In Gaza Protest, Columbia Students Occupy Hamilton Hall, Site of Historic 1968 Takeover

GAZA casualties, live statistics

NB: Nothing is ever repeated with precision, but American imperialism and its proxies (to use a favourite phrase of their Orwellian media) has been rampaging through the world for many decades after the end of the World War. Vietnam, Chile, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the endless war on the Palestinian population, are a few examples. America has reduced itself to a war machine, and we have had enough of it.

The bulk of American media commentators don’t even know that over 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes and villages in 1948, by sheer violence and terror. This is an eight decade long war of extermination. The US state machine see Asians, Arabs etc., as sub-human, not deserving of any rights at all, not even living space and medical care. All of Gaza’s universities, most schools and hospitals have been destroyed these past six months, refugee camps and hospitals have been bombed, babies have died in their cots, children have been amputated without anaesthetics.

Since the Hamas attack last October, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including more than 14,000 children and 9,670 women. Perhaps 10,000 have been buried in the rubble. Over 77,000 are injured. That’s over 120,000 casualties. All those Western TV media persons who go on and on about Hamas, should ask themselves, what if ten thousand white Americans had been killed, entire families wiped out, your universities and hospitals bombed? What would you have been saying then? Have you no shame, no sense of proportion at all? Do you ever reflect upon your shameless racism?

America’s students have shown that a large section of the American and Western public retains a conscience, a sense of humanity and the moral courage to defy the authorities of their brutal and racist state machine. They stood up during the Vietnam war; in the historic year 1968 (which marked widespread mass protests for democracy, both in the Western world and the communist bloc). And they are standing up now, despite police brutality, threats of lifelong police records, and of suspension.

I salute all the young people of America for restoring our faith in human solidarity. And not just young people, I know of a Jewish lady in her 90’s, with physical injuries, who went to Columbia campus to show her solidarity with the students. God bless you, ma’am and sustain your fine spirit.

Remember the Berrigan Brothers and the Cantonsville 9 Statement of May 17, 1968. All those who cherish justice and humanity are on your side. Salute! DS

In Gaza Protest, Columbia Students Occupy Hamilton Hall, Site of Historic 1968 Takeover

Columbia University students began occupying Hamilton Hall shortly after midnight Tuesday as the university moved to suspend students who joined Gaza solidarity protests, and renamed it Hind’s Hall, after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza in January. We look at how it was 56 years ago today, on April 30, 1968, that the hall was also the site of the historic student occupation by students who renamed the building “Nat Turner Hall at Malcolm X University.” We feature an archival newsreel about the 1968 occupation and our interviews with campus activists on the 40th anniversary of the action about how they were protesting Columbia’s connections to the military-industrial complex and racist development policies in Harlem.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

As we go back now in history, Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, which students occupied just after midnight last night, we reported earlier, was also the site of a historic student occupation in 1968. It was actually on this day, April 30th, 1968, when hundreds of students at Columbia University started a revolt on campus. Students went on strike. They occupied five buildings, including the president’s office in Low Library. The students barricaded themselves inside the buildings for days. They were protesting Columbia’s ties to military research and plans to build a university gymnasium in a public park in Harlem. The protests began less than three weeks after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The 1968 Columbia uprising inspired student protests across the country. This is an excerpt from the documentary Columbia Revolt by Third World Newsreel….

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/30/columbia_1968

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