Unveiling Parallels: American University Protests and Historical Revolutions

Watan-Yes, history repeats itself, and the banners of freedom and justice are passed on from one generation of university students to the next. While the attacks of October 7th shattered the image of the strongest Israeli army and the superior security system of the occupying state, American university protests dismantle the Zionist narrative and replace it with the suffering of Palestinians under a colonial fascist Nazi occupation practicing genocide.

Why do I say this? Read with me:

In 1968, due to the Vietnam War, Columbia University students used protest tactics to demand the cancellation of their university’s contract with a weapons research center and to prevent plans to build a gymnasium in a public park in Harlem, predominantly inhabited by African Americans.

The protests continued for the rest of the semester, paralyzing the university, which ultimately decided to end its relationship with the defense research center and halt the controversial gymnasium plan.

Today, Columbia University students are calling for cutting all ties with the Israeli occupation state. On May 7, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, security forces killed four students and wounded nine others. The event led to a nationwide student strike, escalating protests and garnering greater national media attention towards the anti-war movement in Vietnam.

At the University of California in 1985, thousands of students gathered at Sproul Plaza on the campus of UC Berkeley to protest the university’s commercial ties with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The protests at UC eventually led to the withdrawal of billions of dollars in investments from the apartheid government in July 1986.

Time magazine described the student protest movements during the seventies as contributing to changing the message of higher education as a whole, noting that American universities, in their response to the protests, realized that their mission was not only to study the world around them and teach about it, but also to create an environment free from racism and gender discrimination, and to promote ideas centered on justice and progress.

And of course, these ideas are in complete contradiction with the unlimited support for a state under investigation by the International Court of Justice for war crimes and genocide.