REPORTING. “It’s their Vietnam”: in Berkeley, the student mobilization for Gaza recalls the anti-establishment past of the American university

The war in Gaza continues to inflame American university campuses. The movement, which began in Columbia, spread to Los Angeles but also to Berkeley, near San Francisco.

It has been two weeks since the first tents were set up on the Californian campus of Berkeley, near San Francisco, and there are now more than 150. While more than 2,200 arrests took place during student mobilizations against the war in Gaza in the United States, the demands in Berkeley are taking place peacefully. There was no police intervention or evacuation, like at UCLA in Los Angeles.

Berkeley is one of the most prestigious universities in the world, llinked to 114 Nobel Prizest whose former students founded, for example, Apple or Ebay. But it is also on this square that the movement for the liberation of student speech was born. This is where the first arrests of students who distributed leaflets in favor of civil rights for blacks took place in 1964, but also that Martin Luther King called for a “revolution of values” in 1967 in front of the crowds gathered against the Vietnam War. And it is still on these marches that the movement against apartheid in South Africa took place in the 1980s.

“Put pressure” on management

A past that students know well and to which they cling to win their case. VSLike Judy, in the second year of political science, they are calling in particular for an end to investments linked to the war in Gaza.

“The university has already done it for Vietnam, South Africa”she lists, also citing the decision taken by the university, “about two years ago”cut “ties to fossil fuel companies.” “EShe’s done it before, and she can do it again.”assures Judy. “They just need some pressure.” The student cites, in particular, the $427 million that Berkeley is investing in Blackrock, an asset manager that reportedly holds stakes in arms manufacturers.

“We will continue until they get rid of certain investments.”

Judy, a Berkeley student

at franceinfo

The demonstrators are discussing their demands with university management, which some teachers consider to be legitimate. This is the case of Jonathan Simon, who receives people in his office on the fifth floor of another building, higher up on campus. He has taught law at Berkeley for 20 years, where he was a student and has demonstrated in the past, particularly against apartheid. He wants to clarify that he is Jewish and that he supports the movement against the war in Gaza.

According to him, history shows that this type of mobilization pays off, even if “L“Student protesters are almost never popular.” They weren’t “during Vietnam” and mobilization against the war, “and I’m sure they weren’t popular in France in 1968 either”, nor during “the fight against apartheid”he lists again. “But each time, at least in the United States, the students have shown the country the path to take,” assures Jonathan Simon, whether “against Vietnam or against apartheid”.

“We are witnessing the beginning of a real turnaround against the apartheid system in Israel.”

Jonathan Simon, professor of law at Berkeley

at franceinfo

This is also the opinion of Barry Thorton, in his sixties. He works in a bookstore and came to support the movement, red keffiyeh on his shoulders. “I heard students say it was their Vietnam, I think it’s that deep.” he assures, even if it “is not as important” since the movement has just started. “But when students from Columbia, Stanford, Harvard do this kind of action, it’s a sign that there is a deep crisis in society,” maintains the bookseller.

Consequences on the presidential election

For the moment, Barry Thorton does not know who he will vote for in November in the presidential election, ebetween the candidates he calls “Trump the fascist” And “Biden the genocidal”. Indeed, the election of the next American president may also be being played out on campuses right now, although it will take place in six months. According to some surveys, the young electorate is partly turning away from the Democratic president because of his policy towards Israel.

What is certain, according to Professor Jonathan Simon, is that there will surely be a lot of demonstrators in August in Chicago during the Democratic convention, which will officially nominate Joe Biden as candidate. This is where the 1968 convention also took place, during the Vietnam War,ith demonstrations violently repressed by the police.

“I hope this will remind people that Richard Nixon was elected, in large part, because many anti-war Democrats were so angry at the Democratic Party, for the brutality of what happened during the convention, that they did not go to vote afterwards”he warns, taking the example of his parents. “They regretted it all their lives,” he assures.