On Aug 24, 2024, at 10:37 AM,--Socialism’s at the core of pro-Palestinian movement’s next phase on college campuses
NORTHAMPTON — The pro-Palestinian organizers gathered for “coffee with comrades” on a recent muggy morning in the middle of Pulaski Park in Northampton, though most reached for water bottles rather than a hot cup of Dunkin. The crowd of about 20 graduate students and community members were reminded to use the communal sunscreen throughout the day of “summer camp,” before organizers rolled in a white board with a Palestinian flag draped over the side.
The main speaker, a University of Massachusetts Amherst PhD candidate, took the stage. He donned a keffiyeh and a Cuban Communist Party cap emblazoned with a red star, and began discussing readings by Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Leila Khaled, a former Palestinian militant and first woman to hijack an airplane.
“Our political system is falling apart,” William Chaney, the PhD candidate, said in an interview just before his lecture began. “If we want to leave the world better, we have to look back and learn lessons.”
The gatherings, happening each Saturday this summer, are the latest iteration of the pro-Palestinian encampments built on campuses across the nation last spring, including one at UMass Amherst, which ended in over 130 arrests. The summer camp, called the “Western Massachusetts Popular University for Palestine,” is designed to bring attention to the ongoing war in Gaza. But participants also view the Middle East conflict as a symptom of a much wider global malaise — the manifestation of the capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy they see embedded in Western society.
William Chaney discussed readings on social revolution during a pro-Palestinian weekly summer camp in Northampton.Kayla Bartkowski For The Boston Globe
Precisely what their new world order would look like is uncertain, which is part of what brought the group to Pulaski Park to discuss economic theory and historical texts that could offer guidance or cautionary tales. And it’s not clear how far this movement will get: Disagreements and diffuse leadership hobble their progress (student groups disagree on the best methods to push for university divestment from Israeli assets, for example), while allegations of antisemitism and the use of controversial slogans limit the palatability of their efforts.
Still, a surprising number of college-age students and recent graduates sympathize with much of their core ideology. Americans ages 18 to 29 have a more positive impression of socialism (44 percent) than capitalism (40 percent), a 2022 Pew Research Center poll found. The solution, in many of their minds, is a more egalitarian and democratic society that embraces communal ideals over profit, according to more than a dozen interviews with students and professors.
“Capitalism is a very individualistic system,” said Ava Harrington, a rising junior at UMass Amherst. “What’s most important is community — preserving life and preserving community.”
For many students, the pro-Palestinian encampments in the spring were a kind of utopia — warm, caring environments with participants contributing what they could to sustain the communities with libraries, food, medical aid, art, music, education, and other supports. Several students said participating in the encampments was a transformative experience.
“It felt like the blueprint, [or] the mappings of a better society,” said Owen Buxton, a student who was arrested twice in the spring semester at pro-Palestinian protests near Emerson College. “It felt like living outside of this capitalist, white supremacist patriarchy could actually be possible within my lifetime, which was inspiring.”
For generations, young people have been inspired by the writings of 19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx, though the US Communist Party largely dissipated after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Marx’s writings emphasize community over individualism, and offer a “very general” and “not very well defined” alternative to capitalism, said Julie Ann Matthaei, professor emeritus of economics at Wellesley College, who identifies as a Marxist.
“It’s much more about building new economic institutions and practices based on values of cooperation and equity, sustainability, democracy,” Matthaei said.
Frankie, who asked that only a first name be used, led the group in song during a pro-Palestinian student and community organizer weekly summer camp at Pulaski Park in Northampton. Kayla Bartkowski For The Boston Globe
Critics of socialism and communism point to repressive autocratic regimes such as those in the Soviet Union and Cuba as evidence that these ideologies do not work in practice. Some students and professors push back, pointing to nationalized health care in France and generous welfare systems in Nordic countries as evidence that socialist programs benefit the health and well-being of average people.
“Autocracy is something you have to be careful about,” said Gerald Friedman, professor of economics at UMass Amherst. “A democratic society needs to be a school teaching people to think in terms of self-interest, rationally understood. The students this way recognize that we all benefit when we’re all better off.”
In Northampton, the roughly 20 graduate students and community members broke into small groups to discuss the week’s readings, the shortcomings of capitalism, and debate the benefits and pitfalls of social media. At one point, two senior citizens joined and applauded the students’ efforts.
“When I was in my 20s, I envisioned a more compassionate world with countries accepting each other and sharing resources [because] we are all connected,” said Frances Paine, one of the visitors. “We need these young people speaking out for rights that have been taken away from us.”
Many students in the pro-Palestinian movement are pushing for systemic change because of the number of crises in the world and the growing wealth inequality in the United States, Matthaei said.
The Iraq war and the 2008 financial crisis were both impactful experiences for current college and graduate students, many of whom at a young age saw family members and acquaintances lose their homes or retirement savings, said Friedman. These students saw that some of the institutions responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis were bailed out by the federal government, which many viewed as unfair when so many working people struggled to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, many college graduates have struggled to find jobs with wages to cover their housing costs and student loan repayments as corporate profits grow, as does the list of US billionaires.
“Some of these people are so ridiculously rich,” Friedman said. “The contrast is startling. You’ve got to wonder, has anybody worked hard enough to be worth $160 billion or $300 billion?”
Chaney, the UMass graduate student in the Cuba cap, said he and some of his peers envision democratically run businesses, and political parties that are not “controlled by the rich and powerful capitalist class.” He points to worker cooperatives in Jackson, Miss., as a model that could be replicated in more places to lift up low-income people.
Some want their universities to be run more democratically as well. Jake Green, a graduate student studying philosophy at UMass Amherst, said many there feel betrayed by the chancellor’s decision to call in police to clear the pro-Palestinian encampment in May.
“The lack of democracy at the school directly leads to what happened with the encampment,” Green said.
Current college and graduate students have put some of these ideologies to work in recent years reviving the labor movement, said Annelise Orleck, a history professor at Dartmouth College who was arrested at the pro-Palestinian encampment there in May.
“These are the kids who have been organizing Starbucks, the graduate union movement, the undergraduate unions,” Orleck said. “Every class I have [now there is] the resident Marxist scholar — some 20-year-old who’s read all the texts and has an analysis.”
Back in the Western Mass. park, organizers tried to reunite the small groups to move to the next item on the agenda but quickly gave up when people continued talking among themselves. They dedicated the remainder of the day to board games and mingling. We don’t want to be dictators,” said Aidan Mastroianni, a community organizer from South Hadley.
Students would not say whether encampments will return in the fall semester but several said they are committed to continuing their activism.
“The situation in Palestine is one that is directly in opposition of that kind of world that they’re envisioning,” said Nuriel Vera-DeGraff, a rising junior at Harvard University who participated in the encampment there. “The reason that so many of us here in the US on college campuses are doing this with Palestine is because of American complicity.”
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