The protest is a form of political expression that should only be employed to condemn the most egregious of offenders. The idea of scores of idealistic activists coming together and acting as one cohesive unit is truly a thing of beauty — beauty that is best viewed only once in a great while.
Just as tourists flock in great numbers to gaze at the awe-inspiring Great Pyramid of Giza, this wonder of the ancient world elicits little more than a passive glance among the citizens of Cairo. This is because the pyramid, much like a protest, tends to lose its allure if viewed too frequently.
Unfortunately, some students at the University of Wisconsin fail to realize the more frequently they mobilize and take to the streets the less of an effect it will have on the general public.
Protests are only successful when the general public — the median voter, if you will — turns on the television and is amazed that such a large volume of people feel so strongly about a given issue. If faced with a protest whenever the average Wisconsin resident opens the newspaper, however, rest assured they will almost immediately dismiss the demonstration as just another gathering of hopelessly radical students under the influence of their equally radical professor.
Over the past few years this campus has seen students protesting a bar's dress code, members of the Teaching Assistant's Association threatening to withhold grades as a bargaining tool for better benefits, a hunger strike at the Capitol to lower tuition and various anti-war demonstrations that fail to recruit large numbers of students.
More recently, enraged protestors have stormed Bascom Hall twice in the past few weeks attempting to occupy the office of Chancellor Wiley. One of the demonstrations included students condemning The Badger Herald, while the other group of incensed activists fired out ultimatums demanding the chancellor adopt a new policy for University of Wisconsin-licensed clothing.
However, their righteous anger failed to inform them that Mr. Wiley was not in Bascom Hall at the time of either protest.
It is demonstrations like this, consisting of students waiting for any excuse wave a sign and march down the street, that have sadly rendered protests impotent for the time being.
And please don't mistake me for a right-wing humbug who feels personally offended by college students voicing their opinions. I am sympathetic to many of the issues students have rallied against recently, and I hold Madison-area Vietnam protestor Paul Soglin in the same esteem as televangelist Pat Robertson holds Jesus Christ.
The fundamental difference that separates Mr. Soglin from his modern day equivalent, then, is that the quagmire in Vietnam was an issue of such magnitude that it directly affected virtually everyone in the country. It simply has no modern day equivalent. There is no issue today that could possibly evoke the same emotions among such a large section of the population.
Whereas those serving in Iraq today voluntarily joined the armed forces, young men in 1967 were faced with compelled conscription. And those unable to avoid the draft were disproportionately poor minorities, serving only to strengthen the enormous racial and class divisions that plagued 1960's America. Upwards of 50,000 American men and women lost their lives serving in Vietnam, and the corrupt Saigon politicians they defended were almost as murderous and dictatorial as their enemies to the north, except South Vietnamese tyrants Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen van Thieu rejected communism and were thus allies.
Madison served as ground zero for Vietnam protests in the 1960s and '70s, and to be sure, UW has maintained its reputation for student activism. However, while the ammunition for protests has diminished in the decades since the U.S. pulled troops out of Southeast Asia, student desire to protest has remained constant. Just ask any economics major what happens when demand outweighs supply.
And while no current issue can possibly compare to the Vietnam War, it certainly does not mean students should refrain from protesting all together. There exists a happy medium between protesting every issue under the sun and the death of student activism, that will ultimately result in positive social change. However, as long as demonstrations are as common as house parties on campus, non-collegiate individuals will continue to view them as nothing but a group of whiney students hopelessly out of touch with the rest of the country.
Rob Hunger ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.
