The Return of Student Activism
7 November 2008
For the last few years I have received frequent telephone calls from journalists asking "why don't students protest anymore?" "Why are the young so politically disengaged?" In response I point to the professional pressures on students to get good grades, the public cynism about the possibilities for change, and the absence of prominent leaders in our society who can inspire the young.
President-Elect Barack Obama has changed everything. His campaign and his election on Tuesday re-connected students with politics. It re-charged their hopes and it re-ignited their public energies. The events of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning made this clear.
In the hour after television networks called the election for Obama thousands of students -- from all backgrounds -- assembled on State Street. Unlike the Halloween revelers a few nights earlier, these students did not create disorder of any kind. Instead, they peacefully marched to the Capitol waving American flags and singing the National Athem. After that, they marched up Bascom Hill doing the same. This was a spontaneous collection of young people exulting in victory, affirming their patriotism, and demanding a better world. This was a new generation of activists coming together to say "yes we can."
In my large lecture course on Wednesday morning I asked students to explain their feellings. Their voices trembled with emotion. One student said she now felt like her political voice mattered as never before. Another explained that he had a new faith in the future. One other student said she felt this was "their election." Most of these young men and ladies called their parents on election night to celebrate. They also affirmed an inter-generational bond through the politics representated by Obama. As in prior periods, a new generation of activists simultaneously drew from and separated themselves from the politics of their parents.
The return of student activism in Madison and across the nation provides Obama with an enormous reservoir of talent and energy as he formulates new policies. He has a remarkable opportunity to draw on wide and diverse voices to create a better world. That is also the challenge. Obama will have to find a way to elicit public enthusiasm, as he did throughout the campaign, but now channel it to specific priorities, including the economy, health care, and the war in Afghanistan. Coordinating policy with mass action will not be easy, but it must be done. If Obama can do this he will avoid the tragic fate of his White House predecessors in the 1960s. He can spark a powerful burst of productive creativity in government, and encourge more creativity in society as a whole. The students can help make Obama a great president.
President-Elect Barack Obama has changed everything. His campaign and his election on Tuesday re-connected students with politics. It re-charged their hopes and it re-ignited their public energies. The events of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning made this clear.
In the hour after television networks called the election for Obama thousands of students -- from all backgrounds -- assembled on State Street. Unlike the Halloween revelers a few nights earlier, these students did not create disorder of any kind. Instead, they peacefully marched to the Capitol waving American flags and singing the National Athem. After that, they marched up Bascom Hill doing the same. This was a spontaneous collection of young people exulting in victory, affirming their patriotism, and demanding a better world. This was a new generation of activists coming together to say "yes we can."
In my large lecture course on Wednesday morning I asked students to explain their feellings. Their voices trembled with emotion. One student said she now felt like her political voice mattered as never before. Another explained that he had a new faith in the future. One other student said she felt this was "their election." Most of these young men and ladies called their parents on election night to celebrate. They also affirmed an inter-generational bond through the politics representated by Obama. As in prior periods, a new generation of activists simultaneously drew from and separated themselves from the politics of their parents.
The return of student activism in Madison and across the nation provides Obama with an enormous reservoir of talent and energy as he formulates new policies. He has a remarkable opportunity to draw on wide and diverse voices to create a better world. That is also the challenge. Obama will have to find a way to elicit public enthusiasm, as he did throughout the campaign, but now channel it to specific priorities, including the economy, health care, and the war in Afghanistan. Coordinating policy with mass action will not be easy, but it must be done. If Obama can do this he will avoid the tragic fate of his White House predecessors in the 1960s. He can spark a powerful burst of productive creativity in government, and encourge more creativity in society as a whole. The students can help make Obama a great president.
| 1. November 09 2008 02:29 PM | I think that you're onto something here Professor Suri. There is a large untapped reservoir of talent and desire in the nation today and I believe that President-elect Obama means to tap it. What a difference from the current administration, telling us to just go shopping. I can't wait to see what we're capable of with some actual leadership coming from the top. --Posted by Kevin Mack | |
| 2. November 09 2008 08:23 PM | The student activism that those journalists who called were referring to was the active protest movement of the 1960's during the Vietnam War era. I was a student at UW Madison during those turbulent years and our campus was a center of student unrest and activism. Professor Suri's book Power and Protest provides a great framework for understanding the critical issues of that era, providing insight and perhaps allowing us to contrast that time in our history to what we are coping with today. Barack Obama has successfully promoted himself as the candidate of Change in this past election... students on the Madison campus and others around the country (and around the world) attempted to be the agents of change in our own societies that we believed had failed to lead, were mired in fruitless competion and failed to deliver on promises to promote social welfare, racial justice in the US and equal opportunity under the law. We saw promise and hope in elements of President Kennedy's policies of the New Frontier. The Peace Corps offered a constructive means for America to project its power and image abroad for the good. President Johnson's Great Society offered further commitment to social welfare largely through health care and welfare reform. Ultimately, the prosecution of what growing numbers of students felt to be an immoral and unjust War in Vietnam compromised whatever credibility The Johnson Administration had initially. As Prof. Suri correctly points out in his important book Power and Protest, even moderate students began to read Galbraith's Affluent Society and ask themselves if the vast wealth our society was creating was being fairly applied to "social imbalances between human needs and lucrative market priorities". How different is this really from Obamas appeal to issues of fairness in the allocation of resources in society today?
I agree with Professor Suri's point that Obama has an opportunity address issues that will create a better, --Posted by Alan Greene | |
| 3. November 09 2008 08:29 PM | Sorry the text limitation cut off the end of my post. To complete the thought, President elect Obama has the chance to create a better society if students can see real progress over time and remain engaged in the process of changing society. --Posted by Alan Greene | |
| 4. November 10 2008 08:04 AM | Alan and Kevin raise important points about the power of leadership, inspiration, and public mobilization. As in the 1960s, our campuses are filled with bright and idealistic young men and women who are looking for a calling. My best students are more interested in changing the world than getting rich. President John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired thousands of young people -- including Alan -- to join the Peace Corps, invest in their communities, and march for civil rights. We need the same kind of inspired, determined, and challenging leadership today. Our students are hungry for leadership. More than anything, this is President Obama's greatest opportunity to bring our country to new heights. --Posted by Jeremi Suri | |
