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STUDENT UNIONS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY
April 21, 2024, was a beautiful spring day at the American University (AU) campus in Washington DC. Yet, there was palpable tension in the air as the university’s student union was about to vote on one of the most contested topics ripping apart the political discourse in the United States — the issue of the horrific, genocidal violence unleashed by Israel on the Palestinian people.
The resolution called for supporting the Palestinian civil society’s call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, which in practice meant severing ties between AU and Israeli institutions. This was a contentious topic, as the university has a long history of deep ties to the Zionist project, as well as to the military-industrial complex that sustains American support to Israel.
Since October 7, 2023, the American University campus had witnessed a number of protests, by both by pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups, with each side accusing the other of being aligned with violent, regressive forces in the Middle East. Under the spotlight of the local media and the watchful eye of the university administration, this tension finally found its way into the student union, where the elected student representatives had to make a choice on the future orientation of the union with regards to the crisis in the Middle East.
On the day of the debate, I accompanied my wife, Tabitha Spence, an active member in the pro-Palestine movement on campus, to the room where the student union meeting was convened. The room had almost no space to sit as eager students, some wearing keffiyehs while others waving the Star of David, awaited to see how their elected representatives would respond to one of the most pressing moral challenges of our times.
In front of a packed audience, student leaders debated the controversial topics of settler colonialism, US imperialism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and the efficacy of BDS. After over an hour of intense debate on the pressing historical, economic and ethical questions, the motion was put to vote. Twenty-one students voted in favour of the resolution, two voted against it, while two students abstained.
This year marks 40 years since student unions were banned in Pakistan by dictator Gen Ziaul Haq. As student activism in the West over the issue of Palestine is highlighted and celebrated in political and public discourse, the continued absence of student unions and repression of student voices in this country has become all the more glaring. So who is afraid of student unions?
This was a miraculous outcome. One of the most stridently pro-Israeli universities was witnessing its student body indict the Zionist state of committing genocide, an act reminiscent of the BDS movement on US campuses against apartheid South Africa.
The response of the administration was hysterical, as expected. Within an hour, the president of the university sent out an email refusing to accept the verdict of the student body, highlighting the contradictory logics with which the administration and the students, the old and the young, viewed the world.
It is this impasse that triggered the pro-Palestinian “encampments” on university campuses across the US and beyond, where students are taking a bold stand against genocide in the midst of intense media hostility and severe repercussions from the administration.
While these students became symbols of hope across the world, it forced me to think of the context that provided them with the confidence to debate controversial issues. One of the pillars of this confidence is the regular student union elections, as well the debates that take place within the unions on key policy issues related to campus, with topics often tied to national and global issues. One cannot but lament that this basic building block of democracy is denied to students in Pakistan.
Having taught in Pakistan, I could only imagine the kind of spirited debates that our brilliant students would engage in if they were provided the opportunity to elect their own representatives on campus and provide a moral compass to our decaying society.
Forty years ago, in 1984, a military dictator imposed an unconstitutional and antidemocratic ban on student unions in Pakistan, robbing us of this possibility. The global student revolts under the banner of the Palestinian flag are an opportunity to re-examine the history of student unions in this country and to consider paving the way for their return on our campuses.
My thesis is that Pakistan’s student movement must be situated in the global context of anti-imperialist student uprisings across the globe, while the ban on them should be read as part of a global counter-revolutionary effort to wipe out revolutionary fervour amongst the youth and force them to assimilate into the dominant order.
These campaigns for the pacification of students took place simultaneously in the Global South and the Global North, with Pakistan standing out as the most successful example of a counter-revolution, which managed to wipe out all traces of revolutionary organisations on campuses.
STUDENTS AND THE GLOBAL REVOLUTION
The 1980s are remembered as a period that laid the foundations for the global defeat of the Left and progressive forces. From Latin America to the Middle East to Asia, many countries were firmly placed in the grip of pro–US and right-wing military dictatorships, pushing their societies into a vortex of authoritarianism and terror.
