CHICAGO (AP) — YM Masood is a peaceful man with a beard and glasses that suggest he is older than 20. He is studying political science and plans to graduate in December, much earlier than planned. He is studying for the LSAT, the law school entrance exam.
He also often plays another role: that of the demonstrator.
Masood, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has taken to the city’s streets in recent months for pro-Palestinian rallies, often weekly and – once – even twice in the same day.
“Palestine is definitely No. 1 right now,” says Masood. Last spring, he also traveled by train to support pro-Palestinian camps at the University of Chicago and Northwestern and DePaul universities.
That set the stage for this week’s Democratic National Convention, where thousands gathered to make their voices heard on issues such as the Middle East conflict, abortion and immigrant rights. Although cameras often focused on clashes with police, the extensive majority marched peacefully.
Masood was often there, helping the organizers of these larger protests as a volunteer steward to keep things under control. The overarching message to the Democratic Party and its candidate, Kamala Harris, was clear: Stop the war. Stop aid to Israel.
For Masood and other students, the war has become a flashpoint issue for their generation, similar to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and South Africa’s apartheid system in the 1980s.
Masood says: “We will not stand idly by while all these people suffer.”
For this protester, the trip is a personal matter
The death toll in Gaza recently exceeded 40,000. In Israel, about 1,200 people were killed and, according to authorities there, more than 100 Israeli hostages, including two young children, are still being held in Gaza.
The national Harvard Youth Poll conducted last spring found that 60 percent of college students and 64 percent of those who had already graduated from college supported a indefinite ceasefire in the Middle East. Of those surveyed ages 18 to 29, just over half said they sympathized with both the Palestinian people (56 percent) and the Israelis (52 percent) — although they were less supportive of their respective governments and Hamas.
However, these protests continued to be directed against the Palestinian people, as the war destroyed many homes and wiped out entire families.
“Before I got involved in activism, I was much more shy. … But for me, this is a personal matter,” says Masood, a Muslim of Indian descent. His father, an IT specialist, was born in Chicago. His mother, who teaches religious education, came to this country from India in the 1990s. Like his father, Masood was born in Chicago but grew up in a suburb of Detroit until his family returned.
He is known on campus as the guy who drapes a red or black keffiyeh scarf around his shoulders. The Middle Eastern scarves have become an increasingly common symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian people. His own keffiyehs belonged to his father and his behind schedule uncle, who also protested for the Palestinians when they were young.
“I have a duty to carry on … what (my uncle) stood for and give it new meaning,” says Masood, who jokes that he wears the scarves so often that people wonder if he washes them.
Occasionally, he says, his parents watch him on television at protests by groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine and Students for a Democratic Society. Above all, they don’t want him to do anything “reckless” that could jeopardize his future. He promises them he won’t, and walks a fine line between his activism and that future — law school and a job, for example. That’s a legitimate concern, because some college students who have made their views on the Hamas-Israel war public have lost job offers or been harassed online.
“My parents… they’re a little worried about me,” says Masood. “But I feel like they’re realizing now that I have a duty to fulfill too. And they’re not totally against it.”
He admits that this would probably change if he were arrested.
He chooses no confrontation
On a windy summer day just before the DNC, Masood sat on the grass with a petite group and painted protest signs in a park on Chicago’s south side.
A recent college graduate complained about her parents’ “weird liberal logic.” When Democratic friends came to visit, they asked her to take down a painted sheet she had hung from her bedroom window, in which she and many others denounced the genocide in Gaza. “They didn’t want it to be the focus of the conversation,” she sighed. During the DNC, she reinstated the pro-Palestinian message with a “Harris-Walz” sign next to another window.
Next to her, a man in his early 30s said he planned to provoke the police guarding the DNC. His views seemed reminiscent of the anti-Vietnam riots at the 1968 DNC in Chicago. He painted his hands red and pressed them to a placard on which he scrawled the words “America’s hands are covered in blood.”
There were several breakaway groups at the DNC. One briefly breached an outer security wall, resulting in 13 arrests. Dozens more were arrested outside the Israeli consulate on the second night.
As a volunteer steward at the larger March on DNC protests, Masood’s role was the exact opposite of agitation. Stewards trained by organizers work to minimize conflict with police and counterprotesters.
“We don’t normally organize disruptions,” says Masood.
Why did protesters focus so much on Democrats even as the Biden administration continued to push for a ceasefire in the Middle East? At the DNC protests, the answer was clear: Many protesters feel the president has not done enough to assist the Palestinians, and they fear Harris would continue to financially support Israel.
“I feel like the Democratic and Republican parties are two of the same party, just representing different views,” Masood says. “They are controlled by corporate interests and do not benefit the average citizen.”
This is the first presidential election in which he is venerable enough to vote, but he is not enthusiastic. He plans to vote for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. Although his main issue is ending the Gaza war, he also cites other critical issues such as abortion rights, immigration and climate change.
But his generation feels overwhelmed, he says.
“We would have liked to live in a world where we only had to worry about ourselves, our families and our education,” he says. “But that is not the world we live in right now.”
Life among the demonstrators
On the topic of peace in the Middle East, Rania Batrice, a Democratic political strategist who was deputy campaign manager during Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid – and is Palestinian American – said she was “cautiously optimistic” about Kamala Harris’s candidacy as the Democratic presidential nominee.
“We now have someone at the top of the list of candidates who has at least used sensitive language,” says Batrice. “She was the first person in the government to utter the words ‘ceasefire.'” The change in rhetoric, says Batrice, “is a very, very welcome change. But it is not enough.”
For this reason, Batrice, who had come to Chicago for the DNC, fully supported the March on DNC events in which Masood participated.
“I believe that peaceful protests not only have a long tradition in this country,” she says. “We have also seen time and again that politics change.”
At the mass demonstration on the first day of the DNC, Masood was one of the first to arrive to assist set up hours before the march began. The scene turned into a human mess as pro-Palestinian protesters from across the country and journalists from around the world streamed into Union Park.
At one point, a group with Israeli flags appeared and circled the park, while protest marshals in fluorescent vests rushed to form a human barrier to ward off potential conflict. Nearby, a man with a guitar sang Christian music for hours, including “Amazing Grace.”
Across the street, another man uses a loudspeaker to provoke the much larger group in the park with a fiery message. “You are all terrorists!” he shouts, adding that he supports Donald Trump.
Masood paid him little attention. His own faith, he says, revolves around love and compassion. “At some point, you just learn to ignore them. If you shout back when they shout at you, you put yourself and others in danger.”
As the sea of thousands walked a 2-mile route to another park and back, people beat drums and waved signs. Masood and his colleagues stood on either side of the protest route with hand signals. Police marched alongside them and set up rolling barriers with bicycles to keep the protests under control.
Masood felt the message was getting through. He said he was “energized.” He is aware that Stein and the Greens are not considered presidential candidates. But his first presidential election is also a protest.
Whoever wins, Masood says, “We will be here on the streets, just like today, whether Democrats or Republicans are running. We will always protest for the people.”
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Martha Irvine, an AP national writer and photojournalist, can be reached at mirvine@ap.org or at http://twitter.com/irvineap.
