Jeffrey Blehar
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Early this morning, in response to the Columbia
University administration’s repeated orders to clear the pro-Hamas tent city on
the quad, protesters — suspiciously thirtysomething-looking tattooed activists
decked out in ski masks and freshly bought matching “Columbia”-branded
sweatgear — smashed out the windows of Hamilton Hall on campus, “occupied it,”
and barricaded themselves inside, festooning it with banners calling for the
elimination of Israel.
But they are now entrenched inside the building, have set
up camp and barricaded the doors, and are refusing to budge in the face of
threats of expulsion. (Only now, at this late moment, is expulsion finally on
the table for Columbia.) And they have found a spokeswoman. Allow me the
pleasure of introducing you to one Johannah King-Slutzky, Ph.D. candidate in the English and
Comparative Literature Department at Columbia. She focuses on . . . well,
“stuff,” near as I can gather from her biography page on the department’s website. (Note:
Her page was taken down almost immediately after the publication of this
piece.) She IS also (and unsurprisingly) happy to mention she comes from a
lengthy background in left-wing protest:
My dissertation is on fantasies of
limitless energy in the transatlantic Romantic imagination from 1760-1860. My
goal is to write a prehistory of metabolic rift, Marx’s term for the disruption
of energy circuits caused by industrialization under capitalism. I am
particularly interested in theories of the imagination and poetry as
interpreted through a Marxian lens in order to update and propose an
alternative to historicist ideological critiques of the Romantic imagination.
Prior to joining Columbia, I worked as a political strategist for leftist and
progressive causes and remain active in the higher education labor movement.
I’m guessing that this is a lady with a lot of free time
on her hands, is all I’m saying. (Look, some theses just take longer to draft
than others.)
So out comes this Mouth of Sauron this afternoon,
emerging to address the media with the protesters’ key demands, which although
poorly articulated are generally understood from the slogans shouted to include
(1) immediate divestment by Columbia from Israel, (2) an end to the Israeli war
in the Middle East, and (3) an end to the Israeli state in the Middle East. Ms.
King-Slutzky has added a new one: (4) access to free meals and drinks while
they wait for Nos. 1-3 to be addressed. Because darnit, they’re thirsty.
Standing outside Hamilton Hall this afternoon, she
addressed reporters wearing a keffiyeh scarf (always, always with the keffiyeh
scarves) and demanded they allow the occupying army of protesters to “resupply”
from the outside. I guess someone has to go out there and make a complete ass
of themselves in the name of impossible demands, so it might as well be the
protest “professional,” but I still marvel at the delusional strength of this
woman, to stand in front of the cameras and speak as she did. I commend the
brief video to all as a memorable up-close experience of the caliber
of minds we’re dealing with here:
REPORTER: Why should the university
be obligated to provide food to people who’ve taken over a building?
KING-SLUTZKY: Uh, well first of all
we’re saying that they are obligated to provide food to students who pay for a
meal plan here.
REPORTER: But you mentioned that
there was a request that food and water be brought in. Unless I misunderstan—
KING-SLUTZKY: To allow it to be
brought in. Well, I guess it’s ultimately a question of what kind of community
and obligation Columbia feels it has to its students. Do you want students to
die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even if they disagree
with you?
At this point, if you’re like me, you’re half-jokingly
thinking to yourself, “well . . . why not? Worked well enough in those medieval
sieges, I guess.” (The other half of me wonders why we haven’t yet begun to
seriously consider catapulting plague-infested bodies over the ramparts to
hasten the matter.) But she continues as reporters begin to crudely assault her
with commonsense questions:
KING-SLUTZKY: If the answer is no,
then you should allow basic—I mean, this is crazy to say because we’re on an
Ivy League campus, but this is like basic humanitarian aid we’re asking for,
could people have a glass of water?
REPORTER: But they did put
themselves, very deliberately, in that situation and that position, so it seems
like you’re sort of saying we want to take over this building — now would you
please bring us food and water?
KING-SLUTZKY: Nobody’s asking them
to bring anything, we’re asking them to not violently stop us from bringing in
basic humanitarian aid.
OTHER REPORTER: They’re stopping
the delivery of food?
KING-SLUTZKY: We’re looking for a
commitment that they will not do it.
OTHER REPORTER: But they haven’t
stopped it yet.
KING-SLUTZKY: Well, I don’t know to
what extent it has been attempted, but we’re looking for a commitment.
First things first — a round of applause to those
reporters. The video is worth watching only so you can hear how hilariously
neutral their tones are when incredulously asking obvious questions of
King-Slutzky, as if they cannot believe they’re lucky enough to be interviewing
anyone this stupid. (“This doesn’t normally happen to beat reporters like me,”
their internal monologues are screaming. “I am living the dream.”)
As to the administration’s proper response, it should be
this: Nothing. Let them wonder, and then interdict any supplies that occupiers
are attempting to smuggle into the building. Form a complete cordon to
accomplish it. And then say: If you want your free lunch then by all means,
come to the cafeteria and get it.
What is going to be left of Columbia after this is all
over? How does this disastrously handled mess end with anything except
incredibly humiliating footage on the evening news? On Saturday morning, I
wrote a piece I hope you’ve read titled “You Don’t Need to Be A Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind’s
Blowing at Columbia.” (If you happen to be a Bob Dylan fan familiar with
the history of the Columbia chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society in
the late Sixties, then you get my gist already.) It was framed around the
memorably crazed undergrad zealot Khymani James but was much more about the
lost nature of an entire generation of children. I intended a subtext with that
title: The logic of all this inevitably leads to insanity, irrational
escalation, and ultimately (I fear) bloodshed. I ended by noting “make no mistake,
James and his ilk will return until they are wholly uprooted, and until they
are they will only radicalize further and further.”
At every single step of the way during this rolling
debacle, the behavior of Columbia University’s administration has been a
disgrace that encouraged that radicalization — in fact made it inevitable. They
have acted with cowardice, incompetence, hesitance, confused messaging, and a
manifest failure of will. And if anyone gets hurt, they will likely be held
civilly liable as well, particularly given their refusal to ask the New York
Police Department (as professional an organization as it gets when it comes to
riot control) to help on campus. I can’t well call on an entire college
administration to commit ritual public seppuku to expiate its failures, but I
certainly can suggest the idea in a friendly manner to them in this column.
King-Slutzky ended her press conference today by
threatening upcoming commencement ceremonies. She places the blame squarely on
the administration, which she accuses of “participating in and fueling a
genocide”: “It’s really up to Columbia to come to a peaceful solution as soon
as possible if it wants to preserve graduation, but that’s entirely something
in their control.”
Give us the impossible — or else. Are we surprised that
the defenders of terrorists have escalated rapidly into the leveling of
terroristic demands themselves? I am instead shaking my head at the grim irony
— or was it entirely predictable? — that it is well in the process of happening
at Columbia University for the second time in 56 years. The wind blows ill at
Columbia, and we have seen from the past which way it threatens to blow.
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