Of protests and principles

On Thursday I googled ldquoUS campus protestsrdquo Google Search decided to issue a gentle warning sorry mera matlab hai reminder It showed me search results under the headline April 2024 IsraelHamas war protestsWherersquos the surprise Western governments media and corporates have brought their full force to uphold the figmentary narrative of doyoucondemn Hamas or are you an antiSemite Disallowing any mention of Palestine It is the myth the New York Times sought to protect by circulating a memo to restrict the use of the terms ldquogenociderdquo ldquooccupied territoryrdquo ldquoethnic cleansingrdquo and even ldquorefugee campsrdquo because theyrsquore ldquoemotionalrdquo The Objectivity Myth is the Invisibility Cloak of unjust power Emotion is as much about how you donrsquot say something as how you doEventually such power undermines itself with too much pretence Outside this circle of bad reason thousands of Palestinian social media posts have educated people on history and reality on the ground agitated emotions of anger pain and deep compassion and organised students on nearly 100 US campuses into protest encampments What a sight to see young people of varied backgrounds come together in passionate and compassionate protest Like with Indiarsquos antiCAA protests and farmerrsquos protests earlier we see here too a lifeaffirming heterogeneity where political articulation coexists with poetic articulations of dance prayer friendship singing and poetry and as importantly where there is movement happensmdashthe facts emotion and ideas of the online space overflow into the offline space coalescing and collectivising into political meaningThe disproportionate use of armed police against peaceful student protests violent arrests and draconian barring of students from campus for as much as a year is hardly surprising from the system which has funded a genocidal war in the billions of dollars If you can support the killing of 13000 children in Palestine why wouldnrsquot you oppress a few thousand of your own We see the same repression of students here too Many like Umar Khalid and Gulshifa Fatima are still in jail Accha so thatrsquos what it means to be a global leaderIt was tremendously moving to watch the interview since viral of Lazaro Aguero whose daughter was part of the protests at USC He had come to support her because ldquoI am against genocide My family is against genocide It does concern mehellip but if she was arrested fighting for Palestine I will be the happiest daddy because shersquos doing the right thingrdquoSorry not to sound like a national daily gent but eventually it boils down to something that simple doesnrsquot it Standing for whatrsquos right The vortex of socalled pragmatism convinces us that unjust power is the only thing of value We become filled with doubt and selfdoubt about the worth of principles and idealism Now we confront what that untrammelled march of power and cynicism means for humanitymdashour humanity The fight back is about insisting hope and transformation and goodness are indeed possible The ways may be difficult flawed messy but that does not equal to doomedIn our own elections we have seen the INC manifesto become a point of discussion yaniki an actual political debate not meanminded taunts and pointscoring People are quick to dismiss such things as irrelevant to winning and losing Why the hurry broAnyway On Saturday morning I googled ldquoUS campus protestsrdquo Google returned the results to me with a different headline April 2024 proPalestinian protests across US campusesParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at paromitavohramiddaycom