Students: Politics and Revolution

I July, university students in Iran came close to overthrowing the regime. They failed when conservatives within the government mobilized counter demonstrators and mounted their own street demonstrations. It is worth recalling that the downfall of the Shah two decades ago was precipitated by students from Tehran University. Less than a year ago, Indonesian students took to the streets and, after protracted demonstrations that resulted in major riots and deaths, forced the resignation of President Suharto and paved the way for recently concluded elections. These are but two examples of the power student movements have to influence politics and cause social unrest. Students have played a pivotal role in the political and cultural history of many countries. They were central players in the independence movements that brought freedom to many developing countries. Campus social and political movements have been harbingers of change in many societies, from the pro-Nazi student fraternities in pre-Hitler Germany to the U.S. civil rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s. Student political movements might be compared to the proverbial canary in the coal mine—they may be a sign of a social explosion to come or of a building political crisis. Yet not all student movements signal impending social crisis, and they are by no means always successful. If a regime is stable and has a modicum of legitimacy, it can usually survive. The government can sometimes use overwhelming repression to put down student revolts. This can be dangerous, since it can easily backfire. This occurred on the streets of Jakarta, when troops killed students at one of Indonesia’s most prestigious universities, inflaming campus opinion and causing the mass media to turn against the government. In contrast, the Chinese authorities were able to use massive force to end the demonstrations at Tienanmin Square in 1989 by moving decisively and keeping control of the mass media. Further, the Chinese regime had better control over the security apparatus and greater legitimacy than President Suharto. Student movements can topple governments only when the political system is already weakened and the regime has lost much of its legitimacy. Students have never caused the government of an industrialized country to fall. This is because the political systems are relatively stable and there are many competing political interests, organizations, and movements—from labor unions to political parties and the media. Only in the volatile 1960s did students cause significant unrest in Western countries. In France, President DeGaulle was forced to flee to a French military base in Germany and the survival of the government seemed precarious. In America, the anti-Vietnam War movement, led by students, forced President Lyndon Johnson not to run for re-election although it did not threaten the political system. In West Germany, radical students were a potent political force. The reasons for the power of students at this time were similar in each country—society was polarized and the established political parties were not functioning effectively. In the United States, Pres. Johnson’s pledge to scale back in Vietnam was not honored and the war escalated; in France, DeGaulle had weakened parliament; and in Germany, the “grand coalition” of the two major parties left the country without an effective opposition and the students stepped in with an “extraparliamentary opposition” that expressed the views of a growing sector of German opinion.