These regimes were counter-revolutionary, ie dedicated to the violent elimination of revolutionary organisations, the distortion of their memory and the complete discrediting, if not criminalisation, of their ideology. This counter-revolution was a direct response to the insurgent decades of the 1960s and 1970s, when mass uprisings, from Paris to Mexico City, from Los Angeles to Lahore, shook a defaulting status quo and heralded the arrival of a new political subject on to the stage of history.
This subject was the figure of the ‘student’, hitherto considered an elite vocation removed from the turbulent contradictions engulfing society. The convergence of global anger against the brutal Vietnam War, the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) active opposition to national liberation struggles in Africa and Asia, and the growing consciousness of the links between universities and the ruling system, propelled students to become a leading vanguard of progressive movements.
Their power was most potently demonstrated in the famous “May ’68“ uprisings in Paris, where a mass student revolt brought French President Charles De Gaulle’s government to its knees. From this point onwards, students became an integral part of the rebellion against the system, turning universities into a hotbed of subversive ideas and political action.
Student revolts placed the entire Western system in an acute state of crisis. French philosopher Louis Althusser demonstrated the central role played by universities in the production of ideology of the ruling class.
Beneath the claims of promoting “free speech” and “critical thinking”, the primary function of the university was to produce a professional managerial class that could be integrated into the capitalist system without questioning its fundamentals. This ideological function was disrupted by the student uprisings that transformed universities into sites for new ideas, and fuelled the anti-war, anti-racist, feminist and worker movements on a global scale.
As a reaction, the ruling classes mounted an unprecedented effort at restoring the power balance on campuses, by defeating the challenge posed by insurgent student politics. Philosopher Gabriel Rockhill has recently shown how pacifying university students required a gigantic effort that included the mobilisation of corporations, the CIA, domestic policing as well as shrewdly devised concessions to the student movement.
One of his fascinating insights is how the CIA was directly involved in promoting postmodern thought on university campuses, as a substitute to more radical and directly political texts that were dominating the student movement in the 1960s.
Similarly, the US intelligence apparatus invested heavily in promoting ‘cultural exchanges’ and conferences through organisations such as the Asia Foundation in the global South, to promote its narrative in the unfolding Cold War against the Soviet Union.
However, ideological arguments and monetary inducements were insufficient tools of pacification in the Global South. Eventually, the counter-revolution could only be secured through military coups throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America, which aimed to eliminate all leftist elements in society.
The shocking nature of brutality stemming from these coups can be gauged by the example of Chile, where leftist leader Salvador Allende was propelled to power as a result of mass mobilisation by students and workers. On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the government of Allende in a CIA-backed coup d’état, rounding up 4,000 leftists and shooting them in a stadium.
Many were former student leaders whose dreams of a different world were drowned in blood by ruthless counter-revolutionary forces. Similar massacres of students were staged in Indonesia, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa and a number of other countries, where the youth refused to be a mere footnote in the imperialist calculus of complete global domination.
COUNTER-REVOLUTION COMES TO PAKISTAN
From the nation’s birth, the Pakistani ruling elites looked towards the US for their survival rather than charting out a sovereign path for national development. The signing of US-led military pacts, such as SEATO and CENTO in the 1950s, cemented the country’s place firmly in the anti-communist and anti-Soviet camp during the Cold War.
This fateful decision created many political distortions, including the elevation of the military as the primary arbiter on international and domestic issues, and the concomitant centralisation of state power. Such authoritarianism both fuelled dissent across the country, often led by the youth, while also triggering violent responses from the state, which had increasingly begun viewing any form of agitation through a myopic national security lens.
The 1951 language riots in Dhaka and the student movement in Karachi in 1953 were some of the earliest examples of the coming clashes between an uncompromising authoritarian state and a rebellious youth refusing to surrender.
The language riots stemmed from the imposition of Urdu on the Bengali population, while the 1953 movement began with a charter of demands presented to the government by the Democratic Students Federation (DSF), only to see their procession gunned down by the police, which murdered 27 people. A year later, the DSF, an affiliate of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP), was banned along with the CPP, as a ferocious anti-communist fervour took hold amongst the ruling classes in Pakistan.
