There was once a time when the University of Wisconsin-Madison was a center of radical anti-war activism. During the late 1960s, the student body took to the streets in protest against a war in Vietnam that was unjustified and inhumane. They demonstrated and staged sit-ins. In short, they did something about an obvious injustice.
Today, there exists a similar type of war in Iraq but a very different type of response. Despite Madison's liberal reputation, the sad — or perhaps shameful — reality is that few UW students have ever taken part in any sort of organized anti-war effort. Over the last few years, there has been a march here, a counter-recruitment demonstration there, but nothing that could be defined as a real movement against the war. Of course, this isn't just a local phenomenon; the inability to jump-start an anti-war movement in Madison has been echoed throughout the country.
Yet we all know of the human tragedy that is the American occupation of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed; millions have been left homeless, unemployed, maimed. More than 2,700 American soldiers have fallen, and the number increases every day. Meanwhile, the evidence that the war's justifications were lies continues to mount: The Downing Street Memo and countless other documents and reports reveal that the Bush administration did indeed "fix the facts" for the basis for going to war.
What is the explanation for this? Why isn't there a mass radicalization of students as there was during the Vietnam era? One contributing factor to the complacency of Americans is the relative complacency of their own media. Unlike the footage of the Vietnam War, the media today generally doesn't broadcast the horrors of war. Dead bodies, mutilated children and demolished homes usually aren't available for the American viewer to see. Obviously, this tends to dull the anger that most Americans feel about the war.
The tragedy of this is that the entire Democratic Party establishment is and always has been pro-war, including 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry. The flawed logic of anti-war voters putting all their faith in a political party that is mostly pro-war speaks for itself, and the result has been devastating for building a viable anti-war movement.
Perhaps the most important reason for the lack of action against the war, though, is the absence of a draft. If thousands of young Americans were forced to fight an immoral war, then the obvious response would be active opposition. History would indicate this to be the case, as every major anti-war movement of the 20th century — from Canadian opposition to World War One to the French protests against their country's colonialism in Indochina and Algeria — has featured mandatory military service.
The above analysis seems to imply a hopeless situation. It is certainly undeniable that fighting back against the war machine is a monumental task. Still, Americans have become more frustrated as an unjust war continues to be waged, and the death toll continues to increase. A New York Times poll, conducted in June 2006, found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake. Of course, the emergence of an anti-war public is old news; the issue now is how to turn anti-war sentiment into resistance.
On the UW campus, the student body is solidly anti-war (witness the overwhelming "Yes" vote on the war referendum last spring). A movement can arise from such sentiment only if there is a real way of channeling it in a way that is productive to ending the war. The issue of how to best tap into the anti-war anger on the UW campus and throughout the country is fundamental to the emergence of a mass movement against the war.
It is in this context that the establishment of a new student organization at UW, the Campus Anti-War Network (CAN), should be welcomed. Here, the process of working to get students involved and confronting the problems of building a movement can become a reality. The group's central demand — immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq — is a breath of fresh air after listening to all the "gradual" withdrawal strategies of the so-called anti-war politicians in Congress.
It is only by getting involved with the movement through groups like CAN that any hope of ending the bloodshed in Iraq in the near future is possible. It is only through organization that we can hope to create an effective struggle against the war and, once again, fill the streets with anti-war activists.
Kyle Szarzynski ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in Spanish and history.
