Sayaras
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The following article which was translated by some penpals , gives an overview historic sketch.
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Hitler, Khomeini and Red Danny: the dark history of student organizations in the world.
In light of the anti-Semitic demonstrations on campuses in the USA, I set out to check whether the students tend to stand on the right side of history.
On November 15, a violent protest took place at the headquarters of the Democratic National Convention in Washington. Pro-Palestinian groups blocked the entrances to the headquarters building with several party members besieged inside. When the police tried to disperse the protesters, including by using pepper spray, exchanges of blows began between the parties, and the results of the incident amounted to 6 police officers and nearly 100 protesters who were injured, and for over three hours when the party members were besieged in the building.
A wave of criticism of the protests swept the US, and in response an American named Jeremy Flood wrote the following post on the X Network (formerly Twitter):
"A rule of thumb is that if you find yourself in any period of history opposing a student movement while siding with the elite, you are wrong. Every time. Every time. No matter the issue."
Flood's post, a current and former member of several democratic bodies and even worked in the Bernie Sanders election campaign and in the organization that helped Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be elected to the House of Representatives, has received no less than 8.5 million views to date.
Now, in the shadow of the violent pro-Palestinian protests at the "Ivy League" universities in the USA, we have returned to prominent student protests in the history of the USA and the world in general to test Flood's claim: are the students always on the "right" side of history?
Before we get to the roots of Flood's claim, it is important to note that student movements played a central role in many positive protests during the 20th century and at the beginning of this century. Student groups joined the resistance movement to Hitler, in the civil rights protests in the USA students were dominant and they also took part in the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic in the late 1980s. Similar examples can also be found outside the Western world, such as: the protesters in Tiananmen Square who were students, movement The Mexican students were the ones who demonstrated and demanded political freedoms and an end to the authoritarianism of the PRI regime in '68 and more.
Whoever claims that students have always been on the "bad" side of history must be wrong, but Flood's claim was that they are always on the "good" side, and this claim will now be examined under a microscope.
You fell on the wrong side
In the service of Hitler
Alongside the student movements that opposed Hitler, there were also those who stood on the other side. Those who led the burning of the books in 1933 were students from 34 universities throughout Germany and tens of thousands of books penned by Jewish and American writers went up in flames.
Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda who led the burning of the books. Photo: Getty Images).
There were also a number of student media outlets that fully embraced Nazi ideology. For example, the newspaper Die Bewegung (the newspaper of the Nazi Student League) declared at the end of 1938: "The goal has been achieved! No more Jews in German universities", when the writer of the article congratulated the students for being the pioneers of Nazism in institutions of higher education.
Until 1945, the Nazi student organizations were a significant factor in the academic surveillance of faculty members and other students. In this framework, students passed information to the Nazi authorities about many lecturers and students who were imprisoned, tortured or murdered.
Guerrilla fighters.
The student organization DR-13-M actively assisted Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba and even organized an attack on the presidential palace that ended in dozens of deaths. In 1959, after the rebellion was successful and Castro seized power, the Revolutionary Committee, a student-based organization, united with Castro's movement, the July 26 Movement, and together they formed the Union of Revolutionary Organizations government. Under Castro's regime, students took an active part in murdering, torturing, re-educating, and arresting those considered suspects.
By the way, the United Party has rebranded itself twice since then, but controls Cuba to this day under the name "PCC", or "Communist Party of Cuba".
The Red Guards.
During the Cultural Revolution in China, the "Red Guards" movement functioned, an extensive movement of students and other young people. The movement believed in spreading Mao's centralist communist ideology, used violence against people who believed they were leading China back to the path of freedom and capitalism and even helped imprison and murder millions. Those students were eager to help eliminate Mao's opponents.
And what about the "elite"? The fate of educated and influential people whose luck was better for them amounted to only being removed from their jobs.
Danny the Red.
In May 1968, student demonstrations broke out in Paris against the French leader at the time, Charles de Gaulle, which developed into a general strike and then into confrontations with the authorities and street fights. The protests were so widespread that about two-thirds of the French workforce at the time was Saturday and in the country there were even fears of a civil war breaking out.
The one who led the protests was Daniel Cohen-Bendit, a German-French Jewish politician, nicknamed "Danny the Red" because of his red hair. The government was on the verge of collapse and the protests even drove de Gaulle, who was certainly no coward, from French soil. Eventually the protests subsided and in the elections that year, de Gaulle's party won.
History is repeating itself.
Did you miss the Democratic convention? Don't worry, here she is back to us.
1968 was a particularly tumultuous year in the USA. The Vietcong attack, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and in addition it was an election year. Several protest organizations, including student organizations such as the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, started a protest against the Vietnam War and elected the Democratic Convention which took place that year in Chicago.
The protest events began in the days before the conference and included several focal points, in many of which the protests deteriorated into violent confrontations, severe violence, including throwing stones at police officers and even live shooting.
Over 500 protesters, over 100 uninvolved civilians and 152 police officers were injured in the riots. One, the civilian who fired the gun, was killed.
By the way, as you know, this year is also an election year and the destination chosen for the Democratic convention is none other than Chicago.
Kidnapping in the service of the Ayatollah
A large Iranian student movement also aided the rise to power of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as part of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.
On November 4 of that year, a group of Iranian students invaded the US embassy in Tehran and took the embassy employees hostage. The hijackers demanded that the US extradite the deposed ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was staying in its territory at the time to receive medical treatment, to Iran in order to to stand trial for crimes against the state. The plot of the Oscar-winning film "Argo" is based on the fascinating tragedy.
Khamenei goes up to Khomeini's grave. Photo: EPA.
Epilogue.
Student movements are a very young phenomenon on a historical scale. Nevertheless, there are those who wish to grant them a kind of super status of promoting justice and progress that is always on the right and good side. However, in light of the examples we saw here as well as in other cases - many students supported the dark side of history.
Even today, when the prevailing sentiment in the American ivory tower is that students physically harming their classmates in countless anti-Semitic incidents, harassing people on the basis of their origin and calling for genocide are the good side, the world needs to oppose this with a clear voice as Republican Senator Josh Hawley did in his speech in the Senate:
"As a nation, we need to speak with one voice. There is right and wrong, good and bad, and threatening to murder an entire group of people is wrong and bad. Calling it genocide is wrong and bad, threatening the lives of your fellow students because they are Jewish is wrong and bad. These institutions, The so-called higher education institutions have failed with these students because it is quite clear that they have no ability to distinguish between good and bad."
It seems that Jeremy Flood and the masked gang who roam the campuses, terrorizing and calling for intifada should leave the lawn and open a history book every now and then.
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