As we celebrate a victory for intransigent protest against the Australian governments education cuts, (see redflag.org.au/article/students-declare-victory) I couldnt share this without the accompanying comment from Joel Geier, who was part of it. This is an interview I did for the 50th Anniversary of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. When the FSM began the left was about 2% of the campus, with a slightly larger sympathetic audience. After 4 months of demonstrations, rallies, negotiations, sit-ins,a campus wide strike, we had the vast majority of the campus on our side in the battle of Berkeley. From the start our political goal was to win over the rest of the students who were not active, involved, or identified with the left. We did it through patient explanation and political education, analyzing every move on the part of the administration, and how and why we were answering in action the way we did. We had honesty and integrity on our side, joined to uncompromising principles,flexible and ever changing tactics created on the run, and finally the ability to withstand confusions, set backs, demoralizations and come back fighting with courage and boldness. The FSM victory gave hope and courage to radical students everywhere that they also could win over their generation if they handled themselves in politically honest and radical but non-sectarian, united front movement building. Berkeley became an international inspiration and model for the 60s student and youth radicalization. After 50 years Im still impressed, thankful and proud of the role that civil rights activists trained in the black liberation movement, as well as socialists and most outstandingly our predecessor, the Independent Socialist Club, played in helping to build, lead, and politically educate this movement to victory.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 23:39:18 +0000
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