We Have Left the Tower
And there's no going back
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In the 2010 Disney animated film Tangled, an evil witch kidnaps Rapunzel and raises the girl to believe the witch is her mother. She keeps Rapunzel isolated in a tower deep in the woods because her golden hair has the magical ability to heal wounds and even reverse the aging process. The witch uses the child’s hair to remain forever young.
When Rapunzel is a teenager, she ventures out of the tower for the first time, despite the witch’s warnings about how cruel the outside world can be. Rapunzel is surprised to discover generally good people who help her on her journey. When she eventually confronts the witch, the witch threatens to force Rapunzel to stay in the tower forever, believing she is still in control of the situation.
Rapunzel, voiced by Mandy Moore, replies in part with this line:
“No! I won’t stop! For every minute of the rest of my life I will fight! I will never stop trying to get away from you.”
In that moment, the mask was off. The woman who Rapunzel believed to be her mother is revealed to be a witch, and there is no choice left but to resist her attempts at control.
For some reason, this scene came to mind this week as protests against the genocide in Gaza have been erupting on college campuses.
On the campus of Columbia University in New York, more than 100 students were arrested Thursday night after the NYPD was called in to disband the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Students were camping on a school lawn demanding that Columbia divest from companies supplying weapons and other support to Israel.
Students involved in the protests were kicked out of the university, evicted from school housing, and forbidden from entering the campus. Student possessions in trash bags were seen being loaded into a truck, surrounded by police.
Columbia’s use of police to disband a peaceful protest came just a day after Columbia president Nemat Shafik was called to testify before Congress about “antisemitism” on campus. Shafik is not only the first woman to serve as president of Columbia, but is also the first president of Middle Eastern descent (she was born in Egypt).
A few months ago, Claudine Gay of Harvard (a Black woman) and the University of Pennsylvania’s M Elizabeth Magill (a white woman) both lost their positions after similar Congressional testimony about protests on campus.
Rather than stand in solidarity with her student body or at least try to listen to their concerns, Shafik decided to respond with force and called in the NYPD. She probably hoped that the police would trample out any dissent and the protests would end.
Yet like Rapunzel discovering the truth and realizing she must resist her captor with every bone in her body, arresting and evicting Columbia students became a rallying cry.
The protests have continued at Columbia. Susan Sarandon joined the students in a show of solidarity on Friday, bringing more media attention to the situation.
But even more importantly, what started as a small encampment in Morningside Heights has now exploded into other similar protests across the country. Yale students are now camping out on their school’s lawn. Other protests in solidarity with Columbia have been taking place at the University of North Carolina, Ohio State University, and Harvard.
These colleges think that by silencing dissent, their students will just shrug and leave. Instead, these students are being galvanized by these administrators violent responses.
The sad truth in all of this is that the tide is beginning to turn, and the administrators aren’t seeing the writing on the wall.
Congress passed a massive aid package to Israel yesterday, although 58 representatives opposed the package (37 Democrats and 21 Republicans). While the opposition is not yet large enough to stop passage of the bill, it’s still a significant number and worth noting.
The 15 country United Nations Security Council voted last week to recognize Palestine as a full member of the U.N. 12 countries voted in favor, 2 abstained (U.K. and Switzerland). But the U.S. vetoed the measure, which means it did not pass. Still, more than 140 countries do recognize Palestine, and the fact that U.S. allies like France, Japan, and South Korea voted in favor of the measure are a sign that change is in the air.
At the end of the day, American politicians, academia, and others who are “in charge” can try to stifle the push for Palestinian liberation, and indeed, our collective liberation as much as they want.
But every day, more people wake up to the realization that the American Dream for the last 20-30 years has been more about taking on massive debt, working long hours, and sacrificing so that our tax dollars can be spent on wars overseas. Once people see that truth, and more importantly, can imagine a different future, they will never stop fighting for that true freedom.
Like Rapunzel, there is no going back to being held in the tower once we know the truth.
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I cant thank you enough for discussing and bringing light to the awful conflict that is going on between Israel and Palestine right now, and the Americans who choose to voice what they believe in publicly. I'll be honest, I stopped regularly watching any national, or even local news, many years ago. It has improved my general mood and has helped lower my stress, since we all already have so much going on in our little bubbles. I know it's equivalent to me burying my head in the sand, but it's what I need to conserve my bandwidth. I wanted to express that I value your efforts when it comes to discussing this very sensitive topic. I know, and I'm sure many of your readers know, what a polarizing topic this is, and I appreciate hearing about it from my favorite newsletter.