The students united will never be defeated!
Starting the new school year, students in the Netherlands go back to school, while 90,000 students in higher educational institutions in Gaza can no longer continue their studies1. We must find ways to express resistance to an oppressive system as we fall back into our school and work schedules, and to continue the momentum that the encampments gave to the cause of Palestinian Liberation.
While walking to the Oudemanhuispoort encampment a few months ago on May 8th, chronologically the second UvA encampment, I noticed a suspicious excavator on the street that led up to the campus – the purpose of which would be revealed later on, as an unnecessarily aggressive tactic to dispel the protest. The purpose was to demolish the barricade and to trash the canal in a show of the Dutch police’s disproportionate power.
Slowly, I melted into the crowd that was gathered around the barricade after passing through some police vans on standby. The outside portion of the protest, the support demo, was stationed and spread over three different locations. One on the bridge over the canal, and two on either side of the street where the entrance to the campus is located.
I was waiting to see if anyone I knew was on the inside of the encampment. Most of those inside had their phones turned off for security reasons, so it was hard to say. One of the people by the barricade gave me a paper with “None of us are free until all of us are free,” and duct tape, and asked me to stick it on the lower part of the canals. As I placed the paper with the help of another protestor, a woman next to me was working on her laptop from the side of the protest. Many others had either ditched class, or left work to attend this and other protests that had been happening during the week. One’s values are often questioned in such situations, the worth of protesting a genocide, or supporting your own livelihood. Though most choose the latter, we must still acknowledge this small (relative to a human life) sacrifice that those who forgo such responsibilities make.
I saw my friend Paula, and she brought me inside the encampment. They were having teach-ins in the corridor next to the main room, and meetings in the dining area. There was enough food for everyone in the encampment to be fed for at least a couple days, neatly stocked and categorised. The toilets were extremely well-stocked too. They contained every toiletry imaginable. They were being cleaned consistently, to accommodate for the amount of people using them. There were also sleeping bags and mattresses with people taking naps, black circles under their eyes from being unsure if they would get to stay in the encampment. People were holding each other for comfort, and for a sense of security.
Paula led me inside the dining/meeting/living room, where a meeting was taking place. The meeting was a discussion on how to manage the encampment. The general consensus was that everybody had liberty to start an action. This horizontal way of management led there to be more discussion on how to compromise with the kind of action you would like to do. The meeting was cut short by a messenger exclaiming that 10 or so police riot vans were spotted coming from Rotterdam, and were expected to arrive around 16:00. The group, after the murmur had settled, was reminded by one of the mediators that the negotiations were still going on between the board of the school and the students. UvA wouldn’t just let the police on their campus seemingly without reason, would they?
“Police off Campus!” became a popular chant in the different encampments, as university boards are embarrassingly rash to call riot police to their campus in order to display violence, not only to the students protecting their encampment, but also those simply standing by in support. The justification of the actions of the police were, at the time, supposedly over concerns for property damage – an incomparable concern given the reality concurrently faced by Palestinians. Still, that day the police had used excavators and violence to exert their power over non-violent protesters, annihilating this justification of property damage. Time and time again, we see those who benefit from genocide are short-sighted by their own greed, often using unfounded claims of antisemitism as defence against criticism. Another popular chant, recorded by Paula while she and the other remaining students were being encircled by police, was “Judaism up up, Zionism down down.” It is important to remember the pro-Palestine movement is an anti-Zionist movement, and not anti-Semitic, as is framed by most western media, especially in the Netherlands. “Every time the media lies, another child in Gaza dies.”
As the Student Union, our role in KABK is to help our students, and to act as intermediary between board and students in order for students to fully express their needs.
I had come to this particular encampment not only to support the UvA students, but also to converse with my comrade Alina, who had been very actively joining the encampments in Amsterdam. Along with her, and other students from the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague (KABK), our group known as the KABK Student Union (KSU), had been pushing for BDS in our school, albeit on a smaller, more targeted scale than that of the UvA. Our demand was simple: that our institution cut its ties with Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem. As the Student Union, our role in KABK is to help our students, and to act as intermediary between board and students in order for students to fully express their needs. After creating a petition which called for cutting ties, and collecting signatures from the students, we approached our board2. This discussion started in January of 2024, eventually came to a climax at an open discussion that was hosted by us, the KSU. We invited outside speakers, the students of KABK, and the board to speak on this issue democratically. The event resulted in a heated but respectful discussion facilitated by lovely moderators, in which we told the board that essentially, either they agree to cut ties, or we would set up an encampment. This had happened before the May holidays, and the anticipation of how the Student Union would manage organising an encampment was stressing me out.
Alina let me know how things were working in terms of the organisation in the encampment, and what we needed to organise for those wanting to participate. Although I took some notes, I couldn’t fully concentrate, so I had more conversations following with others outside of the encampment on ways to organise. It was an overwhelming environment for me, and I felt a panic attack coming on, so I decided to leave before the police came. Just before I left, I spotted Ayle with their camera. They asked me how to get to the top of the building, where other protestors were perched. I pointed them to some stairs, and left swiftly to catch my train.
As the KSU, we had set May 10th as a deadline for the KABK board to respond to our request. The week leading up to that was eventful, with encampments popping up all around the country. A video that comes to my mind from that week is one of students inside Utrecht University encampment, chanting a poem from the Palestinian writer and professor, Refaat Alareer, “If I Must Die3.” Sadly, Refaat Alareer was killed in an IDF airstrike on December 6th along with his family. His words still carry on as a sign of resistance. The video shows students wearing keffiyehs wrapped around their faces, with goggles covering their eyes. The keffiyeh to protect their identity, to not be targeted as an individual, as they stand together, and goggles from potential pepper spray tactics the police might employ.
Although the KABK board agreed to our request of cutting ties by the end of that week in May, the fight continues. The KSU, with our small success, must continue the fight for Palestinian liberation inside and outside our school walls. And so must all students as we had back to school. Academic boycotts work, if we are persistent.
“Students united will never be defeated. The people united will never be defeated.”