My generation of student radicals fought for liberty. Today’s are a delusional cult

Those too young to remember the tumultuous 1960s might be under the impression that what is happening in American universities now is a revival of the spirit of what became known as the international student revolution. The sight of campuses shut down by protesters fighting with police, of university studies suspended by occupations and chanting demonstrators, and, most notably, the infectiousness of the resistance that has spread rapidly through the nation’s academic life: surely this must be a return to the political rebellion that awakened a generation.

As one who was there at the very beginning, let me assure you that what is going on now is absolutely nothing like what happened then. In fact, the cause that is being espoused so riotously today is the very antithesis of what was being fought for back in that formative day.

I was an undergraduate at Berkeley when the Free Speech Movement – still the revered, historic progenitor of this tradition – was born. Its objectives were very clear and completely justifiable in legal and political terms. We returned to campus for the new academic year in autumn 1964 to discover that the university’s Board of Regents had laid down an unprecedented ban on any form of political activity – holding meetings, inviting guest speakers, handing out leaflets, raising contributions, even wearing badges identified with causes – in any part of the university.

This was an unambiguous and indefensible breach of the constitutional rights to free speech and assembly of everyone who lived or worked on the campus and it created, as you might imagine, an immediate wave of outrage among the student body. (It was widely believed at the time that this had been done at the behest of businesses in nearby Oakland, whose owners were angered by student protests against their racist hiring policies. This theory still seems entirely plausible.)

All that inchoate rage became focused when one defiant student, Jack Weinberg, stood in the quad and began, as had always been his right, to solicit contributions for a civil rights organisation. The campus police descended, arrested him and put him in a police car to take him away.

What happened next was truly extraordinary. In an astonishing, spontaneous expression of solidarity which I shall never forget, hundreds of students who had witnessed this arrest converged around the car and would not let it move. For roughly 32 hours, the police and their captive student were held in place by a peaceful but immovable crowd.

The roof of the car quickly became a platform onto which protesting speakers climbed to make speeches and declarations of, again peaceful, resistance. (One of them included the slogan, “Don’t trust the liberals when they are over thirty” which is now always misquoted as “Never trust the liberals”.)

But what began as a generational movement quickly gained support from the grown-ups. There was one particularly moving moment when the campus was effectively paralysed by striking post-graduate teaching and research assistants. The senior academic staff convened in a large lecture hall where they voted as a body to support the strike. While they held their ballot, a great crowd of students waited quietly outside, and then greeted them as they emerged with thunderous applause.

Of course, there was defiance and physical obstruction. We marched in to occupy the administration building of the university while Joan Baez stood on the steps singing “We Shall Overcome”, and were forcibly removed and arrested. This was the era of politically sophisticated passive resistance. We were advised by our leaders to “go limp” and say “I am not resisting arrest” when the police laid hands on us.

But can we be clear on what this was about? The motivating force was to protect the freedom guaranteed to every citizen by the nation’s founders: indeed to defend the very point of America’s existence. It was the principle of personal liberty itself that was seen to be threatened and which had to be saved by, as its principal orator, Mario Savio, said, “[putting] your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels”.

Does this, you may wonder, bear any resemblance to the apparent sympathies of today’s pro-Palestine demonstrators who are putting their bodies on the line for – what? An alignment with forces supported by the most illiberal, authoritarian, repressive regime in today’s world? What exactly do they believe they are fighting for – or against – by identifying themselves with the interests of Hamas, a terrorist organisation which is sponsored by the Islamist regime in Iran?

There seems to be some confusion about this even within their own ranks. Asked to explain their motivations, some of them speak meaningless gibberish and others admit to astounding levels of confused ignorance. (“It’s something about Israel, isn’t it?” says one girl in a risible recorded interview that is doing the rounds on the internet.)

One thing that is absolutely certain is that the side they are backing is not remotely interested in freedom of speech or assembly. And the side they are opposing and seeking to deprive of its right to exist is the only true democracy in the region. This is a degree of moral confusion and ignorance which is beyond anything that could have been anticipated all those years ago when an earlier generation fought with the police for their genuine birthright.

Perhaps it is testimony to a crisis of confidence in American identity. That will be for historians to judge. For now, there is just an urgent need to call it what it is – a dangerous, delusional cult which could have terrible consequences that would have been unthinkable only a decade ago.

Liberals – in the true sense of that word – are going to have to get a grip. To use more of the text from that great piece of oratory from Mario Savio: “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious – makes you so sick at heart – that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.”