The Protests Must Continue Until The Lessons Have Been Learned

Next Saturday, May 4, marks the 54th anniversary of the Kent State massacre, where National Guard troops were sent to break up a Vietnam War protest. Four innocent students died. Ten others were injured. Among the lessons we should have learned is that a) The military doesn’t belong on college campuses; b) college students have every right to protest; and c) Just because an idea isn’t popular doesn’t make it wrong. Obviously, we haven’t learned those lessons.

In its regular round-up of photos from the week, Reuters published a large number of photos from protests on university campuses. They included everything from violent encounters with police (the violence often started by the police making potentially illegal demands for ending the protests) to accounts of the Palestinian genocide such as this one:

And this one:

For those of us who were alive and paying attention to that fateful day in 1970, these images should bring back some frightening memories of an age some might have that was relegated to the past. The idea that students would be skipping class to protest war is one we want to put on the shelf with the history books of what we want to think of as a “more troubling” time. Was the Vietnam situation really any more troubling than what we’re facing today? I don’t think so. In fact, what we’re seeing today seems to be a clear indication that we’ve not grown, we’ve not become more intelligent, and we’re definitely not more humane than we were in 1970. We’ve not learned the lesson of that fateful day, which means the Kent State Four died in vain.

Perhaps we need a refresher course as to why these protests are necessary in the first place. The issue at the core of the protests is the longstanding and complex debate around a two-state solution. When the modern state of Israel was created in 1947, the United Nations put forward a plan to partition Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states, with special international administration over Jerusalem. This plan was accepted by Jewish leaders, who were allocated about 56% of the land area, despite comprising only about one-third of the population and owning less than 7% of the land. On the other hand, the Arab League and Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan, leading to the Arab-Israeli War following the end of the British Mandate.

This initial division and the successive wars and conflicts have left deep scars and continued political and territorial disputes. Over the decades, the idea of a two-state solution has been supported by various international bodies as a potential way to resolve the conflict, ensuring a peaceful co-existence between an independent Palestinian state and Israel. However, numerous challenges and failures in negotiations, changes in leadership, and external influences have hampered consistent progress toward this solution. Understanding this historical context helps clarify why the issue remains so passionate and why many feel protests are a necessary form of expression and advocacy for their rights and visions for the future.

Partisan religiously-fueled politics have long been the bain of any lasting solution. Former President Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize for seemingly brokering a solution between Yasar Arafat representing the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Factions external to the two political organizations resorted to violence in their opposition. Hamas, who currently controls Palestine, overthrew the PLO. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an ultra-nationalist who allegedly had ties with current Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. President Reagan tried solidifying relations with Israel, but that blew up in his face as it only made violent Palestinian factions more determined. Former President Bill Clinton tried his hand at a Camp David Peace Accord only to have that fail pretty much before either leader made it back home.

What’s the fuss all about? History. Both Palestinians and Israelis claim that they are the rightful owners of the land, going back thousands of years when both tribes were born through a wandering sheepherder named Abram. God, in one of those acts for which there were no third-party witnesses, told Abram that he and his family were chosen for all time and that the land was theirs.

Trouble started immediately. Abram didn’t have an heir. So, he fucked his side-girl, Rachel, and she had a son named Ishmael. Problem solved, right? Nope. Abram’s wife surprised everyone and even in her “old age” had her own son, Issac. Who would be the rightful heir? According to mythology, Abram told Ishmael to go in one direction and then took Issac in a different direction. Ishmael is seen as the founder of Islam, and Issac as the father of Israel and the two factions have been fighting over the same damn piece of land ever since. Both sides claim Abram gave the land to them. ALL of it.

Oh, but there’s more. Abram had more sons: Zimran, Ishbak, Jokshan, Midian, son of Abraham, Medan, son of Abraham. They each staked a claim to the land. THEN, Issac had twins, Jacob and Esau, and they weren’t able to get along and they each claimed the land. However, along came the Egyptians and everybody lost everything. They all went back to being nomadic tribes with no right to claim any piece of land as their home.

WHY THE FUCK CAN’T THEY JUST LET EACH OTHER LIVE IN PEACE? Because, quite honestly, the whole place is too factionalized. Even Netanyahu doesn’t have a majority of Israeli support within their own country! There’s no agreement anywhere and without any agreement there is never going to be a solution. Period.

What does exist are millions of innocent people who want nothing more than to live their lives, raise their children, sell their goods, and go home at the end of the day to a good meal and a nap. They want to play music, sing songs, play games, dance, and go to weddings without having to worry that some mother-fucking jackass with a theo-political agenda is going to detonate a bomb in the middle of everything.

Instead, one side bombs the other and the side bombs feel they have to retaliate. Who’s getting hurt when this happens? Innocent people. Always. Innocent people.

Innocent people are what fuels the protests. Specifically, the United States continues to fund the genocide of innocent people. Netanyahu likes saying that it’s just a price of war, that they can’t tell the difference between Hamas militants and a three-year-old child or a convoy delivering food aid. If they can’t tell who the fuck the enemy is then maybe they should put their fucking guns down and we (the US) should use our money on enemies we can define such as homelessness, hunger, and healthcare.

As with the Vietnam protests, what bothered college students was the number of innocent people in Vietnam and Cambodia who were being killed by US and UN Coalition troops. Remember this picture?

Those were our troops who burned their village, killed their parents, and sent them running from home, clothed or not. How could we not protest this type of action? How can we sit still in the face of such overwhelming inhumanity? The soldiers in this picture are guilty of genocide!

And here we are right back at it again, killing children, bombing hospitals, pretending that we can’t tell the difference between a Hamas militant and a starving child! We’re not really that stupid. We have facial recognition that can identify people in a crowd of thousands. WE KNOW DAMN WELL WHO THE BAD PEOPLE ARE, we just like killing in large numbers.

As reported on April 8, 2024, the conflict between Israel and Hamas has resulted in more than 34,000 fatalities. This figure includes 95 journalists and 224 humanitarian workers, with 179 of those being staff members of UNRWA. A substantial number of these deaths, totaling over 33,091, occurred in the Gaza Strip, where 70% of the deceased are women and children.

I was sitting on the bus yesterday morning, looking through the reams of nonsense, when I got a notification from the IMPD that said a protest had been broken up and 14 people were arrested for Obstructing Traffic. This is the image they shared:

IMPD made sure to mention that “not everyone that was arrested was from Indianapolis.” WTF? Four are from Fishers, which borders Indianapolis at 96th Street. Then one each from Lafayette, Columbus, and Union City. If that statement intended to make it sound as though the city were being invaded, then maybe IMPD needs to take a look at who the fuck is staying in our hotels this weekend. Not many of those folks are from Indy, either, and they live much further away than fucking Fishers.

Police/government attempts to stop the protests are their way of trying to control the narrative and keep everyone in line, something they’ve always been bad at doing because it’s not their fucking job. Protests both on college campuses and in the middle of the street are exercises of the freedom of expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution. And, as is the nature of protests, they’re not going to agree with those who are in power. If they agreed with what the administration is doing, then they wouldn’t need to protest, would they?

Sure, there are other means of communication, but which one is likely to actually get the immediate attention of those who are responsible for making a decision: a nicely worded email that Senator Young never sees, or the protest that blocks his way to the Capitol? Which is more effective? Which is more likely to result in something being done.

You don’t have to like what the protestors are saying, but if there’s one lesson that we should have learned from May 4, 1970, is that we probably need to start listening because history is almost certain to prove that they are right.

Politicians are stupid. Listen to the people who see the plight, the misery, and recognize the genocide their great-grandparents ignored. Until then, the protests will continue.