At UNC's Chapel Hill campus, six
students were arrested on February 17, 2007 after refusing to leave
Congressman David Price’s office in a protest demanding that he
vote against further war funding. Meanwhile, on February 15th,
students at campuses around the country held rallies and teach-ins
against the war. While the movement has not reached the proportions
organizers want to see, it is growing. The next student day of
protest is scheduled for March 20th mdash; three days after the March on
the Pentagon. I recently connected with UNCA SDS member Kati Ketz
over email. Besides her activities here in Asheville, Kati is also a
spokesperson for the SDS call for the March 20th Day of Action
Against the War. The exchange with Kati was an opportunity for me to
learn what antiwar students have been up to and how they see the
future. I share the transcript below.
Ron:
First, what is the March 20th Day of Action? How did the idea
originate?<
Kati: March 20th is an SDS national
day of student and youth action against the war in Iraq. The idea
came out of an SDS-sponsored meeting of activists at the School of
the Americas demonstration in Ft. Benning, GA. Over 100 students from
20 different campuses were at this meeting, and at the end we voted
to make March 20th a national day of action, in order to
take all of the local organizing we have been doing on our campuses
and attempting to connect those struggles to make a larger impact on
a national scale.
An interview with Students for a Democratic Society member Kati Ketz about the state of the US student antiwar movement.
Ron
:
What do the organizers hope
to accomplish? What would connote a successful day, here in Asheville
and nationally?<
Kati
:We hope that this day of
action will be a catalyst for students to rise up and get organized
against the war in Iraq. Four years is four years too many, and it’s
time that students in this country get organized against this war. In
Asheville, we hope that our actions will draw in more people who want
to get more involved in organizing against the war. We also hope that
our actions contribute to building a grassroots student anti-war
movement. Nationally, we hope that this will help build ties with
other campuses and connect different movements together in order to
work towards ending this war.
Ron
:
I notice that
the majority of the campuses that have signed on for the March 20th
action are from the southern part of the United States. Why do you
think this is? In my mind it's somewhat significant in that it goes
against the idea so many US residents have about the south—you
know, reactionary and pro-war.
Kati
:I think it is very
significant that a lot of schools from the south are organizing
against the war. It goes against the stigma that the south is
normally faced with — that all anti-war organizing happens in the
north and that the southern US is largely ignorant of and not
involved in any progressive movements. There is some exciting
organizing going on in the south — for example, UNC SDS took part
in organizing a demonstration against John Ashcroft, who came to
speak at their campus. Members of both Alabama and Asheville SDS
groups also have participated in a lot of events (MLK day marches, a
4
th of July march in New Orleans) concerning race and
national oppression, since that is something that is especially
relevant to us in the south.
It’s amazing to see that, for March
20
th, the schools signing on to the call are from all over
the United States — from North Carolina and Alabama in the south to
Los Angeles and Santa Barbara in the West to New York City and Boston
in the northeast to Minneapolis, Chicago, and Ohio in the Midwest, to
name a few.
Ron:What is your impression of the new
SDS? Is it growing in numbers and influence?
Kati:
I think
that we as students finally have an opportunity to build an
independent student anti-war movement through SDS. I talk with
students on a regular basis that are either considering or have just
affiliated with SDS, and the number of SDS chapters grows weekly. SDS
groups are having regional conferences and connecting with each other
through forum, conferences and actions. Now, we are connecting with
one another as SDS through this national day of action. There is a
felt need in the student movement for a national student anti-war
organization, and SDS is it.
Ron: What are your hopes for
its future?
Kati:
My hope for the future of SDS is that we
continue to grow both in influence and in numbers across the nation,
and that we are able to get organized on a national level in order to
have even more nationally coordinated actions against the war in
Iraq. There is a new wave of student activism in this country, and I
hope to see SDS play a leading role in this movement. The student
movement against the war in Vietnam took awhile to take off, but once
it did it took off in a big way. We hope to see the same develop with
SDS against this war in Iraq.
Ron: What are some of the
other campaigns SDS is involved in--nationally and locally?
Kati
: The main campaign that SDS
is involved with is working against the war in Iraq, but SDS is a
multi-issue progressive organization. In Asheville, we had a week of
action around Palestine, where we built a 45-foot long, 8-foot tall
mock apartheid wall on our campus and hosted teach-ins and showed a
documentary about the situation in Palestine. There have been student
strikes and marches for immigrants’ rights in conjunction with the
May 1
st demonstrations. UCLA SDS worked with UCLA's
Moviemento Estudantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) to organize a
demonstration against a speaker from the Minutemen that ended up
canceling his speech at the university as a result of the protest.
