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Hey-Hey! Ho-Ho! Nonsense Slogans Have Got to Go!

This issue contains a good deal of coverage related to the large protest held here in New York City on March 20. Many Graduate Center students participated in the demonstration, displaying large banners with the slogans FREE CUNY! and DROP TUITION, NOT BOMBS. Student activism has long been an aspect of scholarship at CUNY and it’s encouraging to see students and faculty getting together to voice their political views in a direct and visible way. Photos of the march reveal that distinguished professors marched right alongside the FREE CUNY! banner, and the GC should feel proud of this rare degree of political cooperation throughout the ranks. Furthermore, march organizers United for Peace and Justice should be commended for keeping the march well-disciplined, orderly and safe.

Other aspects of the demonstration were more problematic. Most publicists plugged the march in the weeks leading up to it with the phrase, “New York Still Says No to War.” This echoed the anti-war message of last year’s massive demo on February 15, and appealed to a broad coalition of New Yorkers and other Americans, not all of them on the Left, who were willing to demonstrate specifically in order to oppose the war in Iraq. In fact, the anti-war message resonates so strongly with people in New York that organizers were able to assemble between 36,000 and 100,000 participants—depending on whether you ask Mayor Bloomberg or leadership at United for Peace and Justice—even though the last year’s urgent drive to stop the war before it started is long gone.

March organizers, however, and particularly those affiliated with the ANSWER coalition, did not stick to this unifying message. Instead, marchers were inundated with signs, banners and especially with speeches emphasizing slogans that were not only divisive, but also devoid of political sense. New Yorkers are generally well-read, sophisticated people, and perceived the logic gap in these slogans. While moving through the march one was likely to hear people saying things such as “I don’t agree with anything they’re saying but I feel I have to march because I oppose the war,” or “Why do they keep repeating that awful slogan?” This visibly lowered morale at a march that was otherwise very well-organized and intended to showcase the anti-war movement’s unity and strength.

Two slogans in particular display the thoughtlessness of these speakers and banners: “Bring the troops home now!” and “Free all of Palestine!” Without going into a lengthy discussion on either of these topics (both subjects of long and ugly debates within the Left), suffice it to say that these two slogans run the risk of alienating many New Yorkers who oppose the war. “Bring the troops home now!” ignores the fact that the initial US bombing has disabled the Iraqi state and many of its institutions, such as those supplying water, electricity, security and medicine. Bringing the troops home now is a recipe for civil war and extended bloodshed along ethnic and religious lines.

“Free all of Palestine!” for its part, seems to imply that the entire Israeli state be destroyed. Nearly all at the March would have agreed that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the new Israeli wall, is dead wrong. So why must marchers be subjected to such a reactionary and extremist agenda? What the anti-war movement needs at this point is not divisive extremism, but open debate with true unity and collectivity as a goal.

Is The Advocate a Liberal Rag?
An Open Letter to Two Critics in the 5th Floor Men’s Bathroom

A while back we overheard a conversation in the 5th floor men’s bathroom. Two GC students were lamenting the fact that the last Advocate headline suggested that “GC Students” were “taking on the RNC.” They disagreed fervently, complaining that it was silly to suggest that the GC moved in concert on any political issue. Finally, they took issue with leftist information and RNC Not Welcome propaganda posted in the windows of the sociology department, as well as the fact that the article associated the Sociology department with anti-RNC mobilization.

Of course, we did not intend to assert that all GC students are anti-Bush or anti-RNC or anti-anything. This is a diverse community. However, The Advocate, as the Graduate Center’s only student-run newspaper, publishes articles from a base of students who feel passionate enough about something to write about it. We put out calls for articles to all departments, and it is strange indeed that most students who do step forward are liberal, political, and anti-Bush.

The Graduate Center lacks the sprawling tree-lined greens of Yale, and the stylish student activity centers of Harvard and Princeton. Instead, we have isolated department lounges and occasional socials put out by a DSC working hard to create a community out of a fragmented, working-class student body. We also have this paper, and it is yours.

To that end, we humbly suggest you bring your voices out of the bathroom and into The Advocate.