Updates on Palestine Student Activism: To Weaponise Our Rage!

Updates on Palestine student activism: to weaponise our rage! Miles Richards

Over the past month, Sydney University’s front lawns have been looking a little more empty, the once bustling encampment for Palestine leaving in its trace a shell of what it once represented; the power of students taking action. Behind its seemingly quick departure, was a build-up of multiple disciplinary threats made to students as a result of their “disruption” of university activities. The encampment, first set up on the 23rd of April this year, came as students declared that they would not allow their educations to have any direct connection to the ongoing occupation in Palestine and the genocide of its people, environment and culture. USYD holds ties with weapons manufacturers and their engineers, whose parts end up in the hands of IDF soldiers. As well as this, the university fosters diplomatic partnerships with Israeli universities, both of these actions do not at all reflect the values of students, and have constituted these levels of protest and backlash. The encampment was a chance to display the determination of students in remaining staunch in the face of greater powers who attempted to slam their activism, all to ultimately bury the university’s complicity. From these initial threats, staff had then moved in and removed the belongings of multiple campers (myself included) and left in their place “Inclosed Lands Protection Act 1901 (NSW)” signs that would allow the university to essentially shut down any further encampment attempts. This however would not be the end of the repression of student voices, with a new Campus Access Policy (CAP) rearing its ugly head, placing extreme limitations on political activism entirely at the turn of the new semester. There is now a requirement of 72 hours notice for any protesting, with the university holding final say over what political material can be displayed on campus. This in turn essentially controls the agency of students, and heavily reduces the ability to organise and mobilise against USYD or its policies. 

It was almost as if they believed that students would just forget about the blood-stained walls that line their classrooms, or the war-mongering money that clouds the vision of Mark Scott and his associates alike. While these developments again revealed the deeply immoral underbelly of this educational establishment and its capitalist interests, not all was lost with the closure of the USYD encampment for Palestine and the introduction of the CAP. There is always a new path to be discovered, one that could hope to be more radical in its attitudes, to get the University of Sydney to finally divest from its connections to Israel’s genocide in occupied Palestine. Activism for Palestine has remained at the forefront of student political organising since October 2023, and the turn towards more disruptive actions does represent a broader change in the political ideologies and strategies of this age. There is a greater ability to relate global socio-political issues to one another in their joint struggles, with the oppression of Palestinian voices conjoining with the voices of Indigenous Australians, silenced both by colonial wreckage. With this relation comes also the ability to reject what information, we as students, are being fed about Palestine. The upcoming Student General Meeting (SGM) at the USYD campus at 5pm on August 7th will play a monumental role in determining the trajectory of escalation from here on. The SGM will bring forward motions to vote on regarding USYD cutting ties with Thales, cutting ties with Israeli academic institutions and will look to rescind academic disciplinary measures taken against pro-Palestine student protestors. A callout for attendance was posted across multiple platforms of university student activist groups, as the level of support received for motions at the SGM is crucial to maintaining the platform that has formed since the beginning of the encampment. 

We at the University of Technology, an institution that takes pride in uplifting its creative subjects and the technical abilities that students hold, should be reminded that there is no room for creativity on a dead planet. We should also open our eyes to the silencing of activism that shadows our own campus, the refusal to display many political posters, to not host the voices of students concerned about genocide, is all connected. The current function of our wider society, one fueled by war, capital and greed, betrays us. Many students at UTS were active members and organisers of the encampment at USYD, as its closest neighbour. From the now empty encampment, grows a new seed of retaliation, one that should use our rage and sadness to build onto the already snowballing momentum. UTS students are urged to show up to the SGM, but also to pro-Palestine events and protests being organised in the upcoming semester. To be constantly writing about Palestine, talking about it, standing up against the domination of Australia’s colonial war-machine in our everyday lives, as this is perhaps what the academic institutions of USYD, UTS and UNSW alike fear most. They want the rage to fizzle out, for the grief to dissipate. Instead, our allegiance continues to crumble and our ideas take a revolutionary turn, as we have nothing to salvage from our own dreams while we watch the dreams of Palestinians get crushed halfway across the world. It is a constant and blaring reminder that there is nothing for us to do but endure, for the survival of all of us, not just some of us. 

Not just a call, but a responsibility: Tara Marocchi

Over the last nine months, there has been massive growth in the Palestine solidarity movement in which student activists from many different campuses across the country have played large and important roles in. Student activists are aware that building and organising within a growing movement is one thing, but abiding to its expansion is another, and we have played a faithful and lengthy role in that. There is a common understanding amongst us activists of the importance of contributing every step of the way in our campaigns, to make sure we collectively win our demands. We don’t see it as a calling to do ‘something’ with our lives, but rather we see it as a responsibility to our movement. 

Students in this country have previously understood the necessity to fight for all oppressed persons and identities, as well as the fight against monstrous imperial regimes; all which are still relevant today. For example, it was students from the University of Sydney who organised the ‘Freedom Rides’ of 1965, which drew attention to the discrimination faced by First Nations’ people. In 1974, Students at Flinders University occupied a campus building in protest of their Vice-Chancellor, who they accused of “working for the interests of US domination of Australia.” This shows the power that university students can and continue to hold. We do not claim to be a ‘vanguard’ for the broader liberatory struggle, nor are we trying to be, but there is the potential for real radical behaviour among students, which can be fostered by getting involved with the large arena of activism on campus. 

Many people might ask “but why get involved?”. Simply - the issues facing students and young people are not easy to look at, nor have they been easy to take on, but as we continue to bear the consequences of late-stage capitalism, it only gets clearer that it is exactly what we need to destroy in our lifetime. Students like us will not stand by, complacent, while the genocide continues to rage on. We think of the young people in Gaza, the children waking up to no food or water, wondering if today they will be safe from Israel’s tanks and bombs. These realities cannot be acceptable now or in the future, and we will not allow our future to be ripped from us due to war-mongering alliances of which we have no interest in. Despite supposedly living in one of the wealthiest and richest nations in the world, so many of us young Australians find ourselves asking the same questions - “Will I ever own my own home?’ or, 'Will I be able to afford rent this week?”. It is questions like these which show the necessity for politically conscious student activists on campus to fight against these continuous issues which effect all students. One has to ask, if student activists like ourselves are continually silenced, then what does that say about the state of the so-called ‘liberal democracy’ our universities operate under? How can universities be a place of free-speech when some of the most intelligent and brightest minds on our campuses are repressed and suspended for making the case in what they believe in? 

So, what's next? In the face of all the recent adversities that have been put up against us, student activists will continue to fight. We will continue to fight for a Free Palestine, as well as attempting to tackle the problems at home, such as the cost of living and housing crises. Now is the time for all individuals to come to the aid of a potential revolutionary movement that will aim to free all people from the oppressive capitalist system which further perpetuates these issues in this country and across the world.