Student encampments as hope
Students across the world are showing those in power what integrity looks like. They are showing us how morality and conviction manifests itself in real time. They are showing what the pursuit of justice actually means. Ultimately, its kids fighting on behalf of kids.
The movement of college encampments has spread far and wide, including some of the most prestigious universities in the world. Recent participants to join include Oxbridge, SOAS and UCL. Students are risking their degrees to stand up against their universities’ and governments’ complicity with Israels onslaught against Gaza, an onslaught that now includes the invasion of Rafah, an invasion coinciding, rather sadistically, with Holocaust Remembrance day.
Rafah, which has been dubbed the ‘city of children’, contains around 1.4 million Palestinians seeking refuge in makeshift tents described as ovens under the scorching sun. With nowhere to go, it is a bloodbath waiting to happen.
This new development comes not only after Israel told the Palestinian people to evacuate to the South as a safe zone, but having also rejected a ceasfire deal with Hamas. Israel is showing the world that since October 7th, and since its very inception, that it has only one thing on it’s mind: bloodlust.
With new stories of mass graves, beheaded bodies, execution style murders coming to light every day, it is the next generation of minds that are truly living the sentiment of holding power to account.
However, an indictment on the dystopian world we live in, is the brutal and fascistic force these students have been met with, warranted by the very institutions that are meant to nurture their minds, as well at the hands of zionist mobs and police.
Let’s look at Columbia. The university famed for, ironically, none other than the great Edward Said, proceeded to bring in the NYPD onto Campus to disperse the encampments. Like something from some sort of hellish dystopia, rows and rows of police were seen marching into Campus, riot gear in tow; an indictment on the university and a society that hails itself as bastions of free speech and civility. It seems universities encouragement to go out and change the world are mere empty platitudes.
What’s particularly damning is the sense of betrayal from the actions of the Dean of Columbia, herself coming from an Egyptian background. Is it not on the basis of her minority heritage that her appointment is celebrated as a win for diversity and inclusivity. If anything, her choices in respect of her own students right to protest shows that representation politics are a myth, an apt and superficial distraction. Her win is not an accomplishment for other minorities, rather she is just another example of someone who represents only themselves, and who will happily throw the very people who celebrate her win as their own to the wolves in the pursuit of personal ambition. Representation means nothing.
Despite this Orwellian crackdown on our youth, the student encampments continue to multiply, their resolve stronger and their vision for the world they want to live in even more bold. The revolutionary spirit of the Palestinian people has now spread far and wide, and its safe to say, Liberation is in the air.
I myself am in awe of these students. I hope that one day, my son will grow up to have their courage and commitment to justice. For now, every single one of those encampments represent hope and the beginning of a better world. They are exposing the current political order for what it is, empty, meaningless and morally bankrupt.
May their efforts be accepted and rewarded. May their lifetime’s be defined by a liberated Palestine.
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