Angad Bhalla
Angad Bhalla
Anti-Iraq War demo
Hundreds of chanting students marched noisily but peacefully across campus on March 5 2003, then gathered on the east side of the Main Quad for a day-long strike of thousands of students who demonstrated nationally against a possible war on Iraq and the effects a military campaign would have on federal spending for education and social services.
The National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, which organized the "Books Not Bombs" strike, estimated that 30,000 to 50,000 students at 400 to 500 colleges walked out on classes Wednesday. At Stanford, Public Events Director Elaine Enos judged the crowd to be less than 500 at its peak.
Ahmad Dallal, associate professor of history, spoke to a group of students at the teach-in on the Main Quad during the national student strike on Wednesday, March 5.
"We're taking back our campus in various forms throughout the day," student Angad Bhalla announced to cheers. "As students who are here to learn and to get an education, this is the most powerful statement we can make," said student Clara Webb, an organizer. More than two dozen student groups sponsored and helped organize Wednesday's strike and teach-ins.
E-mail messages were sent to all faculty before the strike to ask for their support and explain the reason students were skipping class, said Stanford Asian American Activism Coalition co-chair Hai Binh Nguyen. As of Tuesday night, 26 professors had canceled class on Wednesday and 64 professors had pledged their support, said student Eric Shih.
"This is history repeating itself," said poet and playwright Cherrie Moraga, an artist-in-residence at the Drama Department, who read a statement early on the day of the strike. "The U.S. is determined to become a global empire and it's happening on a scale that makes Vietnam look pitiful."
Along with green armbands, students passed out printed instructions on the South African tradition of toyi-toyi, a protest dance used in the struggle against apartheid. Protesters had reclaimed the right to occupy public space and to participate in civil society by keeping their bodies in motion and participating in a call-and-response chant, the instructions explained. Students on Wednesday led others in the movement with a "books not bombs" chant.
Shahid Buttar, a third-year law student, didn't use a microphone when he performed a spoken word piece in the late afternoon because it would reduce his intimacy with the crowd, not because of the restrictions placed on amplified sound, he said.
Approximately 20 professors were scheduled to lead teach-ins on the Main Quad Wednesday on topics ranging from the regional repercussions of war in the Mideast, presented by Ahmad Dallal, associate professor of history, to a discussion of what has historically constituted a just war, led by Rega Wood, professor of philosophy.
In a presentation called "Views from Iraq," Carol Delaney, associate professor of cultural and social anthropology, and Kathleen Namphy, a retired lecturer in English, talked about their experiences visiting the Middle Eastern country. They said the Iraqis are a proud, sophisticated people in despair about their future. "Our government has never wanted to talk to people it doesn't like," Delaney said. "We need to include people in negotiations instead of treating them as barbarians. We've got to learn to include everybody at the table and spread the wealth."
So many students -- about 150 -- gathered for a presentation on the evolution of aggression and warfare given by Robert Sapolsky, professor of biological sciences, that organizers brought the soft-spoken professor two successively larger megaphones so he could be heard.
"The faculty support of the strike is key," said Hilary Spencer, a symbolic systems major from New York, who had attended two classes on Wednesday and planned to go to another. Spencer initially had been concerned that a strike would undermine support for education, "but this has worked out well," she said. She'd learned from the teach-ins, she said. "I'm a technical major, so my courses don't cover these topics."
"I think it's amazing," said Katherine KelmanLink title, a sophomore who attended one class and two teach-ins on Wednesday. "Any expression of public awareness is important, even if it doesn't have a direct effect. And this is not just walking around in a circle," she said, looking around the Quad.
The strike "is astonishingly well organized," said Robert Siegel, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology who came to the Quad when a Swahili class he is auditing was canceled. Siegel got a surprise -- he spotted his son, a student at Jordan Middle School, who had come to the strike with a group of about 20 other students.
"This isn't sanctioned by dad -- or the school," Siegel said.[1]
East Bay DSA Members Closed Facebook Group
Members of the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America members only closed Facebook group, as of August 29, 2017 included Angad Bhalla.[2]
East Bay DSA leadership
Minutes. East Bay Democratic Socialists of America ExComm Meeting, 01/29/2017
ExComm Members Present at the meeting: Michael Nye, Michael McCowan, Kevin Wright, Susan Chacin, Jess Dervin-Ackerman, Molly Armstrong, Angad Bhalla, Jeremy Gong, Ari Marcantonio, Mary Virginia Watson, Ben Fife.
The Regular twice a month meeting, from here on scheduled for the second and fourth Sunday of each month from 7pm-9pm, of the East Bay DSA Executive Committee was held today, January 29, at 7pm at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Oakland CA. The Meeting was Chaired by Jeremy Gong, Co-Chair of the Executive committee. The secretary was also present and recording notes. All officers and at large members of the Executive committee were present. The meeting was open and several committee chairs as well as other members were present in attendance at the meeting. The minutes of the last meeting were approved without amendment but with suggestions for future consistency around the inclusion of names.
Dan Russell, committee lead of the Education committee made a report for the Education committee.[3]
DSA Facebook group
Members of the California Democratic Socialists of America, statewide Facebook group, as of March 16, 2017 included Angad Bhalla.[4]