How Columbia University is the new face of the Intellectual Intifada

Students have forever been the face of the young revolution, only now being louder, fearless, and more audacious. 

Universities across the United States have been witnessing an expanding movement on campuses by students protesting for Palestine against the war waged by “Israel” and supported by the US. This movement is not new – this movement is reborn with a cause brushed under the history books only to be unearthed by those living it.

Students of the United States, of all ethnicities and backgrounds, are bringing back human rights activism, which dates back to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, which influenced the anti-war movement that was ignited during the American War on Vietnam.

The Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University, which instigated the domino effect of pro-Palestine protests in universities across America, is more than just a wave of uproar against the US government’s military and financial support for “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza. It represents the call to action, mirroring the voice of power, which, in turn, gives voice to resistance against injustice.

However, the domino effect is sending the US government into a spiral of panic. Why?

Complex yet simply put, student activism is making a comeback, through civil disobedience and peaceful protests, to challenge the imperialist system that uses the academic institution as a tool of social control to enforce its ideologies and conceal the failures of its own history and present. 

And being “woke” is sort of the boogeyman of the government, because the term itself challenges the government and looks it dead in the eye.

‘By all means necessary’ and peacefully

Student demonstrations, regardless of how peaceful they are, have always been a bone for the government to pick with ever since the 1968 protests at Columbia against the war in Vietnam. Other universities like the University of Michigan and NYU followed suit, and thus the anti-war movement gained traction and the attention of the American youth. 

As of last week, the Morningside campus of Columbia has been the stage of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment where tents have been set up by students, housing posters calling for the end of the siege and genocide in Gaza encouraged by Western allies. The on-site encampment was the venue of multiple forms of protests such as teach-ins (which began in the 1960s Vietnam protests), dances, and poetry readings, while other students were seen completing assignments and painting. 

Then comes the crackdown at the hands of New York’s finest, the NYPD. Picture this: America has a problem, instead of resorting to ways to solve the problem, who are they going to call? The police.

Columbia students, during their peaceful protests, have been calling for the complete divestment of the university from ties with “Israel” and the occupation’s business entities. 

However, in a shocking turn of events, NYPD Chief John Chell revealed that it was the University’s President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik (of Egyptian descent, by the way) who called the police after calling the demonstration a “clear and present danger.”

“To put this in perspective, the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner,” he said.