One of the manifestations of any fossilized social power at the apex of the social pyramid is the division of those below. The capitalist variation of this ancient law of divide et impera has been the inoculation of racism, the demobilization, and demoralization of any social organization other than the guild of millionaires—those who strike with their capital whenever they feel like it and pressure the people with necessity whenever they decide to do the same: unite to defend their individual rights, class interests, and dignity as (post)colonized peoples.

The student protest movement in the United States against the massacre in Gaza, which ignited the spark for other uprisings in other Western countries, is a paradoxical phenomenon. As expressed to me by journalists who have consulted with me, in a country where its citizens are known for their geopolitical ignorance, disinterest in their imperialist wars, blind patriotism, addiction to consumption, and militaristic and religious fanaticism, student protests belong to a different tradition that began in the 1960s and continued in the 1980s against apartheid in South Africa. These protests included various demands and calls for divestment by the administrators of their powerful universities from the business of war, private prisons, and ecocidal contamination.

Efforts were made to discredit them as irresponsible and fanciful youths, although these young people are the best informed and the bravest in their society, even though they do not come from an underprivileged group. This reaction is not difficult to explain: it is not only the non-commercialized knowledge and still uncorrupted idealism of youth but also the fact that no one can imagine a strong union of homeless people.

There is another reason. As noted at the beginning, the division of those below has always been a weapon of domination for those above: first, demobilization through the dismantling and demonization of social organizations such as labor unions; second, the consolation of churches that almost entirely supported or justified economic, political, and social power; third, through the only permitted sacred secularization: consumerism and individualism. Selfishness and greed, sins among early Christian communalists of the first three centuries of illegality and moral sins in most ancient social philosophies, became sacred virtues in the 16th century to please and support the fever of the new capitalist ideology.

Anyone who has been a student or professor in the United States clearly knows how college life works. Although some students come from the highest classes and do not need scholarships or loans because their parents pay their tuition in full, the vast majority borrow from their future to pay the world’s highest tuition fees. Others, with more luck or initial merit, receive scholarships. In any case, despite being inserted into a national and global segregated system, these differences are almost erased on campus.

The second point lies in university students’ permanent social interaction, almost family-like. Most (a great majority) live in campus apartments. Those who do not, live as if they did. In my classes, ten percent come from the city where the university is located, despite Jacksonville, FL, having a million inhabitants. Most come from states as distant as New York or California and continents as diverse as Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. This wonderful diversity produces a global human awareness that frequently is not visible in the parochial fanaticism of the rest of society, which is more widely known because the ridiculous tends to go viral more quickly.

The third point is that this way of life exposes young people not only to different thoughts in their classes but also to different lifestyles in their interactions with foreign classmates—from sports distractions and barbecues in the parks to some excessive parties. One day, I arrived at my office just as the sun was rising and found bras and panties hanging from a tree in front of the building where I usually teach. Youths.

As a professor, I have been a member of various committees, such as the student committee, and although my criticism of the U.S. university system is that it is not as democratic as those in Europe or Latin America because, for example, students do not vote, they still manage to organize and demand what they consider fair and necessary.

In other words, students are not uninformed, demobilized, disorganized, and intimidated as they will be when they become a cog in the machinery. This makes them dangerous to the system, which explains their protests at 50 campuses across the country for a human rights cause they considered just, necessary, and urgent.

The example of students with no power other than their unity must be understood with the seriousness it deserves. The first to understand this was the power, which not only allowed violence against students but also repressed them violently, arresting 3,000 of them and none of the fascists who started the violence on the campuses.

A corollary is the urgent need for the rest of society to reorganize into unions, into associations of all kinds—from political committees to neighborhood committees. This can be done using the same instruments of division and demobilization that have been used against them: digital technology.

We will have a new world when individuals integrate into various assemblies, even if they are virtual, to discuss, listen, propose, and feel they belong to something beyond the poor individuality of consumption—when people discover that they are not simply repeaters of a sermon but rather critical and active participants in a community. If humans identify a just cause, we fight for it beyond our interests. Will we understand again that the common interest of humanity, of the species, is the most important interest of the individual?

In time, this multiplicity of communities at different levels and interests will ensure that donations and taxes stop flowing to the ultra-wealthy who buy presidents, senators, armies, and global opinion. The rich do not donate; they invest. When they don’t invest in politicians, judges, and journalists, they invest in the market of morality.

Humans are driven by self-interest and by a collective cause. It is unnecessary to clarify which is the right and which is the left. Both interests are human and must be considered in the equation that will make this anxious, violent, and unsatisfied species something better. For this to happen, the majority must cease to be a disposable, irrelevant global class.

Jorge Majfud,  2024.

Jorge Majfud, May 2024.