The complexity of protest

Historian says today’s students face a world without ‘clear enemies’

Many people can pinpoint a “Eureka!” moment or two during which they stumbled upon an area of personal interest that would later lead to an entire career. For some people, those experiences took place with a mentor, in a science class or on a field trip.

Jeremi Suri’s moment occurred before high school, as he read historical novels of the saga of the ill-fated Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia, Czar Nicholas II and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Growing up in New York City, Suri was captivated by the intrigues and intersections of intellectuals, workers and peasants.

Inspired by those books about revolution, Suri is today an author and a UW–Madison assistant professor of history. He specializes in the study of interactions between states, peoples and cultures, and the ways social movements can profoundly influence leaders and institutions.

“I always loved history,” he says about his career choice. “I also liked to read and write, and I was good at talking. Everyone thought I was going to become a lawyer.”

In the oft-cited axiom, philosopher George Santayana argued that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

In that context, Suri’s forthcoming book, “Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente” (Harvard University Press, 2003), has drawn national media attention over the differences and similarities between the major protest movements of the 1960s and the comparative lack of protest on current issues such as civil liberties and Iraq.

His conclusion: The Cold War climate of the ’60s influenced protest movements within several societies, and the movements went on to deeply influence world diplomacy and foreign policy. But for a variety of reasons, today’s movements, many led by students, tend to be less organized, less populous and generally not as engaged as counterparts in the ’60s, he says.

Some of the difference has to do with the current lack of clear social and international goals. The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement were all encompassing, galvanizing events that don’t have clear counterparts in today’s world.

“September 11 also changed things,” he says. “In the 1960s, students made the case that the threat of communism was exaggerated. That’s not the case with the war on terror. Random violence affects people in a way that’s much more direct.”

However, labeling today’s generation of students as a group of apathetic slackers is a serious mistake, he says. Students tend to be more career-focused, fearing that in an unstable economy, there may be less margin for error in the job market.

“I also see students hungering for knowledge,” he says. “It’s a confusing time and the circumstances are much more complex. There aren’t clear enemies.”

Movements that are active today, such as anti-globalism and pro-environmental causes, tend to be less leader-driven than the 1960s, which also results in a less focused set of goals.

Suri says that the anti-war movement could see tremendous growth during the next few months, but only if the Bush administration is pulled into a prolonged conflict in Iraq. Other factors that could lead to a rise of new movements would be the continuation of a stagnant economy, a new environmental disaster or more greed-driven corporate scandals.

Instead of maintaining a strict focus on studying American history through sources at home, Suri has used his knowledge of French, German and Russian to travel overseas to study archival material. By studying the Soviet Union’s views of the American peace movement, as well as the largely forgotten Russian peace movement, Suri says it’s possible to see the connections and differences among states and societies on a more global level.

In addition to his study of protest movements, Suri, a graduate of Yale, Stanford and Ohio universities, studies America’s often contested place in the world, the history of American foreign relations since the 18th century and “Great Power” relations since 1815.

In the future, Suri says he’d like to use an internationalist approach to re-evaluate the career of Henry Kissinger, whom he describes as one of the most influential people of the last half-century. But Suri also acknowledges the growing debate, led by author Christopher Hitchens and others, about the morality of Kissinger’s manipulation of Cold War power politics.

“Our old understandings of him no longer work,” he says, noting that farther down the road, he’s interested in writing a book about the memory of events and how they influence the portrayal of history.

Suri says the best advice he received about becoming a historian came from a professor who mentored him at Yale.

“I believe it’s important to write books that have scholarly meaning, but it’s also important to have bearing beyond the scholarly world,” he says. “Historians can’t necessarily influence policy, but we can influence the way people think. I’m still idealistic enough to think history can make the world a better place.”