When Tent State University/Students for a Democratic Society held a Teach-In on the Iraq War, we attempted to make the form of the event correspond to our core principles. Previous teach-ins at Rutgers, dating back to the 1960s, were set up much like a typical college lecture: a variety of experts (often professors) would sit at a panel and explain their views about the war.
Most antiwar events on the Rutgers campus, even those held within the past few years, have followed a consistent pattern: organizers would pick and invite an "expert" on some aspect of Iraq, then raise the requisite amount of money the speaker demanded. The speaker would come to campus, lecture the students, often be feted on the organizers' tab, and then with a hearty thanks would be on his or her merry way.
This arrangement (of course, very convenient for those making their livings off the public speaking circuit!) was justified by the rationales that 1) only a speaker with celebrity status would attract student and/or media attention to the event, 2) students would only listen to speakers who had "authority", and 3) said speakers were speaking from a position of authority.
At some point, organizers with Tent State/SDS became aware that this arrangement was in apparent contradiction to our egalitarian and democratic principles. We sat down together and thought of how we could make our event more participatory, democratic and populist, and we arrived at a few innovative ideas:
The first element with which we sought to infuse revolutionary democracy into the Teach-In was through the use of surveys. The surveys asked students to prioritize what they most wanted to know about the conflict in Iraq, by asking open-ended questions such as: "In particular, what would you be most interested in learning about the history or economic motives about the invasion of Iraq?" Students' answers were then to be compiled and used as a guide to prioritize the research and the presentation to be done.
The use of the questionnaires was a highly successful way of engaging with students. Using the survey went hand-in-hand with our motto of "organize everywhere", which we took seriously, surveying students wherever we could find them: in the dorms, in the lecture halls, in the cafeteria, in the lounge – anywhere organizers could reach their classmates. We felt that we would be remiss in our duty if as student organizers we were not engaging with other students in discussions about the occupation of Iraq every single day. "After all," we thought, "organizing students is sort of what we're supposed to be doing!"
The questionnaires functioned as a useful organizing tool all of the following ways: 1) it gave organizers an excuse to engage students in a conversation about the war, 2) it allowed them to discuss the war in a very non-threatening, non-confrontational manner, 3) it created a perception of Tent State/SDS organizers as friendly, approachable, and actually concerned with the students' opinions, 4) it put to lie once and for all the hoary canard, a mantra of bad activists everywhere, that young people are apathetic.
Organizers followed up on the good will of the student body by taking into account the many different questions students asked, which were used to shape the content of the Teach-In. Using the questionnaires created a more participatory, responsive Teach-In as, 1) students who could not attend the Teach-In were still able to shape the content, 2) for those students who were able to attend, the information presented was geared toward their concerns, and 3) in the true spirit of democracy, it gave a voice to the opposition.
This was an object lesson in the concrete practice of revolutionary democracy – instead of taking the individualist approach and asking: "What can I do to end the war?", we posed the question from a socialist or collectivist point of view: "How do we involve as many people as possible in actively shaping the antiwar movement?"
As we analyzed questionnaires, we learned more about Rutgers students' perceptions of the war. We found respondents knowledgeable, willing to admit ignorance, and eager to learn more. This should have hardly surprised us, after all, these are (or ought to be) the hallmarks of good students everywhere!
Organizers met once a week to code the results of the surveys into a statistical form – tough work which was both onerous and tedious. However, using meeting times to actually get work accomplished was essential to the Teach-In happening. When we surveyed student responses, we found that the vast majority of students were opposed to the war.
Some examples of our findings were:
18% of respondents wanted to know more about the economic motives behind the war.
10% were curious about the role of Iran in the conflict.
20% wanted to know the effect a U.S. withdrawal would have on the stability of Iraq.
This sort of knowledge was useful not only in shaping the Teach-In, but by providing an empirical basis for our understanding of antiwar sentiments among the student body at Rutgers, will provide us with invaluable insight into the deep level of sympathy we can expect to encounter from students as we organize for the upcoming 2008 Rutgers Antiwar Walkout. It confirms our motto of "Assume support" which you can read more about in the Walkout Organizing Guide available at piratecaucus.blogspot.com.
Once we had figured out the questions students had, we had to go about figuring out the answers. When we started the school year and began organizing for the Teach-In, we realized that our team was made up of less than half a dozen activists with any experience organizing whatsoever. The majority of people who would research and present their findings at the Teach-In were first-year students and first-time organizers, the majority of whom were recruited in the run-up to the Teach-In.
In this situation it would have been much easier for us to raise some money, invite a guest lecturer and focus on agitating for the event. But while collective research and participatory planning made our event in line with our democratic principles, refusing to have outside speakers and focusing on the teach-in being student-researched and student-led made the event radically populist. We said we didn't need pundits, experts, administrators or politicians to educate us. In fact, these people had failed us, and we had to start taking matters into our own hands and practicing democracy ourselves. We told our fellow students that we don't have to feel powerless or passive when faced with circumstances not of their own choosing. We weren't experts. We were a group of ordinary students just like them, but together we came up with more than we could have on our own. We got together and started researching, taking action, and that taught us we had power collectively.
The route we had decided to pursue meant that in addition to raising money to book a cool space (we chose to take over our university's chapel, a beautiful nineteenth century building on campus) and agitating for the event, we would also be spending a lot of time surveying and talking with students, compiling their responses, researching about the occupation and synthesizing our findings into a flashy, gripping presentation, then practicing it and delivering it to our peers.
What we decided to do was to go ahead and do it the hard way. It is a testament to the gumption and collective confidence of our team, as well as to our revolutionary democratic ideals which told us to trust in the abilities of our newest organizers, which allowed us to succeed.
Needless to say, all our hard work paid off. Over a hundred people attended the Rutgers Iraq War Teach-In. We succeeded in gaining significant media attention (campus, local and regional), educating ourselves and empowering our fellow students. Half a dozen new organizers were recruited from the event, and soon got to work on the Antiwar Walkout as well as the many other campaigns we're running. Students were attracted to a message of mass empowerment through the practice of democracy, without relying on the use of outside authorities, which we hold to be the greatest lesson of the 2007 Rutgers Iraq War Teach-In.
Well written article.
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