Protests against wars

In 1965-1970, there was the so-called Ivy Leaque, a group of students combined from eight U.S. universities (Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth College, Princeton, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale). Ivy Leaque became active in about 1968 and worked as a student movement against the war in Vietnam. Students used occupation strikes, during which they occupied university buildings, they picketed, distributed leaflets and organized peaceful demonstrations. In 1966, Federal Republic of Germany announced its support for Americans because of their military intervention in Vietnam. Soon German students flooded the country with a wave of anti-war demonstrations and protests. A group of students known as SDS (Socialist German Student Union) was the most interested in those actions

One of the most active anti-war students’ movement was that from the year 2003, directed against the war in Iraq. A wave of protests calling for the cessation of hostilities went through the entire globe. The students blocked the traffic (e.g. in Brussels) organized demonstrations (such as those in Rome or Naples), and protested, sitting in the parliament building (the so-called sit-in in London). Rectors of Spanish universities, in order to show their solidarity and mourning for the victims of the conflict in Iraq, dropped the flags to half-mast. In Egypt students protested by burning American flags and shouting hostile statements directed to the U.S. and the UK. Also in many Polish cities there were students’ anti-war demonstrations. United States President - George W. Bush was the one who was the most criticized for this military intervention of 2003.

Students’ anti-war movements in the twentieth century have shown that people can interact with one another, and that war brings more harm than benefits.