War Protests Not What They Used to Be

The most vivid commencement memory for James C. Pinney '67 wasn't listening to the commencement speaker's Latin oratory, but being arrested at an anti-war sit-in.

Today, Pinney continues to work for peace around the globe--he is active with the Cambridge Peace Commission--but he still won't be walking the streets protesting U.S. military involvement in the Persian Gulf.

The former member of Students for a Democratic Society the anti-Vietnam War protest group that led many of the demonstrations at Harvard and around the country--says that the fundamental difference between Operation Desert Storm and the Vietnam War is the "moral character of the war."

"Vietnam was unjust," he says. "I believe this is a just war...Saddam Hussein is one of the biggest butchers of the entire world."

But when Pinney followed a peace march to Boston Common the weekend after the U.S. began bombing Iraq, he said the scene was reminiscent of many of the peace marches of the '60s.

"It was like deja-vu all over again. The people there were wearing '60s costumes," he says.

As the country is plunged once again into an escalating military conflict on the other side of the globe, many have begun to compare today's protests against the Persian Gulf war to the anti-Vietnam War movement that eventually snowballed into the massive, violent protests of the late 60s.

But despite the obvious similarities, both generations of activists say that the two movements differ significantly.

Persian Gulf War Confusing

Mica Pollock '93, an Adams House resident who is active in Students Against War in the Middle East (SAWME), is quick to point out what she feels is a fundamental difference between the two.

"In this anti-war movement, people see a clear division between soldiers who are fighting the war and the people who sent them there," she says. "We are protesting against people who sent them."

"This war is much more confusing," she adds. "The thing that's confusing is that Hussein is an evil man."

Pollock points out that members of the movement today are opposed to the entire concept of war, not simply the current military escalation in the Gulf. She says that activists today want to "change the status quo in international relations," and spread the message that "recourse to war is becoming an outdated thing."

But 20 years ago, "protest was not per se against war as against a specific conflict and the bad information and lies that accompanied it," says Leslie F. Griffin '70, who was president of the Afro-American Students' Association when he was an undergraduate.

Philosophical Opposition to War

Griffin says he is doubtful of today's movement's durability because the movement is mostly dominated by people who are philosophically opposed to war.

"There's little evidence that the anti-war movement will be able to sustain itself," he says.

"I don't think we as an American people are as strongly opposed to the war as we were then. It's not in the guts yet as it was during Vietnam. People in the movement right now have had a studied commitment to opposition," he adds.

"The movement in the '60s was supported by other movements--civil rights, free speech and music...I don't think you have any of that stuff going on," he says.

Today's Students "Tepid"

The swing in social values may also influence the intensity and breadth of the entire movement.

City Councillor and former campus Afro-Am activist Kenneth E. Reeves '72 criticizes the "tepidness" of today's students.

"I think students back then had a more critical view of U.S. power structure. People view themselves more as part of the system," he says.

"People 20 years ago had a tainted view of U.S. military and industrial complex. Today's generation appears to have more ownership and a desire to be part of it," Reeves adds.

But Pollock defends her generation, saying that today's anti-war movement is as genuine as yesterday's.

"We don't have to prove anything about our apathy," she says. "We find something that we don't agree with and see that a student movement empowers us to do something. We're learning from the protesters of the Vietnam era what happened in the past and what'll work," she says.

'I don't think we as an American people are as strongly opposed to the war as we were then. It's not in the guts yet as it was during Vietnam.'