Wall Street Journal is forced to admit that large sectors of U.S. youth turn towards anti-imperialism and socialism
By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 30 November 2023, www.thecommunists.net
The Wall Street Journal has published a highly interesting article titled “Gaza Protests at Colleges Open a Generational Divide. Young activists often see the world as split between the oppressed and their oppressors—and their views are markedly different than those of older Americans”. [1]
The extraordinary character of this article stems both from its contents as well as from the background of the publisher. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is, as the name already indicates, a key organ of America’s big capital and is thoroughly dedicated to spread pro-imperialist and pro-Israel views. It has been – like nearly all Western media – a ferocious supporter of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaz.
Still, even such an arch-reactionary paper can not ignore the reality that the 7 October and the Gaza War have provoked huge mobilisations around the globe – in particular of young people. This wave of mass protests – from the Arab and Muslim world to South Africa, from Australia to Mexico and from Britain to the U.S. – is of no less significance than the mobilisations against the U.S. wars against Vietnam and Iraq.
Basically, these protests reflect a dramatic shift in the consciousness of important sectors of the masses – and in particular of youth – to the left. Such shift, in turn, is a result of the explosive character of the current historic period which opened with the Great Recession and which entered a new stage in the past years with major wars, Bonapartist attacks and mass struggles. The RCIT has characterised this as a revolutionary period of capitalist decay. [2]
Numbers ‘don’t lie
It is remarkable that even the WSJ feels obliged to admit that the Gaza War has provoked large sectors of youth to take a stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against U.S. imperialism and the Israeli Apartheid state. Furthermore, many activists can see the link between the oppression of the Palestinians and injustice in other fields.
“A wave of pro-Palestinian protests has swept college campuses, leading to heightened tensions, counterprotests and, in some cases, violence. The conflict has also exposed a generational divide, with many older Americans surprised at the protests’ scope and intensity. Mullen and other pro-Palestinian college demonstrators (whom the WSJ interviewed for this article, Ed.) say their activism is rooted in a deeply held conviction that the world is divided between the oppressed and their oppressors.
That view frames the suffering of an array of populations, they say, including low-income families being evicted from their homes, Black and brown people who encounter brutal treatment by the police, migrants turned away from safe haven at the border and, in the current conflict, Palestinians struggling to wrest control of territory from the Israelis. “Gaza is not a two-sided war,” said Mullen, who is 21. “What is happening is the resistance of the oppressed against their oppressor.””
Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the WSJ is forced to admit: “The protesters’ sympathy for Hamas, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group, sometimes astonishes and rankles bystanders. Roughly half of Americans 18 to 24 years old think Hamas’s October attack was justified by grievances of the Palestinians, according to a Harvard Harris Poll. Just 9% of people aged 65 and older feel the same.”
This is all the more remarkable since America’s media – like nearly all others in Western countries – have blared day after day hysterical denunciations of “terrorist” Hamas in order to justify their unlimited support for the Israel’s colonial rule. All this is combined with a vicious witch-hunt against student groups which declare their support for the Palestinian cause. Likewise, actresses like Susan Sarandon and Melissa Barrera, various scientists and journalists, etc. have been sacked after they publicly stated their opposition to Israel’s genocide. But despite all such unprecedented pressure, large sectors of youth turn against the Zionist terror state and its imperialist backers!
It is safe to say that such strong sympathies for the militant resistance in Palestine among the youth are not confined to the U.S. They obviously also exist in all other parts of the world as the composition of many mass demonstrations visually reflects.
Such news can only be welcomed by all supporters of the Palestinian liberation struggle! The RCIT – including our comrades in Israel / Occupied Palestine – has always supported the Palestinian people and their resistance against Israeli occupation. In the current Gaza War – like in the past ones – we advocate the military victory of the resistance led by Hamas without lending political support to the program or all tactics of its leadership. We call for a comprehensive boycott of the Israeli Apartheid state. Sabotage all forms of military support for Israel. For strikes, protests and consumer boycott against Israeli goods, pro-Israeli political and cultural events! [3]
“Youth favours socialism”
There is also another revealing finding about which the WSJ article reports, referring to another study: “Nearly half of 18- to 29-year-olds favor socialism—more than those who support a market economy, which many blame for the compounding disasters they face, according to a 2022 poll from Pew Research.”
Since the U.S. is not known for strong sympathies for socialism throughout its history, it is safe to say that there also exist similar pro-socialist views among youth in many other countries.
Hence, we can say that despite the fact that “public opinion” in North America and Europe uniformly preaches the superiority of “Western values”, fewer and fewer youth give credit to such imperialist and capitalist propaganda. The ruling class, its state institutions and the media, on one side, and large sectors of youth (and also adults), on the other side – they are living in two different worlds. It is evident that since the 1920s and 1930s there has been no comparable situation where such a big gap has existed between the ruling elite and the masses. No doubt, such a historic period is pregnant with revolutionary explosions and uprisings!
The WSJ writes: “Young activists often see the world as split between the oppressed and their oppressors” The youth see it like this because it is the truth. Exploitation and oppression are the essence of imperialism and capitalism. More and more people recognise the class contradictions and the resulting injustice.
It is the responsibility of all revolutionaries to prepare for such a period in which it will be possible to overthrow the capitalist/imperialist system and to replace it with a socialist society without classes where decisions are made democratically from below to the top. A key task for this will be the building of a Revolutionary World Party which can organise the struggle for a socialist future. The RCIT is fully dedicated to this task, and we ask other revolutionaries to join forces in addressing this task!
[1] Douglas Belkin & Melissa Korn: Gaza Protests at Colleges Open a Generational Divide. Young activists often see the world as split between the oppressed and their oppressors—and their views are markedly different than those of older Americans, Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/israel-hamas-war-pro-palestinian-college-campus-35c19c7a
[2] See on this e.g. the following article – plus several other RCIT documents quoted in the footnotes – by Michael Pröbsting: Interesting Assessments of the Global Class Struggle by a Bourgeois Think Tank, 21 June 2021, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/interesting-assessments-of-the-global-class-struggle-by-a-bourgeois-think-tank/
[3] We refer readers to a special page on our website where more a number of RCIT documents on the 2023 Gaza War are compiled, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023/.