To promote ‘pro-state’ sentiments among students, the government facilitated the formation of the National Students Federation (NSF) in 1955. However, this soon proved to be a clumsy decision, as the group was quickly infiltrated by leftist elements who rebranded it as a major progressive student organisation. Incidentally, the organisation first showed its muscle in 1962, when it led a protest against the CIA-backed overthrow of the Congolese revolutionary government led by the charismatic Patrice Lumumba.
The protests resulted in severe backlash by the Ayub Khan-led military government, triggering a mass student movement that became one of the most significant protest movements against the military junta at the time. Throughout the 1960s, the NSF gained momentum as the foremost student body in the country, only rivalled by the right-wing Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT).
Indeed, the crescendo of this organisation arrived in 1968, when a student-led movement erupted against the Ayub dictatorship, disrupting his celebration of a “decade of development.” Students inspired workers, farmers and professional classes to openly air their grievances against the junta, eventually forcing the US-backed military dictator to resign in the midst of a popular upheaval. It was these student agitators, reviled today in revisionist history, who paved the way for the first general elections in the country, thus becoming the forebears of democracy in the country.
A number of groups sprang up in the 1970s that contested against each other in annual elections of the student unions. Campuses became hotbeds for debates on the place of Islam, secularism, socialism, democracy, women rights and minorities in society. The archives show the rich literature, both Islamist and socialist, that was produced, circulated and widely read by students on campus as they tried orienting themselves in a complex socio-political environment. These archives belie the contemporary narrative around student politics that portrays this past as a series of mindless violent acts, a distorted narrative that only serves those in power.
Gen Ziaul Haq’s martial law in 1977 must be viewed in the context of this increasing power of labour and student unions, which had slowly begun outflanking even the self-proclaimed revolutionary government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Zia’s counter-revolutionary regime aimed to discipline both labour and students by dismantling their organisations and discrediting their ideology.
The military junta drew its support from the US, which needed Pakistan as a base to launch its “jihad” against the socialist government in Afghanistan. This proxy war destroyed the entire region. Once again, the main bulwark against the completion of the counter-revolution was the organised student unions, the forebears of democracy who were now its final line of defence.
Apart from leading resistance for democracy when the country’s political leadership melted away to exile or went underground, student unions also became the most potent expression of the rejection of Zia’s agenda of authoritarianism and ‘Islamisation’. For example, in the student elections of 1981, 1982 and 1983, progressive forces gained massive victories on campuses across the country, despite the repression and state-led propaganda against them.
It was a sign that ideologically charged students were more difficult to control than career politicians, and hence had to be demobilised. Alongside increasing repression on campuses against left-wing student groups, the military junta played its final card. On February 9, 1984, it announced a complete ban on student unions, depriving the youth of the only form of representation available. The counter-revolution appeared complete.
THE FALSE LOGIC OF REPRESSION
As is often the case with authoritarianism, its rationale eventually finds support among broad layers of society who often tend to absorb the propaganda emanating from the highest echelons of power. A similar fate was meted out to the discussions of student unions in Pakistan, where a number of shallow, patronising and factually absurd arguments were forged and popularised to become the national ‘common sense’ arguments against the restoration of student unions.
In this sense, the counter-revolutionary aim of discrediting progressive ideology ended up discrediting the very idea of campus democracy and constructing a manufactured memory of the past to suit the unconstitutional and autocratic decisions made by the military junta.
Let us confront two of the most common myths against student unions.
The first includes how student unions were responsible for violence. As suggested earlier, this is a reductive understanding of the broad role played by student groups in cementing democracy and promoting a vibrant culture of intellectual engagement on campuses. Violence is a part of this story, but not merely between competing student groups. The worst forms of violence perpetrated on students were by the state itself, the self-appointed guardian of students in revisionist history.
Let’s assume that the state under Zia (who was promoting war across the region) was actually serious about promoting peace on campus. Has the ban on student unions helped in this regard? Anyone familiar with campuses knows that it is hardly the case. The incident of Mashal Khan’s lynching, the sexual harassment scandals at Balochistan University, the repeated tensions between student groups and administrations at Punjab University, and the sedition cases against students at Sindh University for demanding clean water, are a few of the many examples of the violence that pervades university campuses despite the ban on student unions.
