The main entrance to McGill University in Montreal. Photo: Neil Howard/Flickr.
By Marthad Umucyaba – May 10, 2024
A wave of university encampments, designed with the common goal of getting the respective universities to divest from Israel, among other goals, have faced state backlash throughout North America, including Canada. NATO, particularly in the colonies of the United States and Canada, have taken the gloves off and are prepared to brutalise students in support of the NATO ethnic cleansing plan.
The militancy of the movements is new in the modern era, and the defiant bottom lines are significant. Whether it will actually improve the students’ political consciousness and grasp of international politics, remains to be seen. Leaders that challenge the white supremacist nature of the state to the bitter end, and as a result are definitively anti-NATO in practice, could be a new product out of this generational moment.
The US encampments
State reaction, as is typical of the fascist government of the United States, was particularly brutal towards the students, even before the first major encampment at Columbia University began. Members of the House of Representatives, along with members of the Senate, were consistently calling for students to be expelled, arrested, deported, etc., for opposing the US-led NATO ethnic cleansing plan in Gaza and the West Bank under the established and hackneyed pretext of “combating antisemitism”.
The threats were frequent, using interrogations of the respective Ivy League university presidents at congressional hearings, to intimidate the students at large. The President of Columbia University even boasted (39:52-40:35) about having already suspended 15 students who had participated in pro-Palestine protests, before the encampments began. The Columbia University students, however, instead of feeling intimidated, saw the national focus on the school as an opportunity, and began the encampments, which have spread nationwide, including in Florida, where fascist governor Ron DeSantis threatened to immediately expel all encampment participants.
The movement spreads in Canada
Inspired by the pro-Palestine American students’ courageous battle against the brutal American state, which arrested over 2100 protesters in only two weeks, McGill University led the charge and installed the first student encampment in Canada. McGill was supported by the historically militant Concordia faculty and students. Far-right Canadian officials such as Quebec Premier Francois Legault have declared the encampment “illegal”, despite failing to get an injunction from the Quebec Superior Court against the encampment.
The encampments, at the time of this article, have now expanded to the University of Ottawa, the University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, McMaster University and many others. The far-right within the Canadian state is openly calling for repression, and for an “investigation” into funding sources, hinting at foreign influence in the protests, MP Kevin Vuong being the latest example.
Campus Police Raid University of Chicago Palestine Solidarity Encampment
Concordia Political Action: Then and Now
Seriously militant activism such as encampments at Canadian campuses hasn’t been done since the attempts to issue a citizens’ arrest against Benjamin Netanyahu in 2001, led by Laith Marouf (9:22-17:22). The move was in response to a shameless decision by Concordia University to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to speak in the university’s main hall.
The results of the protest were extraordinary. Netanyahu failed to speak at Concordia, and was forced to stay in his hotel. Montreal’s Chief of Police was forced to announce to the crowd that Netanyahu would not be speaking in the main hall, while begging the protesters, who had defeated the Montreal police in combat, to disperse. This rattled Canadian Zionists, showing their weakness despite the situation being aggressively stacked in their favour.
Despite the media and state smears of Marouf, using “antisemitism” smear, with Laith being a Palestinian-Syrian Semite himself, the legacy of Netanyahu’s humiliation has carried on to this day. Palestine activism at Concordia has stuck around for the long-term.
The Concordia Students Union, for example, has had to contend with opposition to their anti-apartheid motion by Hillel Concordia, the Zionist student lobby, in February-March 2022 (Nasheen-v-Nabeel pg. 1-24). Ultimately, they succeeded in passing the motion despite Zionist opposition. CSU organized protests were denounced by Zionist politicians like Anthony Housefather and Immigration Minister Mark Miller in November 2023 , during the early phases of the Israeli genocide against Gaza.
History repeats itself
“See how the US and its affiliated entities are reacting to the verbal opposition to Israel. The students in America haven’t destroyed anything,… they haven’t killed anyone,… but they are being treated like that. The US’ behaviour demonstrates the rightfulness of Iran’s negative outlook towards the US and substantiates the “Death to America” slogan that you chant. It proves to the world that the US is an accomplice in this crime… They may say something that seems that they are showing [to show] sympathy at times, but it’s all lies… How can one be optimistic about such a system and such a regime?”
The credibility of the brutal Canadian and US regimes has ended. There is not an ounce of truth that can be received from a single political statement against “adversaries”, nor a single genuine sentiment arising from a “commitment to a two-state solution” or “humanitarian assistance” to Gaza. These states can no longer be trusted, because their brutality towards opposition to Zionism, even domestically, reveals their true intentions, especially when the NATO state media characterises the crackdowns as an expose on the “limits of peaceful protest” (3:44-3:49). The ruling class has also weighed in, openly threatening to end employment opportunities for anyone that was pro-Palestine.
Kevin O’Leary, a far-right capitalist from Canada, openly boasted about the AI and surveillance capabilities of the state on Fox News, and his ability to screen applicants on that basis. He declared that for those protesting that in ten years, they would be wondering why they wouldn’t get the job, promotion, or loan, and it would be because they “break [broke] the law of the land” and that the protesters should “really think this [their activism] through”. Incidentally, it is now officially illegal “hate speech” to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, or to even denounce Zionism in general in the United States, and steps have been taken to make denouncing Zionism and supporting anti-colonial struggle in West Asia illegal in Canada as well.
Perhaps a word of caution can be given to capitalists like Kevin O’Leary. The common factor of all of the revolutions that shaped the modern Democratic Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and China, which are all demonised for their “anti-capitalist” and “authoritarian” systems, is that they all were led by students, well trained, and well educated, with nothing to lose. Moreover, their skills, education, and expertise, which would be shunned in their home country, were useful in other countries, and were used to support their revolutions domestically.
One can make Dr. Hansen’s wager that the students are simply ‘crybaby protesters’, who will buckle under the threats against their future. However, this argument will not cover every instance, and might not even cover the majority of instances. No one can ever predict how the class struggle will shape itself in the future. However, history has shown us that despite the actions of the ruling class to delay the inevitable, victory will always come for the majority.
Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba (formerly referred to as Christian Shingiro) is a Rwandan-born naturalized Canadian expat. He is known for his participation in Communist/anti-imperialist national and international politics and is the radio show host of The Socially Radical Guitarist.
He is also a freelance web developer in Hong Kong, China, striving to provide “Socially Radical Web Design at a socially reasonable price”.
