The hunger strike was a critical stage of student resistance to racist CU policies and extracted important concessions from the university administration. However, these concessions are primarily important not because the reforms themselves, but because they demonstrated the power of students united. They showed that the way to wage a sharp struggle is through unity, strength, and rising militancy.
To take on the university's anti-worker expansion into Harlem, the end of the hunger strike must signal the beginning of a qualitatively new phase of the struggle. It is time to simultaneously broaden and sharpen the attack. Most critically, now we must demonstrate not just the power of student unity, but that of worker-student unity, between Harlem's working masses and CU's student body.
The student resistance, like the most basic laws of motion, is driven forward by contradictions both external (the students vs. the university) and internal (student reformism vs. radicalism/revolutionism). The more advanced the struggle becomes, the more workers and students unite in camaraderie and action, the harsher the university will react. This is to be expected, and will be a good sign that we are finally moving forward and doing something right.
Internally, as well, the divide between reform and revolution, between the demand for superficial vs. structural change, will continue to become increasingly polarized. This, like the intensification of the external contradictions, is to be welcomed. Progress is only made through the intensification of contradiction.
The situation with the university was like a pot of water. The hunger strike provided heat, and slowly but surely, and eventually faster and more rapidly, small bubbles of resistance and struggle began to form, rising to the surface. The end of the strike leaves us open to two directions: turning off the heat, or letting it bring the water to a new qualitative form: boiling, turning it to steam.
The important thing is to rally the student body and the Harlem working class around the radical, revolutionary pole by continuing (but again, a newer, bigger way) what the hunger strikers made an truly amazing start of: Harlem/community worker-Columbia student unity.
The hunger strike is over, but the struggle continues
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.
Lucha organizes "Immigration Week" on campus
11/12/07 -- Lucha, one of the groups central to taking on the Minuteklan last year on campus, kicked off its Immigration Week events tonight with a candlelight vigil at 9pm. The event, scheduled to coincide with the nightly 9pm vigils in support of the student hunger strikers, drew a sizable crowd of at least 100 people, despite the cold and rain.
Many students, faculty and others spoke, make demands ranging from reform of core curriculum to include more ethnic studies, to more radical calls to oppose conservative and liberal immigration policies alike. One young speaker identified himself as an undocumented immigrant, and told the crowd of how he learned just recently that after repeated appeals, his remaining immediate family in the US was now going to be deported.
PLP handed out leaflets about opposing anti-immigrant racism, and copies of Challenge-Desafio. One PLer also took a turn on the microphone, introduced himself as a student, member of PL and the international working class, and a proud Communist, stating that "the capitalists, conservative and liberal, want to pave the way to wider wars, bigger profits, and increasing fascism--and they're going to do it with the dead bodies of thousands of immigrant workers and their children."
He stressed that workers of all "races" need to unite to smash the whole rotten, capitalist system. "How long will we wait [until we finally get rid of the entire system] while we fight for breadcrumbs from these capitalist parasites?" After saluting Lucha for organizing the event, as well as the hunger strikers whose tents were close by, the comrade ended with the chant, "smash racist deportations, working people have no nations!"
While the politics at the event ranged from the predictably nationalist--there were several invocations of the Young Lords, as well as one former member present--to the more openly revolutionary, PLP raised sharp political points and the event energetic and moving.
Lucha will be hosting a series of events throughout the course of the week, including speakers and film showings. A particularly important event, on Wednesday from 12-4pm at Low Plaza, will be about the DREAM Act--which Lucha supports in their literature. PLP believes it is critical that all working people oppose this proposed legislation designed to stave off a real return of the draft by creating a back-door draft for undocumented immigrant youth wishing to gain US citizenship. The act offers a college education track to citizenship as well, however, only 1 in 20 youth would be eligible for the higher education option. The rest would simply be sent to fight and die in oil war after oil war. Supporting the DREAM Act is a fatal error and plays directly into the hands of reactionary forces of war and developing fascism.
Harlem workers, college students march against Columbia's racist expansion
(Pictured: Students speak out against Columbia's racist expansion and core curriculum in front of university president Lee Bollinger's residence.) 11/10/07 -- "Harlem: not for sale! Hunger strikers: not for sale! Our homes: not for sale! Our jobs: not for sale!" These were a few of the chants that filled the air as a multiracial crowd of 250 angry community members, students, faculty, and organizers marched on Columbia's main campus and Lee Bollinger's house.
By 12:30 in the afternoon, a throng of protesters had gathered on the steps to Low Library. One speaker after another, ranging from community organizers to student hunger strikers, spoke out in rage and indignation at Columbia's racist effort to expand northward into Harlem, displacing 5,000 black, Latin, and white working-class residents. Students in particular were also protesting Columbia's Eurocentric core curriculum and demanding more ethnic studies programs. The speeches were in English and Spanish, and a palpable energy filled the crowd.
After rallying for perhaps 30 minutes, everyone marched from the Columbia campus over to the house of its president, Lee Bollinger, to the rhythm of a radical marching band from Brooklyn. Unfortunately it was reported that Bollinger was not home, but the crowd rallied for another 30 minute in front of his residence and heard the demands of community members not to be displaced or to have a hazardous biological agent research facility near their homes. More student organizers and hunger strikers raised their voices on the megaphone about Columbia's broader place within a long history of brutal American imperialism and exploitation, even drawing connections to the manifest destiny policy responsible for the displacement and genocide of millions of American Indians. One pointed out it was the very nature of the profit system that made Columbia not give a rat's ass about workers and students.
PLP members and friends took part in the march, made several new contacts from Columbia, Hunter, and City College, and distributed every single copy of Challenge/Desafio we had with us. Unfortunately, we had a limited supply to begin with and did not anticipate the large size of the demonstration, so this only amounted to 50 copies. However, black and Latin workers eagerly grabbed copies out of our hands faster than we could keep up. Some other marchers remarked they had not seen PL in 40 years. One said "Hey, is that Challenge? Give me a copy!" and went on to explain that PL was one of the first political groups he had ever become involved with when, in 1968, he was a Columbia student taking part in the big strike.
We also helped distribute leaflets from various community organizers PL Columbia students have begun working with, that pointed out the utterly racist nature of Columbia's actions and of its very nature as an institution.
There will be another mass protest on December 1st, and we have been busy working with other student organizers on campus as well to provide support to the hunger strikers. We are also struggling to raise these issues in the graduate schools, which for the most part are less involved or aware of a lot of the issues surrounding the hunger strike than the undergraduate students. There is a lot of work to be done, and a long road ahead regardless of the final outcome of the hunger strike itself.
We are dedicated to supporting the masses of students and community members in their demands, and to struggling with them in a comradely fashion over the internal contradictions between reform and revolution--and the necessity of the latter. The students at Columbia are doing big and bold things worthy of much praise, especially the hunger strikers who are putting their health, wellbeing, and lives on the line. But students in PL must help forge and understanding amongst the broader student body that without this developing movement receiving leadership from the multiracial masses of workers in Harlem--and not vice-versa--student activists will ultimately set themselves up for failure.
The fate of the student demands and the Harlem community are bound up together, but only when the student body unites behind Harlem's working class, rather than in front of it, will victory in the immediate struggle be a possibility. And more importantly, only when the students of the world unite behind the workers and soldiers of the world can we smash this whole brutal racist profit system and replace it with one where we give according to our commitment, and receive according to our need: the bright future of communism!