Dartmouth: what were they thinking?
Recently, my partner and I traveled to Hanover to support the students and faculty in the ongoing fight for the rights and lives of Palestinians. The Green in Hanover, New Hampshire was empty when we arrived, but soon a couple of hundred people of all ages gathered. In addition to the many reasons related to the ongoing killing and starving of the Palestinian people. graduate students also were on strike for a living wage. And it was May Day.
The speakers were all part of the Dartmouth community. The crowd was very angry about the ongoing human tragedy in Gaza, but the feeling was peaceful and the feeling of community was palpable. One speaker, a graduate student, was amazingly moving in his historical talk about the history of May Day. A woman with a beautiful voice led us in singing "Solidarity Forever."
At one time, seemingly spontaneously, the crowd all circled and joined hands and elbows. We sang while a few people erected a couple of small tents in the middle of the circle, on what I thought was a public green. We left a totally peaceful, unarmed group- with no hope that the tents would remain up, but with some hope that the peaceful nature of the event would be respected by the authorities.
Boy, were we wrong! Soon a phalanx of heavily armed state police in riot gear with armored vehicles arrived to brutalize the peaceful protesters. The university president had called in the troops, The arrests were fast and brutal- and not one of these protesters had committed any act more extreme than setting up a pup tent. The invented anti-semitism that has all the Trumpers calling for the blood of the pro-Palestinian protesters was nowhere to be seen- many of us on the Green were Jewish, and the speaker for Jewish Voice for Peace was welcomed by all.
Under the pretext of teaching students and faculty that their "vile anti-semitism" needs to be checked, the riot police actually knocked 65 year old Professor Annelise Orleck to the ground, causing a head injury, arrested her for criminal trespass, and the university banned her from sections of the campus- because she was filming the state police to document their actions. Because she had the audacity to support her students. She is a tenured professor of history, formerly chair of Jewish studies, and is Jewish herself. In an interview in the Vermont Digger, Professor Orleck says she sees no rise in the anti-semitism on her campus,and her colleagues in other campuses around the country say the same . She clearly sees the tremendous growth in hatred of Jews- from the Trumpist far right.
After 89 arrests by the riot police, including two student journalists, the school put out a truly compassionate statement: the arrests were the natural consequences of the demonstrators’ refusal to disperse. Since the smug pride about arresting non-violent students, faculty, and community members, it has become clear the to world that this action was completely unwarranted, and that calling the riot police for an unarmed, non-violent gathering is only pandering to the far, far right. Is Elise Stefanik, the nasty Trumper member of congress who was able to intimidate a group of spineless university presidents, actually running Dartmouth?
The university president has delivered a half-baked apology after pressure from around the world. Sending in violent riot police to attack a peaceful group is one way fascist governments use an iron fist to maintain power and intimidate citizens. We must stand up to this kind of oppression. Arrests and beat-downs are never acceptable when there is no threat of violence. If we want to maintain the small remnant of democracy that still exists, these arrests must stop.