Students march to Hamilton in support of hunger strike demands

Video courtesy of the CU hunger strike support site.

11/14/07 -- One word can describe the feeling from the outset of tonight's rally: tension. Under a cloudy night sky that threatened rain at any moment, hundreds of students gathered in the largest hunger strike vigil yet on Columbia's main campus tonight. For the past few days, nightly vigils have been held at 9:00PM, typically drawing crowds ranging from 50-150, however tonight's vigil was easily double the size of any prior. At the same time, negotiations between representatives of the hunger strikers and university bosses continued inside Hamilton.

Word had come out that the university's negotiators had threatened to unilaterally withdraw from all negotiations and take back any concessions they had agreed to, in negotiations, so far. Tomorrow (11/15/07), the university and it's president, Lee Bollinger, would be hosting a number of dignitaries, including Kofi Anon, and did not want the tents and other signs of strike support to be visible to "important" outsiders. Students were threatened that if the tents and other signs of protest were not removed by midnight, police would forcibly remove them. Additionally, the administration said, two of the hunger strikers were facing expulsion.

Negotiators for the strikers refused to remove the tents and other visible signs of protest. To put further pressure on the administration, those gathered at the spirited vigil marched to Hamilton, where negotiations were taking place, and began chanting loudly outside. "The students united will never be defeated," they shouted. Various workers, students, and faculty from Columbia, City College, and the Harlem community then took their turns on the steps of the building (see video above).

Eventually, the march returned to the sundial to continue its regular vigil. Attendees gathered in clusters small and large to discuss the current situation, the students demands as represented by the brave hunger strikers, listen to music, and speak to the press.

Finally, word came: the university would place no academic penalties on the strikers. The tents would remain undisturbed. And not least of all, the massive show of student support tonight had an impact: university negotiators largely bent to all of the demands of the hunger strikers--except on its racist Harlem expansion. Then, the call was made. The hunger strike would go on. In fact, today two more students joined.

Amidst the flurry of excitement and relief, a student reportedly from City College took the platform to remind the crowd: "There are still fire trucks and police cars all up and down the streets outside," and that "just because the university says they're gonna do something doesn't mean they're gonna do it." At that moment, not a face in the crowd should even an ounce of doubt that he was absolutely right. Immediately, the crowd regained its more militant composure, issuing a loud cheer of defiance to the university.

Some students lingered, others left to catch up on some much-needed and well-earned rest, ready to return tomorrow to the sundial at noon.

The university acquiesced to most of the student demands for a number of reasons. For one, they realized that giving the student body too many bones to pick with the university was more trouble than it was worth. For another, they have simply been slower to accept what other university's realized long ago: diversity sells. More ethnic, race, and cultural studies simply means more funding from broader sources and better public relations--especially as CU continues to push its racist expansion into Harlem, expected to displace at least 5,000 working-class residents in the process.

It is doubtful if university negotiators thought it could buy-off student protesters on the Harlem issue--or at least soften them up--by bending to its other demands. But, we shouldn't put such a motivation past them, either.

Now is the time to up the ante. The hunger strikes have played an enormously important role in this campaign. These brave and bold students have accomplished much by putting their lives on the line for the demands of the students and faculty they represent. However, it may very well be that one of the inherent limits of the strike is that, while it is able to influence internal school policy and core curriculum, it is not enough--tactically speaking--to sway the university from its imperialist escapades in Harlem.

We in PL commend and fully support the hunger strikers, but we believe it is time to sharpen the struggle, to push it to achieve a qualitatively new form. This is something that could not have happened without the hunger strikers. Now that even much of the previously silent and unaware graduate student body has been brought back to earth by these undergard students and faculty, now that the hunger strikers have played the pivotal role in forging a significantly stronger alliance between students and faculty activists and the Harlem community, waging a pitched mass struggle around the expansion is our best shot at halting it.

To do this, we need to continue to build the existing momentum, tighten our links to the Harlem community even more, and most importantly: just as students lead on the issues of university curriculum, the workers and activists of Harlem must now take their turn in leading the students against CU.

These inspiring students have made some great and important leaps. Prior to the hunger strike, the campus was, with scant exception, awash in a sea of not apathy, but anti-activist sentiment. The hunger strikers themselves have shown a remarkable resilience and a filled a much-needed vacancy of committed student activist leadership. In turn, it is not difficult to observe a real, tangible change on campus. More and more students are rapidly getting involved in the struggle as word spreads. The hunger strikers may have actually succeeded in not only getting the university to bend on some issues, but much more critically, arousing the broader student and faculty body.

It was an important step to include the university's expansion on the list of the strike demands, but not because the university would ever change this particular agenda as a result of the strike. It was important because it helped forge a much deeper comradely connection between the student body and the Harlem community, an alliance that must cause Bollinger and his bosses many a sleepless night. On their own, it's easy for the university to smash the working class of Harlem and student resistance. But when the two are united, the university is suddenly facing a formidable, and likely unplanned, foe.

In fact, by addressing only the academic demands tonight, it is quite likely the university hopes to return to fighting on its own terms: dealing with student demands and demands about the expansion separately. But, while the unity of demands has been critical up to this point, Bollinger and his pals don't realize it's too late to split the demands apart again. That's because the real threat was never that the demands would be met or negotiated as a whole, but that if they were allowed to grow together for too long, the a Harlem worker-Columbia student alliance would arise--and now it already has. At this point, it no longer matters if the demands are met as one or not.

However, as stated, there was no way the university was ever going to bow to hunger striker demands about the expansion. It is possible that the best tactic now, rather than necessarily to continue the hunger strike, would be to build on the critical alliance it has brokered between students and workers in Harlem. Then, with Harlem workers at the helm and masses of students at their side, will have a much better shot (although still a far-from-inevitable one) at halting the expansion or at least modifying its terms.

Ultimately, one of the greatest accomplishments of the strikers, aside from this worker-student alliance, has been helping to clear the way for a more radical movement. With these demands met and the university, if only in certain respects, in retreat, now is the time to hit CU for the racist war-funder and -profiteer that it is; to attack its racist research, etc. More importantly, to attack CU as an inherently racist institution and servant of the capitalist class.

When workers and students unite they can be a nearly unstoppable force. All students and Harlem workers owe the hunger strikers an enormous debt for helping to bring these two groups together. We've seen what the students are made of when they've got Harlem behind them--now let's see what happens when the students get behind the working class of Harlem.