Student Protest 1960`s-1970`s

Student Activism in the 1960s and 1970s : The freedom to exert rights

Personally , I always held my flower in a clenched fist . --Abbie Hoffman

Introduction

Student activism is defined as the movement of students who want to implement change in the political , economic , environmental , or social milieu of the society (Haskins and Benson 1988 . In most cases , student activism is focused on student rights , specifically on the fight against tuition increase or curriculum changes . In extreme cases , student activism has also helped a lot in effecting changes in the political setting

of a country . The fact is student activism was very active in these two decades . This was true not only in Western countries , but in other parts of the world too

In the Philippines , the 1970s were marked with protests against the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos . Students from the country 's premiere university , the University of the Philippines , formed the so-called Diliman commune ' to barricade their campus against the onslaught of the military that remained loyal to the President . Students demanded the resignation of a corrupt leader . The protests eventually led to the People Power revolution more than a decade later

In France , student activists were also instrumental in shaping the latest history of the country . At one point , the University of Paris was closed in 1968 because there was a brewing problem between the administration and the students . To denounce the closure of the university and to condemn the kicking out of student activists , Sorbonne students in Paris also started their own protests and mass demonstrations . The scattered movements stirred national consciousness and their small-time activities eventually intensified into a national civil disobedience

In Indonesia , student groups were always the first group to stage street protests against the government . To prove their indispensability other organizations would often seek to solicit the support of student groups to strengthen their causes . In the 1960s , university students held demonstrations to call for the elimination of alleged Communists within President Sukarno 's administration . These student activists were also instrumental in the eventual resignation of Sukarno in 1967

In Canada , the late 1950s and the 1960s also witnessed the emergence of several new left student organizations . At that time , two of the several dominant left groups in the country were the Company of Young Canadians (CYC ) and the Student Union for Peace Action (SUPA . From the pacifistic and moralistic Combined Universities Campaign for University Disarmament (CUCND , the SUPA was established in 1964 . Its scope included grass-roots politics in underprivileged communes , and raising awareness of the `generation gap ' being experienced by Canadian youth and their adult counterparts

At that time , student activism in the United States of America was also getting more active . Its causes specifically geared towards changing the existing educational system in the country . This does not mean to say that the causes these movements were fighting for were new . In fact student activism in this country started way , way back when public education was just starting . In fact...