The Observer, October 13, 2006
Volume XXXIX, Issue 7
Protests without action, meaning
It is now close to the annual protest at the School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Ga. – an event that occurs in November and has gathered thousands of participants from all over the United States. The School of the Americas has been heavily criticized by student organizations at Case. For those unacquainted with the School of the Americas (now the milder Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), it is a school designed for training military personnel from the western hemisphere, particularly those of Latin America.
It has been criticized because it is perceived to be in support of oppressive regimes as Latin American soldiers have been trained in military techniques such as interrogation. Many of its graduates include notorious human rights abusers such as Manuel Noriega and Argentinian dictator Leopold Galtieri.
However, the real issue is that while there is certainly good justification to close down the School of the Americas, there seems to be a sense of misguided priorities and a lack of initiative on part of the students who take leadership against the larger injustices occurring in society. While protesting injustice is a noble cause, in today's age, protest has come to the point where it appears to be an end within itself, distracting needed resources from true injustices. Since the inception of the protest, Congress has passed resolutions trying to close down the school, prompting the military to change some elements of the SOA. However, it has been deemed to be a military necessity to have a channel in order to train allied foreign troops, something the US military does with all its allies through one channel or another.
Thus, the SOA's classes on human rights and international law are far better communicated in a school in Georgia than in the jungle from a Special Forces group training peasants in El Salvador. Awareness and change has affected the SOA, maybe not to the desire of the protestors but to the point where additional protest would not accomplish goals worthy of the efforts put into it and detract from many important issues needing our attention.
For example, the issue of extraordinary extradition is one that is an extremely undemocratic and barbaric measure more suited for a third world dictatorship. Khalid el-Masri was a suspected German citizen who was flown to Afghanistan where he was brutally interrogated and tortured on charges of terrorism, which were eventually attributed to another man with a similar name, Khalid al-Masri.
The issue of extraordinary extradition represents only one injustice that is currently happening in today's chaotic world. However, in the vein of tradition and consistency student groups and social activists at Case have taken few initiatives, preferring the well–worn routes of populist protests. The SOA protest has in a sense become institutionalized; it has become routine and symbolic, thus losing much of its original drive and sense of purpose. This distracts and diverts resources from awareness and protest in issues that have come up and are vitally important. This is a disappointment considering that it perhaps justifies the image of the stereotypical student protestor: a pontificating yet essentially apathetic demagogue whose ego–stroking performance makes no real impact on society.
