Something is going on here…
Consider, for example, a recent announcement by Union Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with Columbia University. Not only is the university divesting from “companies profiting from the war in Palestine/Israel,” it is fully supporting the student camp. And we condemn the arrests and police violence that wreaked havoc on peaceful and culturally diverse protests.
Indeed, the seminary has issued a statement that shakes the quiet conviction of those in power: that money matters above all else. Financially supporting damaging and immoral investments. ”
Values over Profits? Over the years, the seminary has divested from industries like arms manufacturers, for-profit prisons and fossil fuels. But it’s not just that… It apparently understands and values education for its own sake, which is certainly a remarkable phenomenon.
In an interview with Democracy Now!, seminary president Serene Jones said the school “opened its campus to all surrounding campuses at a time when students were being expelled and events were not allowed to be held.” “I did,” he pointed out. . . . Our doors are wide open, and this is what a university should be like in times like this. ”
She also said, “We support students in finding their voice and learning what it means to speak up for justice and freedom.”
This word was the most shocking to me. This is what education is all about. It’s not just about attending lectures, taking notes, and absorbing data. It’s about finding your voice, finding your deepest values and expressing them in real life, presenting them not as abstractions but as principles by which to live. Entering society as an adult woman or an adult man means more than just finding your place. It means challenging the world as you enter it, creating it with God, and creating the future.
Of course, I’m not saying this in a simplistic way. I speak as an aging baby boomer who came of age as the civil rights movement shook and shattered national norms and as the Vietnam War entered our consciousness. What a wounded and deeply flawed world! Something was wrong. Growing up meant finding our voice and taking on, or challenging, this flawed world.
For example, in October 1967, I rode a bus with many friends to participate in the first anti-war march on the Pentagon. This included pushing the boundaries of social and legal decorum. We didn’t just listen to speeches. We were determined to occupy the Pentagon, and thousands of us walked on the grass to confront the soldiers defending the Pentagon. At one point, all of a sudden, a group of soldiers seemed to rush towards us. I ended up hitting him in the head with the butt of a rifle. I was beaten to the ground but uninjured, and I continued to protest for several more hours, eventually leaving the Pentagon sit-in just before the arrests began.
My friends and I returned to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo feeling that our lives would never be the same. We immediately took matters into our own hands. we fell out.
I ended up delaying my graduation by a few years. Of course, it didn’t “change the world” in the way idealistically imagined, but this period of protests, drugs, several arrests, and many failures was at the core of the college learning experience. There is no doubt that it was. At the same time all of this was happening, I was discovering myself as a writer and eventually a journalist. I highly value the support and guidance of many professors at Western University. Continually creating the world is not simply a matter of us versus them, the young versus the old. It’s a multigenerational effort.
All of this makes me think of the words of Selene Jones, who is not abandoning this moment and the values emanating from student camps across the country, or harboring any cynicism about it. Much of the mainstream coverage of the protests simply defines the phenomenon in terms of us versus them. The protests are “pro-Palestinian,” seeming to imply that there are two equal (and equally brutal) sides to this war, and that being pro-Palestinian means being anti-Israel. It can easily turn into anti-Semitism. However, the protests are not just pro-Palestinian. They are pro-humanity (and anti-genocide).
And while the participants are culturally and religiously diverse, they are not spiritually diverse. Jones wrote in Religion News Service:
“First and foremost, these encampments bring together students of many different religious traditions: Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, unaffiliated students, and students who are spiritual but not religious. They find solace and courage in one another. . . .
“It’s just who these protesters are: a community united by a larger common cause: to stop the mass murder of besieged Palestinians.”
Jones’ essay is titled “What We Have to Learn from Students Leading the Way for Justice,” and it’s a powerful one in itself: What can our university system, financial system, and political system learn from protesters? Love your enemy?
The world these protesters are entering is one reinforced by cynicism. In such a world, the real world, “love” and other values are appropriate to be uttered in a religious setting with pews and fancy windows, but in a world of daily wins and losses. It makes little sense. -Losses, gains, and losses. That’s why police are rushing in, beating and arresting demonstrators and destroying encampments.
But Jones boldly tells us that this is not the real world, just the current world that is still under construction.
