Faraway from the Gaza warzone, unrest and activism on US university campuses over this war, is becoming a war in itself. The known seats of activism and not so well-known universities—all seem to participate in this unrest, which is raising certain fundamental questions on the American university system itself. American education system seems broken.
The Gaza conflict’s impact on US university campuses is reflecting not only the broader polarization and deep-seated divisions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but potentially a poor understanding of how wokesim is actually becoming a replacement of the yesteryear’s communism. It is on the path to destroy young minds and make the students to become obedient slaves.
Dozens of American universities from UC Berkeley, Columbia University, University of California, Harvard University, New York University (NYU), University of Michigan to many more are engulfed in these solidarity protests and counter protests.
The protests, sit-ins, demonstrations and rallies by pro-Palestinian student groups to condemn Israeli actions and show solidarity with the Palestinian people are met by similar voices by pro-Israel student groups staging counter-protests or events to defend Israel’s actions and highlight its security concerns, emphasizing the context of Hamas rocket attacks or terrorism. Controversial events have exacerbated these divisions and is leaving everybody worrying what if these spiral and really go out of control. Protestors are refusing to windup camps. Police actions and arrests have already started in some places.
Global events and conflicts of this nature are bound to influence unrest on American campuses, given the culture of activism and now wokesim. While ideological differences and political polarization among students, faculty, and administrators has been leading to tensions and conflicts on campus earlier as well, but this time the scale is unprecedented in the recent history. Balancing the principles of free speech, academic freedom, and respect for diverse viewpoints while ensuring the safety and well-being of the campus community is becoming a challenging task.
If this can happen in US, think of other countries and democracies where such protests and counter-protests can trigger violence and a chain of reprisals. Sayyid Qutb Muslim Brotherhood’s most influential thinker, was actually triggered by his experiential working in the USA. He rejected the western values by calling them primitive and shocking and openly loathed individual freedoms and mixing of genders. One of the warring parties in Gaza is influenced by Brotherhood and is fundamentally chasing its ideology where buying ‘peace’ can be a temporary truce and just a stopover.
All wars including this present one is against humanity and must be condemned and stopped by all means. The survivors and innocent victims must be supported. At the same time, universities, colleges and schools, must foster understanding and constructive discussion about such conflicts in all dimensions. But not the Riddhi Patel way as someone has said: Play stupid games Win stupid prizes.
The American education system needs to go beyond the ritualistic mitigating and grievance mechanism to enact a filtering grid to keep extreme ideologies away from campuses and important learn lesson from the current crisis.
