NYU OCCUPATION. Will it accomplish anything?

2009-02-18T22:37:00.000-08:00

How have student occupations been successful? No
But they can be.
I was somewhat unintentionally involved in the New School occupation last December and I saw a great opportunity pass through clumsy hands. Too often, as per my experience, students push for reactions from authority figures instead of launching pro-community offensives. At New School, the protests quickly shifted into a student/security brawl, and at that moment they may have garnered some attention, but the group lost the respect of their fellow students. Radical student groups must pose an alternative to the chaos that these protests can invoke.
Creativity is one of many outlets that can be utilized to being on public interest, cooperation, and a better community. The students at NYU have to begin projects to further their interests and spur interest in their cause. Projects such as painting a mural in the occupied territory (maybe the Tisch students can help), organize performances in Washington Square (ask the theater kids), distribute poems and literature in the park (get the writers to do it), and get musicians to play protest songs (someone's gotta be able to play guitar). In the words of Ezra Pound, "Make it New". The protests must involve all NYU students from each corner of the academic institution in order to better represent the needs of all students through creative means.
Spawn new ideas, create diaologue, create bonds, create opportunity.
Student radicals must be sparking the gasoline of public interest, not the napalm that is violence.

The Word of Jingles

NYU OCCUPATION. Will it accomplish anything?