The Human Rights Factory - a student led initiative under the umbrella of Muwatin Institute for Democracy and Human Rights - in partnership with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and the UCT4Palestine in Cape Town University, organized a discussion titled “Student Activism: Student Intifada, Building Solidarity, and Moral Stance,” on Wednesday, 9 October 2024, via virtual space.
Aseel Hussein, a research assistant at Muwatin Institute and a student in the Human Rights Factory, opened and facilitated the discussion. She pointed that the engine behind the organization of the discussion was the desire of the students in the Human Rights Factory, alongside their peers at Columbia and Cape Town universities, to establish bridges of solidarity and communication amongst each other, and to reflect on how to consolidate the pillars of the global student solidarity.
Mudar Kassis, Director of Muwatin Institute, welcomed the participants and emphasized the importance of the discussion. He referred to the history of joint struggle between the African and Palestinian liberation movements, which serves as an example of the unity of the struggle, and the importance of resisting its fragmentation on multiple fronts. The hegemon is one, even if its manifestations vary in different geographies.
Maysaa Nemer, Director of the Institute of Community and Public Health, expressed her happiness with the leadership role manifested by the student movements in universities, and with the values of commitment and solidarity that sustain its continuity.
In addition, Kayum Ahmed, a South African academic and activist who works at the Human Rights Watch, and has worked at Columbia and Harvard universities, stressed the importance of connecting student bodies with each other, so that they can share their ideas, strategies, and challenges together.
The first intervention by student representatives was by Fatima Khan, a member of CUAD, who spoke about their vision and how it stems from the importance of the collective in the quest for emancipation. Khan also pointed to the importance of accumulating experience for student organizations and transmitting it across generations, in addition to the demands of the movement, mainly boycotting and divesting from Israel.
In the intervention by Rawan Nemer, a MA student in the Critical Cultural Studies program at Birzeit University and an activist, she shared her experience with the student movements inside and outside Palestine, pointing out their challenges. Such as closures, multiple strikes, online learning, and arrests, which all play a role in disabling the students’ ability to come together, and thus, negatively impacting their thinking and planning process.
Julia Hope, a representative of the UCT4Palestine in the University of Cape Town, emphasized the continuity of movements on campuses, despite the continued attempts by oppressive regimes to dismantle student movements within the university institution. In addition, she spoke about the intersection and interplay between the global student front and local contexts.
This was followed by a round of questions, discussions and comments on various topics, such as: the cooperation between pro-Palestinian groups and oppressed groups locally, how to invest in these connections to strengthen the unity and commonality of struggles, how to expand the global front of struggle, how to resist feelings of alienation and attempts of depoliticization experienced by students, and the continuity of movements driven by the unity and collectivity of concerns and struggles.