World Can’t Wait student organizers had a truly explosive
experience at Columbia
College today! Columbia held their
annual new student convocation today, where hundreds of freshmen and transfer
students gather to hear bands, eat food, and meet the school organizations. We
arrived in the morning to set-up at our table amongst the other organizations.
We put a big “Stop the Attack on Iran” poster, along with
yesterday’s New York Times ad in the front of the table. In the beginning
things were somewhat slow. I left for about 15 minutes to make some copies of
the new flyer for the September 7th meeting. When I came back, lots of students
were crowded around our table, and there was a huge line to sign up on our
contact sheets! We had completely run out of buttons, wristbands, and Iran posters,
and had already gathered pages of contacts!
From there forward, not a minute passed when there wasn’t someone wanting to
talk with us! Most people did not have to be convinced that the Bush regime is
remaking society in a fascist way. We were able to engage in substantive
conversations with most of them, who were all extremely concerned about the
direction that the Bush regime is taking society, and hungry to something that
will actually make a difference. When we told people about the vision for
October 5th: hundreds of thousands of students all across the country to walk
out of schools, shutting down whole campuses, and coming together in the
streets in mass gatherings, people seemed very inspired. We got comments like,
“We really need something like this,” and “I’m totally down with
that. I will tell everyone I know, and will definitely be walking out on the
5th!”
One woman who spotted us from across the tent, ran over to us and asked us what
we were doing. She said that she loses sleep at night thinking about the
theocratic element of this regime. She said that she is most frightened by the
Bush regime’s attacks on gay marriage and abortion, and has been looking for
something to do that will actually stop this. What struck me the most, was when
she brought up that she though she thinks school is important, and she loves
her work (photography and fashion design), she feels that if we don’t take
responsibility for bringing this program to a halt, none of her dreams will
mean anything. What kind of photographer can she be under fascism? She gave us
her number and took a big stack of fliers. Later, she came back and told us
that she wanted to hold a film screening in her dorm early next week, and
wanted us to talk to people there. She asked when our meetings are going to be
this fall, saying that she will come anytime, and is even willing to drop a
class in order to be able to make it!
Over the course of three hours, we gathered approximately
one hundred contacts of people from all kinds of different perspectives, who
are willing to bring a lot to this movement: from a drum corps on stilts that
wants to bring their creativity and noise on the 5th, to people in radio
willing to make a pod-cast for students to walkout on the 5th, to
photographers, to visual artists who are thinking about collaborating to make
huge paper mache statues and burning globes for the mass demonstration!
Before shutting down, I went over to talk to some of the student groups that
the WCW chapter at Columbia
had tried to reach last year. First, I talked to the Latino alliance, who last
year had told us that they were not political, and that though many individuals
in their group supported our cause, they could not take it up. Today, I showed
them a picture of the recent New York Times ad, and we talked for a while about
the implications for immigrants if we don’t reverse the whole Bush program.
After our conversation, the guy I talked to invited me to their meeting this Wednesday.
Then, I went over the GLBT table. They were in the middle of packing up but the
faculty advisor told me that she completely agreed that the direction this is
headed is fascist and that it must be stopped, and asked us to stop by the GLBT
center to talk to more students there.
After packing up, we went outside to a hip-hop concert that was being held on a
large stage. As we were watching some of the concert, I was casually holding
the Iran
poster on my side, and a group of three students came up to me and yelled,
“We love that poster!” I took out some fliers, and told them about
the 5th and the meeting on September 7th. They all took large stacks of fliers.
On young guy from Pilsen, a very vibrant Latino community in south west Chicago,
said that he was at both of the large demonstrations for immigrant’s rights
last spring, and took great inspiration from the power of large outpourings of
people in the streets. After we talked, he went to the gates of the event, and
began passing flyers out to everyone who was leaving.
Between songs, one organizer approached the stage with the Iran poster, a
flyer, and lots of stickers, and asked the lead singer if he would announce the
WCW and October 5th from the stage. At the end of their set, he gave a short
announcement for the 5th, and his band members passed out bright green October
5th stickers from the stage.
Finally, to top of the day, we talked with the Columbia Chronicle, the college
newspaper, about placing a full page ad, similar to the NY times ad, with the
information about the September 7th meetings, in next weeks paper. The people
at the Chronicle remembered us, and were happy to help us to make that happen.
They said that because we are a student group, we get a 65 percent discount on
ads, and it can come right out of our student organization budget.
So…hopefully, next week when Columbia
students begin class, a full page ad will be in the school paper!
Today, we left Columbiawith
a new sense of the incredible possibility for students all across the
country to actually pour into the streets on October 5th! We definitely
noticed
a dramatic shift in the general sentiment of students over the summer.
What is
even more encouraging is that most of the students we talked to today
were new,
and have not encountered WCW before. At the end of the day, our
experience demonstrated the a new sense of urgency to truly reach those
reservoirs of
millions who are looking at this regime in utter disgust and fear, and
are
desperately looking for a vehicle that can actually bring this to a
halt!