US student protests now reflect a generational change larger than our upcoming elections — aid to Israel no longer gets bipartisan support: Omar Wasow
Omar Wasow teaches political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das, he discusses the past — and future — of movements encompassing America’s current protests:
Q. What is the core of your research?
A. I’ve studied American protests of the 1960s, particularly civil rights protests which used some of the techniques of noncooperation that were central to the Indian independence movement. I’ve found non-violent protests were effective in increasing support to civil rights for African-Americans — this was particularly so when non-violent protests were met with state violence. That tended to generate sympathetic media attention. When protesters used violent tactics, that generated negative media, growing the coalition of voters opposed to civil rights.
Q. We are in an era of polycrises now — what are the most important political movements you’re observing?
A. Right now, in the US, we’re seeing protests in opposition to the Israel-Hamas war, also described as pro-Palestinian movements. Alongside, we’ve had globally sustained waves against climate change and pro-democracy movements.
Q. At their heart, protests question economic injustices. Policies like segregation impacted one section — what made others oppose these?
A. Almost any movement represents a minority — even within an impacted group, activists are a small proportion. They have a core challenge to first get on board immediately affected people and then bring in the larger public which could be indifferent or even
