I hate breaking rules. I’ve never even received a speeding ticket. Imagine my surprise to find myself with a court date this week to enter a plea after I got arrested on my university campus.
For anyone who hasn’t been following the news on local rabble-rousers here are the Cliffs Notes: MUN Students for Palestine (MS4P), which formed in May 2024, demanded that MUN disclose and divest from any investments complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. MUN declined to do so, which sparked students to start a two-week outdoor encampment followed by a four-week indoor occupation of the Arts and Admin building.
This pressured MUN to disclose over $7 million (now updated to more than $15 million) invested in complicit companies, including weapons manufacturers that sold arms to Israel. Our student occupation continued until MUN sent police to shut down the protest on July 5th. I and two other students were arrested and charged with petty trespassing. We have a five-day trial set for mid-June. We continued our protest in a decentralized way, but ultimately MUN succeeded in using police to reduce the effective pressure we could apply.
Here is some background information to help you contextualize my experience. I am a white Canadian student. I have never been involved in university student politics before this. I am an anthropology grad student, and although many of my classes deal with unmasking systems of oppression and colonialism, I have been privileged enough to deal with these issues in term papers rather than being confronted with them in my personal life.
First, let me remind you of the statistics about the Genocide in Palestine. In July of 2024, contributors to the Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, had this to say about death tolls: “In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37, 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186, 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.” This was published 5 months ago.
In April of 2024, a month before we set up our encampment, the UN published a press release stating experts were gravely concerned about the targeted Israeli attacks on educational infrastructure in Gaza, including the destruction of 13 public libraries, and 195 heritage sites. In November 2024, UNICEF published an article which said there were two attacks per day on schools in Gaza in a single month.
I sometimes pick up substitute shifts at the public libraries here in town. By chance, my last shift at the library before the encampment started was working during toddler music time. One boy was too shy to join the group playing instruments but whispered the right answers to his mom from his place hiding behind shelves on the other side of the room. Every time I see the statistics about the attacks on public libraries in Gaza, I think of that little boy.
LESSON 1: The situation at MUN is much worse than you think!
Sorry to be a downer but yes, really, it’s worse! MUN has not only refused to acknowledge that there is a genocide happening but has insisted on complete “neutrality.” In a May 24th meeting MUN President Bose said the University could not take “a political stance” because they have a responsibility to accommodate “multiple viewpoints.” Investing in companies actively providing weapons used by Israel in genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity doesn’t exactly feel neutral to me.
In a June 13th meeting, we asked if MUN could acknowledge the fact that the International Court of Justice had ruled that there were plausible grounds to find Israel has been committing genocide. Dr. Jennifer Lokash, Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Pro Tempore, said they would not be including the word genocide in a statement. In fact, she had read the ICJ report and thought it was more nuanced than that. The report in question notes that “In the Court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the [Genocide] Convention.”
Investigators with extensive experience in the area have reached different conclusions than the MUN admin. Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF), have published statements illustrating the situation “For more than a year, our medical staff in Gaza have witnessed a relentless campaign by the Israeli forces marked by massive destruction, devastation, and dehumanisation.”
Although MSF acknowledges they lack “legal authority to establish intentionality,” they have noted “the signs of ethnic cleansing and the ongoing devastation – including mass killings, severe physical and mental health injuries, forced displacement, and impossible conditions of life for Palestinians under siege and bombardment – are undeniable.” Amnesty International recently published a report which “assesses allegations of violations and crimes under international law by Israel in Gaza within the framework of genocide under international law, concluding that there is sufficient evidence to believe that Israel’s conduct in Gaza following 7 October 2023 amounts to genocide.”
In a June 18th meeting, MS4P was allowed to present to select representatives of the Board of Regents. Chair Glenn Barnes helpfully peeled back the progressive university mask to let us know, at the end of the day, MUN cares more about making money than if they are actively contributing to the brutal slaughter of civilians when he said “Our job is to make sure we have investments that have the best return… You have to sort of avoid getting too deep into subjective viewpoints.”
But enough rehashing meetings! Boring! I don’t have Twitter or Reddit, so I luckily didn’t really have to see any of the shitty comments left about me – some of my comrades weren’t so lucky. I can name half a dozen or so fellow protesters in the student movement and community who have received death and rape threats that are so vile I’m not going to quote them.
Sometimes they would be littered with racial abuse or graphic details about harming their family members. A student protester was even physically assaulted during an off-campus march. One delightful individual liked to loiter around the encampment and film us while asking if we support baby murder. Nope! In fact, we are ardently protesting against the killing of children and MUN’s investments in corporations that enable it.
These incidents were upsetting to protesters, but fail to encapsulate the systemic quality of the repression of the protest. This is only the first lesson, so I’ll skip right past the misleading or outright false claims to media, the constant weaponization of safety discourse, the code of conduct breach and the subsequent resignation of Glenn Barnes, and get right to the fabrication of threats against students.
