The following is a repost of a Facebook comment made by a former classmate of mine from Harvard, Craig Hetherington. Craig is a doctoral student in physics at UC Berkeley. In his response to a friend who didn’t think much of Berkeley’s student protestors, he explains how UC’s recent use of police force against students is basically a how-to guide for turning conservative scientists into revolutionaries. UC beware! Craig offers a unique perspective on the happenings at the University of California, and I hope the administration is paying attention.

What was the purpose of the protestors outside the building? It was a large and diverse group of people. Most of them were chanting things like “education not prisons” or “fire Yudof” or “this is what democracy looks like.” I imagine most believe, as I do, that a 32% tuition increase, while class sizes are increased and services are cut, and while that tuition is used as collateral for obtaining loans, is unfair. Many were probably there to give moral support to their friends inside. As for me (and others), my presence at the rally was more out of curiosity than anything else. But the point is that I, along with 99% of the people outside, was exercising my constitutional right to stand around on a rainy afternoon and speak my mind.

Yet when the police charged (and they did charge, in some cases with beanbag guns raised), they were pressing against individual human beings who just happened to be at the front lines. 99% of them didn’t want a fight, but it came to them. Even if they wanted to run away, it’s not like they could move back given the mass of bodies behind them. (And anyway, they were already obeying the law by staying behind the yellow police tape so, constitutionally speaking, I do believe they had every right to be there.) At the rally, because of the actions of the university and the police, we were all in it together.

That’s the thing about violence. It lumps people together and radicalizes them. The rally started as a statement about how the university is screwing the students. And it became a near-riot. You’re right that peaceful protests happen every day on Sproul Plaza. And if the university hadn’t called on 50-100 riot police to silence this protest, it would have remained peaceful too. The result is that a conservative, meek guy like me became incensed, came darn close to getting in a stupid fight, and will possibly never trust the university again.

I never thought that I would find myself on the front lines of this issue. I hope that if fate were to put me in this kind of situation again, I would have the courage to stand my ground. On Friday I saw that if we are passive, we will be pushed around and pushed as far as possible.

Apathy has gotten the students at the university into this situation. We stood around as corporate executives took over the Board of Regents. We didn’t care when janitorial services were cut because it only affected other departments. We didn’t mind when fees were increased because we’re on fellowship. We laughed when third-world language classes were cut because who speaks those languages anyway? But now we have been pushed so far that I’m personally affected, and now I see that I should have acted sooner. Like it or not, we’re all in this together. Yesterday the barricades were far away. But tomorrow they will be in your face, and you’ve got to push back.

Disclaimer: I totally don’t agree with the attitude toward so-called third-world language classes that he mentions, for what are likely obvious reasons to regular readers of this blog.