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The Student Intifada. Arising and bearing witness: The American university student protests in solidarity with Gaza

They stand together in solidarity. Representing the beauty of the different colours of the world’s people like the sacred colours of earthly sand. Some like beach white sand, others like smiling red earth and others in beautiful variations of black and brown.  They see each other as well as the rest of the people on planet earth as human beings first. This inspires their human rights universalism.  With hearts that love and minds that seek justice, they have arisen and born witness with clenched fists and keffiyehs draped around their necks.

Committed to freedom and justice, they stand defiant against the genocide in Gaza. Mostly teenagers who in the main have no religious affiliation to the people in Palestine but are connected by common humanity. They are a combination of committed Jews, Christian, Muslims, Socialists and other faith persuasions.  They are fervently committed to the human rights, dignity, freedom and justice for the Palestinians. They have arisen and born witness, taking a principled stand against Israeli Zionism and American Imperialism.

The student’s affiliation with the people of Palestine is based simply on human rights universalism arising from the fact that we are all human beings and no one should be subjected to injustice, Apartheid, oppression and Genocide. They continue from a progressive ideological tradition rooted in social justice by students who preceded them. The ones who stood in solidarity with black African American people in the civil rights struggle, the solidarity with the people of Vietnam and the opposition to the American war, the solidarity with the Anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa and now in solidarity against the Israeli genocide and occupation of Palestine. In all of these struggles, the students went against power and the prevailing tide. This means that they have opposed the mainstream political establishment and the mainstream media.  They were a step ahead. Today everyone recognizes the injustice of Apartheid in South Africa but when the student movement in America stood in solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle, they were demonised by the American government and the media. The United States and most of the European governments were doing business with Apartheid South Africa. Similarly the students were up against the Establishment when they took a stand against the unjust war in Vietnam and stood in solidarity with the African American civil rights struggle. Students have historically been the conscience of America.

The Columbia University Apartheid Divestment Group says on its website “We are a continuation of the Vietnam Anti War movement and the movement for Divestment from Apartheid South Africa”. This historical symbolism is powerful. In the 1980’s the student protesters at Columbia took over the same hall and called for divestment from Apartheid South Africa. Now the students are calling for divestment from Apartheid Israel.

In 1984, when the University of Berkley students were protesting against Apartheid South Africa and took their sleeping bags to Sprout Hall and then renamed the Plaza, Biko Plaza in memory of the anti-apartheid struggle icon Steve Biko the police came in to brutally repress the protest and arrested 158 of the protesters. Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited the campus and said ‘As God looks down on you today, he is saying hey hey, have you seen my children in Berkley. Eh? Don’t you think they are something else”?

In the same way, the student protesters have captured the imagination of people the world over.

Nelson Mandela, after being released from political imprisonment in 1990, expressed his gratitude to the student protesters of Berkley and the progressive outcome that saw Berkley divest from Apartheid South Africa which Mandela saw as a catalyst that ultimately ended white minority rule in South Africa.

In April 2024, the student Palestine solidarity protesters in Columbia University set up tents and camped out to take a stand against the genocide in Gaza. The university president Minouche Shafik called on the New York City Police Department to deal with the peaceful student protest. There was police brutality and mass arrests with the encampment cleared out. In a brave act of fearless defiance, the students set up the protest encampment the following day, the students entered Hamilton Hall and renamed it Hind Hall, in memory of Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl child slaughtered by the Israeli Occupation. Again the NYPD entered the University and dealt violently with the students. More than 100 students were arrested by the ‘pigs’.  This is the first time since 1968 that the police were called in to Columbia University to brutally repress the peaceful protesters.

The students are inspired by freedom, love and justice. They have nothing materially to gain from their stand but a lot to lose like their education and future employment prospects and being violently attacked. They have been completely peaceful but have been subjected to police brutality. They are at risk of reactionary violence from both the security apparatus of the state as well as Pro Israeli goons who attacked the peaceful protesters at the UCLA encampment with sticks, poles and metal fences and were shouting “Second Nakba”. Student journalists from the Daily Bruin report of how they were attacked and beaten by the by Zionists on campus. Witness reports state that the LAPD waited for approximately four hours while the Zionists attacked the Palestine solidarity protesters and the police officers did nothing to intervene or protect the protesters. Many students have been suspended and charged. More than 2900 protesters have been arrested. The University Authorities acting in collusion with the Zionists in the American government and security establishment have in effect criminalized the political expression of solidarity with Palestine.

The Columbia protests inspired nationwide solidarity protests and encampments mushroomed throughout America. The police repression thus had the opposite effect with protests taking place in 45 out of 50 states and approximately 140 college campuses. Recently America witnessed the first faculty led solidarity encampment when two dozen professors and lecturers took their sleeping bags and set up a protest space the lobby of the academic building at the New York New school campus. Protests have spread to universities throughout the world. Just this week, the students at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa set up a Gaza solidarity encampment.

The students have struck a deathly blow against the Empires divide and rule. There is a universalism to the student movement. It is a movement that is multi-racial and of varied faiths. Jewish students shared their Seder dinner meals with Muslim and Christian students to honour the Passover holiday. Students of different faiths are breaking bread together and living together in a shared space. They have given hope and inspiration to the people of Palestine resisting Israeli Apartheid in the same way that students inspired Mandela and the Anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa. In Gaza, the people have come out onto the streets to thank the students and publicly acknowledge their solidarity.

In the background in the encampment, comes the soulful voice of the late great John Lennon “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, all you need is love, love is all you need”. These kids are flowing with love. They are showing the world another way. A path of justice and peace where every one of us is considered the same because we are all created by God and entitled to equal rights without discrimination.  The authorities set the “pigs” on them with batons and tear gas but these kids were too smart, they didn’t take the bait, they have not allowed themselves to be provoked or to react violently. They are steadfast in their position of Satyagraha ((non-violent resistance to injustice). They are disciplined and have set out rules in the encampment which they commit to. These rules include nonviolence and no hate speech. They don’t care for political expediency and have called out the double speak of the White House and its complicity in the Gaza genocide. In these dark moments where those in power have done nothing to stop the genocide and many governments have been complicit in the genocide, the students are a rare expression of light. They are showing us that another world is possible without war, division and hate but that it requires activism, sacrifice and courage.

Iqbal Suleman