The difference is that this violence is now detached from any ethical or ideological considerations and becomes part of petty turf wars between different factions of the administration, as exemplified by the tragic lynching of Mashal Khan.
One can add to this another misunderstanding that obfuscates the issues at stake. It is pertaining to the common confusion between student groups and student unions. Critics often give examples of IJT and other right-wing student groups as proof that student unions continue to promote violence. Yet, the problem stems from the conflation between organisations and unions. Student organisations are bodies formed by a group of students of a particular ideological/political orientation, while student unions are elected by students in elections that are held on campus. As a result, these are representative bodies of students that negotiate on their behalf with the administration. Since there are no elections on campuses, there are no unions in Pakistan.
Second, it is argued that educational institutions should be kept away from politics. This is a vacuous moral statement since education has always been a deeply political endeavour. Despite the erasure of student unions, politics plays out in each and every corner of universities in Pakistan, from the appointment of vice chancellors to the promotions of the clerical staff.
Similarly, the deep state continues to play a central role in monitoring university campuses, including keeping a close eye on the curriculum, so that it poses no threat to “Pakistan’s ideology.” I personally am witness to the calibre of these men when I was fired from FC College, Lahore. A security agency official had informed my university to remove me from teaching because I discussed politics in the classroom. At the time, I was teaching courses in political science.
The only politics that is suppressed is the politics of the oppressed, the students who simultaneously happen to be the most important and most excluded stakeholders in education. In the last 40 years, our universities have failed to compete with universities in South Asia, let alone across the world. All other countries of South Asia, as well as around the world, have student unions.
The reason for our dismal performance lies elsewhere, but the scapegoating of unions provides a useful veneer to cover up the failures of our system. There cannot be a bigger indictment of a system where VCs and administrators regularly convey to the government that they have no faith in the ability of their students to act responsibly if student unions are restored.
One should then ask that if, despite the increasing costs of education, universities are unable to inculcate basic virtues of citizenship among their students, would it not be correct to hold university administrators accountable for this incredible failure? Yet, in a perverse logic, accountability is only meted out to the victims, who must suffer the consequences of a defunct education system in suffocating silence.
REFUSING TO BE SILENCED
It is impossible, however, to turn young people into unthinking zombies. Hundreds of thousands of young people are entering the education system every year, only to see their hopes being shattered by a system that punishes critical thinking and promotes sycophancy.
It is pertinent to remember that hundreds of the brightest students, mostly Baloch and Pashtun, have been the subject of the odious policy of enforced disappearances at the hands of the state. A state that imposes physical violence to drill its own version of nationalism and religion into the youth is an insecurity state that will rule by fear but will never command the respect of its citizens.
This suffocating environment has led to a revival of the debate on student unions, heralded by the Student Solidarity Marches that began in 2018. Students who were taught to accept state narratives in silence built bonds across religious, ethnic and gender divides to bring together marchers in 54 different cities across the country, signalling popular unity from below when those at the top fuelled divisions in society. Students spoke out against the corruption scandals of university administrators, cases of sexual harassment, the militarisation of campuses and the increasing costs of education, as they demanded the restoration of student unions.
The response of the state to these demands was excessive, even by its own standards. Displaying a lingering hangover from the Cold War era, the students were castigated as anti-Pakistan and foreign agents. Many participants, including the author, were charged with sedition, while some were abducted and tortured. This violence was indicative of the fact that the state continues to view students as a law and order problem, and seeks to criminalise them when they demand rights.
Yet, the burgeoning global revolt of students on the Palestinian question shows that this generation cannot be intimidated into silence. Pakistani students are as capable as their counterparts around the world in determining their own path forward.
Our ruling classes will obstruct this development to their own peril, as history bears witness that even the mightiest empires cannot withstand the wrath of an agitated and united youth.
The writer is a historian, academic and political organiser. He is the founder and general secretary of the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party. X: @ammaralijan
Published in Dawn, EOS, June 30th, 2024
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