Multiple strategies necessary

STEFAN BRAUN

Conflict over strategies to counter campus hate have erupted into the open. The catalyst: Jewish students’ “Size Does Not Matter” blitz. Hesitant Jewish elders (and even some student compatriots) are shocked by the video. A generation gap in Jewish activism, fracturing young from old, has bubbled to the surface. Have these students missed the mark? Or, are they on to something?

Civil criticism of Israel should be met with information, gravity and reason. But the anti-Zionist agenda on Canadian campuses is driven not by civility and debate but by hate, harassment and censorship. Campus discourses so driven cannot simply be “refuted” with facts, diplomacy or reasoned argument. They must be recast, reset and rebranded. The “size does not matter” strategy endeavors to that in a way that today’s demographics of youth understand. Unfortunately, some of their more pious compatriots and prudish, or portentous, elders don’t.

The battle for campus minds is as much a function of propaganda as prudence. Impact requires multiple and multifaceted strategies of communication, not just one. One messaging size does not fit all communication occasions. Effective messaging (as any good student of communications knows) is rarely an either/or choice: either appeal to reason or base instincts, seriousness or silliness, information or entertainment. It’s all of them. Symbolism sells. Sexual symbolism sells to youth. Vilified Jewish students know their demographics best. Jewish elders may see indignity. Student activists see reality. Jewish elders see frivolity. Student activists see opportunity. There is power in parody, spoof and spin. Anti-Zionist propagandists have long understood that. Shouldn’t Jewish activists?

Seen any Gay Pride parades lately? Once, bra burning was shocking. If that was all there was to it, we’d still be shocked. But there was much more. No one is laughing at the feminist or gay movements today. And symbolic “silliness” played a part. It grabbed the attention of the indifferent and the diffident in a way that seriousness and solemnity alone could not and would not. Frivolity did not replace equal rights. Crudity did not substitute for gender-neutral laws. Prurience did not take the place of affirmative action. What they did do, in a way that informed appeals to the intellect alone never could, is they teased and tugged at our emotional strings, sometimes exploiting our baser instincts to be sure but, in so doing, afforded the vilified one more potent messaging vehicle for the hard-slogging to follow. Later, feminist and gay activists built on and refined the methods of earlier pioneers – suitable to their times, places and audiences. They grew, the movements grew, and we all grew with them.

Vilified student activists ask, “What’s your better alternative?” The strategies of restraint and reticence from the past that have failed them so miserably on today’s campuses? Whose tepid tolerance for intimidation failed to first appreciate, much less foresee or prepare Jewish students for the writing of anti-Zionist demonization on the “progressive” walls of campus hate? On whose woeful watch did Jewry’s future became relegated to second-class citizenship on too many a “progressive” campus, where only the Jewish voice and Jewish security need not be accorded the mutual sensitivity, respect and inclusivity enjoyed by every other historically vulnerable group on campus today?

Too harsh? Perhaps. Then again, do you recall feminist leaders ever advising harassed young women in hostile environments to not make a big deal over every affront, to just hunker down, and it will in time blow over? When is the last time you heard black leaders warn vilified black students to be careful to not appear too loud, too demanding – to not draw too much attention to themselves – for fear of rousing the ire of campus benefactors and making things worse? Or heard gay leaders counsel their youth to put their vilification in the perspective of progress made – gay studies, programs and clubs – for fear they have too much to lose by speaking out? Do you know any minority that celebrated campus affirmative action and equity programs that included every historically vulnerable group but themselves – programs and their professors which now “educate” the next un-self-critical generation of anti-Zionist parrots and agitators?

To be sure, Jewish strategies have traditionally witnessed (and led to) stunning Jewish social progress: hate crimes laws, Holocaust education week, even Jewish human rights awards. It is not that Jewish students are oblivious to what their elders have achieved. It is that they will not accept less. Visible Jewish students live “Israel apartheid” – harassment, intimidation, vilification and violence speaking veto – more or less every day.

Nunavut has not replaced the Native voice on campus. Freedom from campus intimidation has not been swapped for Pride parades, by gays. Human rights awards have not discounted freedom from campus vilification for blacks. Gender studies has not substituted for freedom from campus harassment for women. Should they for Jewish students? This is hardly the time to be mired in tepid self-doubt with second-class campus rights, but to take bold and creative risks forward.

Progress requires eternal vigilance. It has to be defended, in ways sometimes different from how first attained, or it will slowly slip away. The singular strategies of reason and rationality, of “quiet diplomacy,” which worked so well for one generation of Jews in the antisemitic era past, no longer works well for this generation, in the new age of anti-Zionism. The “dominant” ideology has been succeeded by “progressive” ideologues, transparent neo-Nazis supplanted by erudite “anti-colonial” anti-Zionists, collision of Western ideologies displaced by clash of multicultural civilizations, David refashioned as Goliath.

The antisemitism of our time calls for a particularly inventive brand of Jewish activism because the anti-Zionist demagogues of intolerance today refuse to dress the part. Intimidation can afflict visible Jewish students without sporting a swastika. Alienation does not need the transparent antisemitic vocabulary of ancient hatreds to rob Jewish students of their quality of campus life. Anti-Zionists’ violence and intimidation veto can set administrators’ campus speaking preconditions without official antisemitism, to singularly chill the Jewish voice. Jewish indignity can hide behind the canopy of Jewish studies, Jewish programs and Jewish clubs. The world of antisemitism has changed. Jewish communication strategies must, too. Student activists recognize that. Isn’t it time their elders did, too?

Stefan Braun, LLB, LLM, PhD, is the author, among other works, of Second-class Citizens: Jews, Freedom of Speech and Intolerance on Canadian University Campuses and Democracy off Balance: Freedom of Expression and Hate Propaganda Law in Canada.

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