The rise of student anti-war protests in the Vietnam War era

Thèmes abordés

Vietnam, antiwar, protests, student, history, campus, michigan, war, university, draft, U.S.

Résumé du document

The first explanation that could be found, and maybe the most evident, is the war itself. The concept of war as well as its substance generated strong protests in reaction, because it united the many independent interests that the anti-war movement used to consist of.

Indeed, the basis of war opponents' argumentation is pacifism. This is the theoretical side of the movement. It is the philosophical part of protests: protest against the concept of war, whatever the war is about.

This basis is a mix of various concepts such as 'pacifism', 'anti-war', 'non-violence', 'anti-militarism' or even "alternative movement" and "civil disobedience". First of all, it is important to distinguish these concepts and to understand the reason why these expressions can refer to a single movement.

Extraits

[...] The first major student demonstration against the war occurred on May 2nd in New York City and San Francisco. Quickly the movement grew and 2,500 people attended to an antiwar conference given by some teachers of University of Michigan on January 29th an action then repeated at 35 campuses across the country. The interesting fact about these student movements is that they have been the beginning of a larger opposition: polls indicate that 52% of the population agreed with the war on August 1965 and only 28% on May 1971. [...]

[...] Youth groups, culture and music were politically engaged against the Vietnam War: it was the first time in the history of the U.S. (not to say the only time) when a subject mobilized so generally the Youth as well as the rest of the population. Possible explanations are various: the war itself, historically shocking because of its revolutionary media treatment, the unfair conscription plan or its political justification, as well as other interior social factors such as the conjunction of different protest movements among one large antiwar protest or the critics against U.S. involvement in the Cold War in general. [...]

[...] The rise of student antiwar protest in the Vietnam War Era How did the student antiwar protest movement grow so big? 1. The war itself The first explanation that could be found, and maybe the most evident, is the war itself. The concept of war as well as its substance generated strong protests in reaction, because it united the many independent interests that the antiwar movement used to consist in opposing to the concept of war (pacifism) Indeed, the basis of war opponents argumentation is pacifism. [...]

[...] does not refer to an idea but to a movement: the Vietnam War has this particularity to have generated a real social movement in opposition to it. There were not only pacifist ideas in debates and publications, there were a complete and organized revendicational movement. But the anti-war movement refers also to “nonviolence” idea also called ahimsâ (after Gandhi's speeches). It is a philosophy that develops a strategy for social change through preventing to use of violence. This influence is particularly striking when you analyze the methods used by the movement to protest: nonviolent interventions and non-cooperation (or civil disobedience), just as Gandhi did in India. [...]

[...] This new visual perception of the wartime conflict explains a lot of the strength of the movement. But of course there were also pragmatic arguments against the U.S involvement in Vietnam. The most common moral argument, particularly among college students, consisted in blaming the government to hide imperialistic goals behind the communist threat. This is a very strong opinion, but even when people did not believe in this scapegoat theory, a more neutral argument consisted in noting that whatever the situation may be, the U.S. should not interfere with south-Vietnamese people “self-determination” Interior social factors 1. [...]