Picture this, it’s 7:33 AM on a delightful sunny Monday morning, and you and three of your sweet comrades are writing informational messages in chalk on the sidewalk in front of the Art and Admin building. Kesha is blaring from a small Bluetooth speaker (come on, you’re doing radical chalk messages. You need background music). A Campus Enforcement officer approaches and tells you that you should be careful with your chalk messages because individuals have told him they’d break your “effing” neck if they caught you at it.
How do you feel? Concerned he’s using alleged death threats to sanction our messages instead of, say, getting the person’s name or writing an incident report? Me too! So we checked with the Student Liaison Ailsa Craig and Chief Risk Officer Greg McDougall (recently ‘restructured’ out of MUN under mysterious circumstances) who told us no report was filed because there was no credible threat.
Right. But a kettle in the lobby was so dangerous it warranted confiscation by CEP, and when I leaned a poster against a wet floor sign (the floor was dry) it warranted an incident report. As part of a separate RNC case, the CEP officer first said to the police that we were exaggerating or misunderstanding what he said. When presented with an audio recording of the conversation, he admitted in a statement to police that he had fabricated the threats. To our knowledge, no action was ever taken to address this.
Myself and another student filed complaints with the Human Rights Commission. Our claim was dropped because according to them, we could not prove that the purpose of the fabricated threats was to intimidate us specifically due to our political opinions. No matter where we turned, or what avenues we took, or which officials we appealed to, in every instance, the responses were demoralizing and disillusioning. Our first court date was mysteriously a month earlier than was stated on the docket, switched at 4 pm on the day before we had to be in court without any notification. We have had radio silence from MPs and the Minister of Education.
This is all part of a larger pattern of intentional and widespread repression of Palestinian solidarity groups. A recent statement by a UN Special Rapporteur draws attention to the issue, who said that “the brutal repression of the university-based protest movement is a profound threat to democratic systems and institutions.”
LESSON 2: MUN Administrators failed to show leadership in the face of a genocide
It seems as if leadership positions are seldom held by ‘leaders.’ Memorial University administrators would rather continue funding a genocide than take a principled, and arguably more neutral, stance by choosing to not be invested in weapons manufacturing. They said that choosing divestment would be a political stance, something inappropriate for a university.
In their own words, the complicit direct investments of the pension committee made up “less than one-third of one percent” of the total pension fund. That money could be moved into a different sector with similar returns, but on July 11th, the Board of Regents voted to instead retain those investments. During the South Africa anti-apartheid movement, MUN also made the sickening choice not to divest, and offered up many of the same excuses of fiduciary responsibility and the need to refrain from political statements.
In the first meeting we had with MUN admin, as multiple members of admin donned pride merchandise, we pointed out that supporting LGBTQ+ pride initiatives is also a political stance. Rhea Rollman’s book A Queer History of Newfoundland has some interesting insight on that front. In 1990, MUN was considering hiding security guards in bathroom ceilings to catch gay students. Just before that, UBC refused to allow the ‘Gay Olympics’ to be held on campus, for fear of UBC becoming associated with homosexuality. The president justified this choice by saying “One doesn’t want to have an informal identity with an issue of such controversy… I don’t think the university is the place to make political statements.” That sure sounds familiar! From East Coast to West Coast – different issue, same flimsy excuse. A cowardly reluctance to stand up for human rights is justified by suggesting it would be too political.
The people in the leadership of these institutions serve to uphold the power of the colonial systems that these institutions are founded on. Their ranks are swollen with self-proclaimed equity champions who clam up when doing the right thing means standing up for something that isn’t yet popular or profitable. Across the country, universities chose to use police to repress their own students rather than divest from weapons manufacturers.
To make matters worse, MUN didn’t even seek their own injunction, but blindly relied on the University of Toronto decision – a legal ruling for a different institution, different form of occupation, and different province. Heidi Matthews, a legal scholar, described this decision as “absolutely disgusting” and “disturbing” in a CBC interview this summer. In our meeting with Board of Regents representatives, MUN’s lawyer informed us that MUN consulted with other universities and took decision-making cues. If all of your friends were funding war crimes, would you?
LESSON 3: Community is everything
The protest would have been impossible without networks of community support. During the active encampment and occupation, we were fed every day by a community meal train. We received a few hundred dollars in donations from community members but we turned down thousands. We encouraged folks instead to donate directly to mutual aid for Gazans or to amazing medical teams like Glia.
Still, every day, we would receive emails, messages and visits from people eager to contribute however they could. We made it through 45 days of continuous protest. The messages of solidarity were just as crucial as the food and tents. People donated time to give teach-ins. We helped each other maintain perspective and drive. Two of the weekly marches which usually took place downtown were moved on campus. Older and more experienced activists helped us with organization and offered morale, wisdom, and Georgestown Bagels.
When the police arrived, I put on sweatpants over my shorts, and a sweater, despite the heat of the lobby because we’d been warned it was cold in jail. We did not know if we would be arrested, or even held for the night or over the weekend. There were other students present who were more vulnerable than myself. They were able to avoid arrest but were nonetheless forced to confront armed police officers. The RNC was already on site before CEP even mentioned the word trespass or told us police had been called.
