Friday October 5, 2001
University students across the US are organising daily protests against war and terrorism in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington.
Although there is plenty of pro-war sentiment among the generation of students born during the Reagan years, within days of the plane crashes, new student protest groups had formed, aiming to fight President George Bush’s war rhetoric.
One of the first campuses off the mark was on the west coast, an area renowned for student protest. Students at the University of California formed the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition on Friday, September 14.
Coalition member Hoang Phan drafted its resolution, which is helping to define the national student protest movement. He wrote that students are sympathetic to the victims, but oppose anti-Arab/Muslim sentiments and violence and want to see a peaceful response.
The resolution has influenced the demands of a new coalition between five universities, called Students for a Peaceful Response, spearheading student protest in the US. SPR helped organise a national day of action on September 20, during which students on nearly 150 campuses around the country held rallies.
The largest campus action was at Berkeley, where Hoang Phan claims nearly 5,000 students protested against violence, faced by only 20 pro-war hecklers. However, the New York Times the next day reported only half that number of students turned up, and 10 times the number of hecklers were shouting abuse.
What was remarkable about the national action was that while Americans expect Californians to rally against war, this protest has spread across the US, with even mid-west and east coast universities getting involved.
Since September 20, organisers around the country, including Illinois, New York, Washington State, claim momentum is building. Campuses are holding rallies or teach-ins, where large discussions and lectures are held to explain the issues and historical background to the crisis.
At Berkeley, there is a teach-in about racism and war being held on Tuesday. Another rally is being planned a day later.