on the anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States," and followed through with the curious conclusion that "the advocates of the attack on Iraq are racists and xenophobes." In other news, I went to the grocery store to buy popcorn. Therefore, anyone who goes to a grocery store buys popcorn. Moreover, popcorn is a myth. When I strolled into the Radical Club Fair last Thursday and started speaking with Diaz, she dutifully recited the epistemological study by Johns Hopkins University that estimated the number of Iraqi deaths at 655,000. Since the concern for American soldiers is the foremost premise upon which the opposition is based, I asked Broderick what would happen to the Iraqi civilians for whom their hearts bled if the United States were to exit next week. "The Iraqi people [would] have a stake in their country," she said. "Right now, any infrastructure that is built will be to benefit American corporations." Well, as long as it's not our fault. There is no correlation between one's passion for a subject and the soreness of his throat after screaming outdoors at nobody in particular. The Roosevelt Institution, a student-run policy think tank, is a shining example of this. Any freshman can organize a dozen rallies, but when it comes to determining who is dedicated, I'll choose the student who wrote a 50-page policy proposal. It is unfathomable that charges of apathy could be lobbed at a student who opts out of the brassy, robotic activism scene. Who doesn't care about Darfur? "Raising awareness" is too often a r�sum�-friendly way of expressing a louder, brighter form of inaction. Click here to read the article from The Washington Square's website. |
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