University of Central Florida SDS recently issued a statement calling
for release of former Black Panther political prisoners. SDS is a
vehicle for taking actions around any and all progressive issues.
Ron: Back to the war. What do you
personally think it's going to take to end this war?
Kati:
The
Iraqi resistance are the ones fighting against this war every day,
and — similar to what we saw with the national liberation front in
Vietnam — they are the ones who have the power to end it. The
United States and their allies are losing the war in Iraq, and it is
only a matter of time before they are forced to withdraw their
troops. Here in the United States, we need to work on getting Bush
and the Republicans out of the White House — for example, there is
going to be a large demonstration at the Republican National
Convention in Minneapolis in 2008. We in the anti-war movement also
need to put pressure on the Democrats to actually adopt concrete
measures against the war and to stop funding the war.
Ron: What do you think the
role of students and other young people is in the movement to end
it?
Kati:
The role of youth and students in the movement
to end the war is to build the anti-war movement. We need to take to
the streets in a major way and resist the ongoing war and occupation
of Iraq, and this is exactly what is happening. On February 15
th,
thousands of students in Santa Barbara occupied a highway for hours,
bringing the war and the anti-war movement back into the front pages
of the media. We need to continue with this momentum and continue to
organize!
Ron:
When you're organizing on campus and elsewhere, do you run into a lot
of cynicism and apathy from other young people? What at do you say to
those youth who dismiss the antiwar movement?
Kati:
There is always going to
be a certain amount of apathy and cynicism from young people on any
major issue — it’s easy to feel that your voice in a movement
does not matter and will do nothing to change things. What these
students need to remember, however, is that the masses are the makers
of history. It has historically been social movements — not great
leaders — that have changed the course of history. It is our role
in this present day as students and youth to make those movements and
be a part of them. As far as apathy is concerned, what is more
important right here and right now than the fact that the United
States government is continuing an unjust and illegal war and
occupation in Iraq that is causing the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of people? I think more and more students are recognizing
this — at UNCA we are going door-to-door in the dorms trying to get
people to pledge to walkout of their classes, and almost everybody we
talk to is very receptive and wanting to do something to end the war,
and just need an organization or action to plug that energy into.
Ron:
Is SDS encouraging young people to attend the March on the Pentagon
on March 17th? On a side note, what is your take on the ongoing
squabble between the two national antiwar coalitions--UFPJ and
ANSWER?
Kati: SDS is mobilizing for the March
on the Pentagon on the 17
th — there is an SDS organizing
team and a planned SDS contingent for this march. There was also an
SDS-led student contingent at the January 27
th UFPJ demo
in DC. As far as the fighting between UFPJ and ANSWER — I cannot
speak for all of SDS, but ANSWER tends to have more anti-imperialist
politics like that of SDS. There was an open letter to UFPJ written
recently that was critical of the call that they put out for a
protest in NYC on March 18
th — the day after the ANSWER
March on the Pentagon and during the planned encampment in DC. Some
SDS activists signed on to that letter and I agree with it. I oppose
any kind of efforts to divide the anti-war movement.
Ron:
How can people interested in organizing or attending a March 20th
action find out more?
Kati:
People interested in
organizing an event for March 20
th, or even if schools are
on spring break but still support the call to action, should contact
march20antiwar@hotmail.com.
There is also a blog about the March 20
th actions —
www.march20antiwar.blogspot.com
— where people can see what schools are participating, reports
about organizing methods from schools, and press roundups.
Ron:
Anything else?
Kati:
The call to action for
March 20
th grew out of an initiative from an SDS meeting
with 20 campuses, started out as having four schools signed on to
action, and now has over 50 schools participating. The momentum for
this is tremendous, and shows that we are truly in a new period in
the student anti-war movement. It’s so inspiring to see actions
being planned all across the country, with different student groups
working and connecting with each other. The groups participating
range from large well-known universities to small-town high schools
with a couple of students taking up the initiative. I hope that we
can continue with this energy past March 20
th and really
make history with the work that we are doing, everyday, to end the
war.
Writings 
Folks
often ask, rather cynically, where are the students protesting the
war? Well, the answer is that they are there mdash; on their campuses and
in the dorms mdash; organizing speakers, rallies and teach-ins. The fact
that folks off campus do not hear about these events does not mean
that they aren't occurring. What it does mean is that the media is
choosing not to cover them. 
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