November 17 – International Students' Day

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nToday is the super sad anniversary of a violent response by German forces to an anti-Nazi protest by University of Prague students, in what is now Czechia. It happened in 1939.

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nBut it is also the anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. On the fiftieth anniversary of the anti-Nazi protest, university students organized a mass demonstration in Prague. Some 15,000 gathered and chanted anti-Communist slogans.

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nUnfortunately, although it sounds like the students were non-violent, the riot police sent to break up the demonstration were not, and some students were badly beaten.

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nNobody died, thank goodness!

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nHowever, as all the protestors left, one man was lying in the street. 

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nHere’s where the story is tricky:

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nThe man lying in street wasn’t a student, he was an undercover police officer.

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nHe wasn’t physically hurt.

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nHe certainly wasn’t dead – and he wasn’t even pretending to be dead.

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nI read that he was overcome with emotion.

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nPolice officers carried the motionless man to an ambulance – and some of the students who saw this, students who WERE hurt and waiting for treatment, thought he was a dead student.

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nRumors of the dead student got started, and soon all kinds of things happened:

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nStudents and theater performers agreed to go on strike.

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nThe demonstration of November 17 was dwarfed by 250,000 students gathering in protest a few days later, and by November 20, about 500,000 people were in the streets of Prague, protesting.

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nOn November 24, the entire top leadership of the Communist Party resigned.

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nOn November 27, there was a 2-hour general strike, demanding the end to a one-party state.

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nAnd on November 29, Communist rule in Czechoslovakia ended!

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nWhat we can learn from all of this is that student protests can be dangerous and violent, but they can also be non-violent, and they can also be successful! The Velvet Revolution is called “velvet” because it was largely non-violent. Even though the very first bit of the non-violent revolution was met with police brutality (riot police beating up students), the end of Communism in Czechoslovakia was mostly bloodless.

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nHow do people celebrate International Students’ Day now? In some places, students gather for demonstrations demanding free education, equal access to education, and safe campuses. In some places, students remember the Nazi repression of 1939 and the Velvet Revolution of 1989. In some places, universities have special activities honoring international students or celebrating cultural diversity.

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nIn 2014, students from more than 40 countries coordinated demonstrations.

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International Students’ Day in Rome, 2016

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nAlso on this date:

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nNational Revival Day in Azerbaijan 

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nMalabo Festival

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nElephant round-up in Surin

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nHomemade Bread Day

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nMathematician A. F. Mobius’s birthday

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nNational Unfriend Day

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nAnniversary of Lewis and Clark reaching the “Ocian”

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nPetroleum Day

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nPlan ahead:

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nCheck out my Pinterest boards for:

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• nNovember holidays

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• nNovember birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in November

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nAnd here are my Pinterest boards for:

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• nDecember holidays

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• nDecember birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in December

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