Crimson Sits Down with Harvard Anti-War Coalition

Today at 2:30, members of the Harvard Anti-War Coalition (HAWC) will gather in front of the Science Center, along with over a dozen other campus groups, to protest the Iraq War on its fifth anniversary. The Crimson sat down with HAWC’s co-founders and the president of the Harvard Democrats to discuss the state of protest and politics at Harvard.

The Harvard Crimson: What was your political ideology five years ago at the brink of the U.S. invasion of Iraq?

Kyle A. Krahel ’08: I was conservative. The war was one of the biggest things that made me move towards the left. It is something that is very much tied to my identity. It has had an extraordinary, direct influence on me.

Jarret A. Zafran ’09, president of the Harvard Democrats: I was not even that politically active or conscious about this five years ago. I would probably say I was a supporter of the war. I can’t pinpoint where I changed my mind.

Paul G. Nauert ’09: I can directly trace my political trajectory from this event, from the run-up to the war to the war actually happening.

THC: What has been the trend of anti-war sentiment on campus?

Zafran: The campus has been solidly against war. At least 75 percent of the campus opposed this war at least since 2005. After the 2004 elections, people were forced into different camps.

THC: Would you characterize Harvard students as politically apathetic?

Nauert: I feel that many people at Harvard are engaged in some form of social action or political action...very broadly and diversely construed, whether it’s Phillips Brook House, House government, the UC, Dems, or whatever the case may be. What I think I have been surprised at is that with some very, very major exceptions—like the Stand for Security Campaign, the May Day rallies for immigration my freshman year—groups fail to connect on broadly shared interests and form lasting, coalitional outlooks.

Zafran: Typical Harvard students support a lot of what the activist students on campus are pushing for, but yet always wonder if it’s worth it to invest their time. A lot of Harvard students say, “Yeah, I’m opposed to the war but does the fact that I’m coming out on a rainy Wednesday to support a peace walk matter at all?” In some ways, Harvard students are too mature for their own good. Perhaps students have lost a bit of the idealism that has characterized previous generations and is what college students of the ’60s and ’70s have criticized our generation for. It’s not that we don’t care—I don’t think I would characterize it as apathy. It’s just a more pragmatic—and perhaps some people would say more cynical—outlook on how you achieve that.

THC: So you feel that Harvard students are politically conscious but don’t feel compelling personal stakes to engage in political activism on campus?

Adaner Usmani ’08: Politics is something that takes place at Harvard. It’s the idea of politicizing Harvard. People aren’t willing to acknowledge that Harvard is a site of contention, that Harvard itself is a site of politics. It’s about fostering a different type of ethic in Harvard students. It’s about not enabling them to say that “this is a place where I’ll come and be educated and be trained and then I’ll go and do political stuff.” No. It’s this place that you’re at now—this is a political place.

THC: How do you compel students to feel a personal stake for the issues for which you advocate?

Alyssa M. Aguilera ’09: We are trying to show that it isn’t just an issue limited to political activists or peace activists getting involved. This affects all sorts of facets of our lives.

Usmani: One of the other tactics HAWC discussed at the beginning of the year was what we saw as a failure of anti-war activism in past years. It didn’t seem like we were doing a good job of bringing the war home and making it pertinent to Harvard students’ realities. So what we decided to do this year was investigate Harvard’s own investments in relation to the war and push a divestment campaign of some sort. We found significant investments in the war that the Harvard Corporation has. For various reasons, partly for personal reasons, we haven’t been able to energize that campaign as much.

THC: What are some of the parallels between anti-war protests against the Vietnam War and the Iraq War on campus?

Krahel: This University will try and squelch dissent. As somebody who was involved in the hunger strike, I know. They tried to kick us out of Harvard for doing the hunger strike. When it comes down to it, the administration and faculty in those times [during the Vietnam War] were vehemently opposed, and explicitly so, to anti-war activism. This created an opposition. On a lot of campuses, police, things like that were brought in. This was one of them. And they beat students. Students that were otherwise depoliticized saw that. That exploded campuses across the nation, including ours. Students saw the forces of the status quo holding us down and keeping us quiet.

THC: Why was Harvard, as Krahel characterized it, so ready to “squelch dissent”?

Krahel: We were going to cost them money.

Aguilera: When it comes down to it, in order for Harvard to act, they need to have an incentive. During the hunger strike, during the Living Wage campaign [aimed at increasing wages for Harvard employees about a decade ago], during the divestment campaign, their reputation was at stake. As activists, that’s where we try to hit them. That’s why we’re in the middle of the quad, we’re sending press releases out to everyone, drawing attention to Harvard. Personally, I want to rid where I live of militarism and of war profiteering. I don’t want my school to have those sorts of ties. That’s why we’re acting at Harvard. The rally is not an attack on the Harvard administration. That doesn’t make much sense tactically.

THC: What role do you believe Harvard should play in anti-war protests?

Aguilera: Nobody thinks that the Harvard administration is going to end the war. It has to be a collective source of action all across the nation, a huge mobilization of students, raising our voices, coming together, and doing something on a broader scale. In the past, Harvard has really been a hotbed of activism. Harvard does have this name and the media does latch on to that. So if we’re going to stir stuff up, this is where we have a lot of leverage. If 500 Harvard kids get arrested for protesting the war, that will be on the national news, the world media. Nobody is trying to get arrested though.

THC: How do elements of restraint, specifically in the strategy of silence in the weekly peace walk through the Yard, reflect HAWC’s aims?

Aguilera: It’s a vigil, it’s silent. In terms of our strategy, we ask ourselves: Is this a tactic we believe in? Is this too non-confrontational for something like the war, which is so inherently confrontational? Should we be responding to war by walking, literally silenced? [This is] something we grappled with as anti-war activists.

Usmani: In years past, the peace walk was viewed as a group of older Cambridge residents foreign to our campus and to our student body walking around in Harvard Yard. The intentions of them are exactly what we’ve been talking about: politicizing campus. This is why the peace walks are in the middle of the Yard, at the middle of day, and the middle of week. The intention is to bring politics to what is normally viewed as an apolitical space at an apolitical time—at a time of learning and not of politics.

THC: What is the underlying goal behind HAWC’s strategy of creative street theatre?

Nauert: You see the random kid in your section. You make that eye contact. We were wearing black hoods, specifically an action to draw attention to the torture and human rights abuses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. You can see through the material, you can see your friends, peers, but they don’t really see you. You’re put in a position where they’re responding to you precisely as the extracted essence of activism at the moment.

THC: What have been some of your most meaningful experiences as anti-war activists?

Nauert: The moments where we made eye contact, whether it’s from behind the hood, or when actually holding a sign, and that person actually responds to you, recognizes you as a human being. Those moments give me an immense sense of hope. We strive to show the interconnectivity of politics. It’s not just that we want to transform Harvard. We hope that human beings are being transformed. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to focus on the kid who comes every week and to find hope in that. It gives me a lot of hope, not just for ending the war, but for democracy and world justice.

—INTERVIEW CONDUCTED AND EDITED BY BITA ASSAD