The police directed two CEP officers to grab my friend, and each took an arm physically removing her from the lobby. A small woman in a red skirt, surrounded by bulky dark uniforms. I felt my first and only acute stab of fear. It wasn’t the arrest itself I was scared of, but the idea of being separated from my community. I can vividly remember them leading her out through the wooden doors plastered with photos of Palestinian children.
I was next, and I remember that only one of the CEP officers actually grabbed me, the older one, proud and clearly inflated with his own sense of self-importance. The other one didn’t touch me but just marched alongside, hesitant and self-conscious, half reaching for my arm. I hoped he was ashamed.
In the hallway, an officer processed me, telling me that I was under arrest, and reading me my rights and charge. CEP interrogated me on what classes I was registered in, in what felt like an effort to find out if I was secretly a non-student imposter. When the police and CEP were done with paperwork, they led me out of the hallway through a side door I had forgotten about in the blur of my newfound criminality.
Officers opened the door to send me out, and immediately two community members began berating them for the shame of arresting students and doubling down on supporting genocide. As they let me out the door, I felt like a dazed cod fish in a catch-and-release program, still clutching a picture of a murdered Palestinian school teacher. I hadn’t expected anyone to be at that door, and I immediately felt so grateful and safe. Weeks after the arrests, a different comrade told me that when they saw us getting arrested, it made them cry.
The moments that stood out to me the most from the arrest and aftermath were about the people around me, and how important we are to each other. We feel so much rage and sadness and fear. We talk about it in grief circles. We also talk about how all of the rage and fear and grief and need to do something comes from the love we feel for our fellow human beings, here, in Gaza and everywhere.
LESSON 4: Solidarity Now
Links between groups working for liberation are key for the success of all of our movements. The leaders of institutions that are currently committing or supporting genocide have unified and widespread tactics for repression. We need unified and widespread resistance. During the MUNFA strike, the community and students pulled together to support the striking professors. For us, support was instrumental in achieving any of the progress that we did. Recently, we showed solidarity with striking CUPW workers. Our local movement is part of a larger global call to end the ongoing occupation and genocide in Palestine. There are hundreds of similar on and off-campus groups across the world, and our strength comes from solidarity.
If you’re involved in any kind of activism or community group, start thinking about how you can build connections and work with others for collective liberation. If you’re not involved yet, it’s so easy to start today. The most radical action I’d taken before May was citing Karl Marx in my homework. Although I’m still new and still have so much to learn, one thing I do know is that our community is full of people who care about each other and want to try to make the world a better place.
They are ready to welcome others and share their knowledge. It’s as easy as picking out one event this month to go to. If you are a student, we have been doing Food not Bombs pop up lunches in the University Centre food court every Tuesday – a perfect chance to chat. Your contribution matters as part of a greater process of building community unity. I think the most important thing I’ve learned through this experience is the value of those community networks and connections. The people united will never be defeated.
LESSON 5: Every little bit counts
As some people have pointed out (looking at you HSS Dean’s Office), MUN divesting their paltry $7 million will not bring back any of the people who have been killed. Despite those helpful words of encouragement, what we are doing does make a difference.
More people than ever before are aware of the injustices occurring, and taking actions to try to stop it. Slowly, the tide of public opinion seems to be turning. Canada has begun voting in favour of Palestinian human rights at the UN. Universities, colleges, townships and other organizations are beginning to make commitments to divest. Student and Faculty Unions, including those here at MUN such as MUNFA, TAUMUN, MUNSU, and GSU have passed motions and published statements in favour of divestment. Locally, the St. John’s Pride Board has committed to supporting the BDS list.
I cried in public at their AGM when I realized divesting really was as easy as passing a motion and forming a committee. Companies on the BDS list are taking sales hits, and some have already divested due to the sustained pressure. Every small choice contributes to the global movement against Israel’s crimes.
Let’s revisit Lesson #2. The leadership of MUN (and just about every institution like it) are cowards. If they are going to take a useful, ethical stance, it will be because they are forced to do so through public pressure. I think this holds true across the board. When Glenn Barnes violated the Board of Regents Code of Conduct, it was reported to the University Auditor and the Minister of Education, but no action was taken (revisit Lesson # 1). However, when the media and public picked it up, the university launched an investigation that led to his eventual resignation.
Now I have to be moralistic and insufferable for a second. Sustained economic, social, and political pressure is necessary for meaningful change. That means you too should take stock of how you can contribute. It can be going to rallies, or workshops or fundraisers (check out @palestine_action_yyt for events). It could mean joining local Palestine solidarity organizations. It could mean skipping Chapters and Starbucks in favour of local options.
Send a letter to your MP. Email Neil Bose (president@mun.ca) and the Board of Regents (tinas@mun.ca) to let them know you think it’s shameful for our institution of higher education to be invested in weapons. Start asking where your pension money is invested and demanding your workplaces and unions divest. Since May, we’ve achieved a lot, but there is still so much work to be done. Lend your voice to the fight against genocide today.
Got an opinion? Submit an Opinion Piece or a Letter to the Editor to the Muse.