Guy Fawkes Day Protest

“Kouchery! Kouchery! Kouchery!” I have never been big on chanting, but I joined in with the clapping and smiled wide at the change of slogan. “Kouchery! Kouchery!”

The gathering of people had now grown to the size of a large swimming pool. Most were sitting on the dusty stone ground, but around the periphery remained a constant crowed of standers peering in with interest or amusement, enjoying themselves enough to stay but not supportive enough to sit down. “Sit! Sit! Sit!” would become the chant every few minutes as those stalwartly sitting sought to summon those still standing. After an hour it became apparent that this was a protest about getting people to sit not a sit-in about getting people to protest.

Kat, Rebecca, Gillian and a few others had been working on this protest for a month. They had tried to talk with the President of AUC, called the newspapers, met with USAID, and finally taken to the streets… or the court yard in front of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS) building. The agenda was tuition hikes, the corporatization of AUC, the mistreatment of staff, the food monopoly, the horrible food quality and price, shuttle bus service issues, the unfinished campus, the egregious student housing situation, student apathy, and the denial of these problems by our university.

The protest had been a long time in the making and it was good to see so much support. It was hard to tell how many of the students really cared about these issues and how many were just there for the sensation of it, but that was unimportant. People were here. The dream was here. When two of the petitions that predated the protest were passed around almost everybody signed.

Some of the organizers gave speeches from the center of the sitters, and then two of the teachers from the anthropology department talked. Finally, the floor was opened up to anyone with a complaint or a cry. It took about four people before one fiery character suggested storming the president’s office.

It is a dangerous business to create a monster, and then tell it to behave. The attempt to rally and unite AUC students had been surprisingly successful. The problem comes when you spend a month arranging a protest, setting an agenda and a plan, assembling a crowd, saying you speak for it, and then you find out that the agenda and plan of the crowd may not be the same as yours. Have you gotten too close? Have you made it personal? When an organizer yells “No! Stop! If you march on the president’s office you will ruin everything. All our plans will be wasted.” you have to wonder. You have to wonder if you are really a body being represented or simply a fuel being consumed, a tool being employed for its mechanical advantage. Was it your plan to put together a crowd that would grant someone else a ticket to see the authorities and push an agenda across a table, and was it your agenda that was slid across that table? Or, when you heard the chanting, saw the crowd and sat down in its ranks, was it your plan to feel involved? Was it your plan to skip class? Was it your plan to make a speech and let yourself be known? Was it your plan to demand rather then suggest change? Was it your plan to march or scream, to grab the administration by the collar and insist upon accountability, confession, and change? Did you care about legitimacy or respectability or rather destruction, explosion, severed limbs and lambasted savagery excusable later only because of the crowd? Or maybe you just saw a friend and thought you would sit and chat.

It is dangerous business to say you represent a protest.

The crowd grew. People pulled in giant umbrella awnings for shade. Factions arose and fell. At times it was chaos and at times suppressed. Once someone had spoken once or twice you could see them moving to a new sphere of importance, and suddenly they no longer had to sit amongst the rest of us. They stood in the middle or around the shade umbrellas with organizers and the others who had been initiated. They would peer around at the sitters and go back to talking. The fiery character formed a small cadre who stood and debated with each other and sometimes had to be hand-on-shoulder-ed or stern-word-in-the-ear-ed or sympathizing-but-serious-grasp-of-wrist-ed. It was hard not to view it as a microcosm of a revolution—initiated by idealogicians, fractured by interests and interpretations, and eventually degraded into chaos awaiting resolution or leadership. At one point we were ‘76 Iran unsure of our identity and ideology; were we struggling students or spoiled urban upper classes? And then we were swept into ‘82 Lebanon reduced to factions, passing briefly through ‘87 Palestine wondering what our leaders were doing in Tunisia.

By 3:30 PM the crowed had dissolved. Kat had returned from the president’s office empty handed. Parliament still stood. Some lost interest; others had to get to class. Only a core group remained to debate events and discuss the path ahead. A committee was created. A mission was determined. And people went their ways. Everyone agreed the protest was a success. AUC students had united and participated in a manner not seen in many years. But, no one was really sure what the success meant. Was it a first step? Was it just an experiment? Was it a sign of things to come? Was it a fleeting HAZZAA surrounded by an administration packing earplugs? Hopefully the next two months will tell.