In January of 2010, SAIA-Carleton launched Canada’s first university campaign aimed at divesting from the Israeli occupation. As ambitious as the project was, our group kept attracting new passionate and dedicated members, making it one of the largest, diverse and active student groups on campus. From there we began to build support among other campus elements including other student groups, unions, student associations, faculty, alumni and other community members. In about a year’s time the campaign was no longer exclusively SAIA’s – it now truly belongs to all of its supporters.
Although we had already faced multiple frustrating incidents with the Carleton administration over the past few years, the most recent responses from them have been a bit surprising. In fact, the ordeal is somewhat shocking considering the institution that shunned a considerable student movement on campus is supposedly predicated upon ideals of due process, accountability, student representation and fairness.
After a successful motion was passed at Carleton’s undergraduate student union (CUSA) calling for divestment from companies profiting from ‘illegal occupation,’ presenting to Carleton’s Board of Governors was the next big step of the campaign. However, the university administration has opted to ignore the campaign, deny its legitimacy despite overwhelming support, and not allow it to be discussed at the Board of Governors. Below is an update from the latest turn of events:
After Board of Governors Rally, Carleton One Step Closer to Divestment
On March 29th, 2011 students, faculty, staff, alumni and community allies made a significant stride toward divestment at Carleton University in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) first launched our campus-based pension fund divestment campaign in January 2010. The student-led campaign was motivated by the 2005 call from Palestinian civil society “to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel… until it fully complies with the precepts of international law.”
After over a year of failed attempts to meet with Carleton’s Pension Fund Committee, SAIA submitted a formal request to present our motion to the Board of Governors (BOG) – the highest decision-making body of the university – to divest from four companies complicit in violations of international law in Palestine: BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Motorola and Tesco Supermarkets. These companies manufacture weapons and weapons components used by the Israeli military against Palestinians, and also facilitate the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank (for background see: http://carleton.saia.ca/pension-divestment-campaign.html). SAIA’s motion also called upon Carleton to implement a binding socially responsible investment policy, in full consultation with the Carleton community.
In an attempt to silence the students who put forward the motion, the BOG rejected SAIA’s request to make a presentation at their meeting. They informed students that the ostensibly public meeting would be closed to all observers, save for a small BOG-sanctioned list of five representatives “from both sides,” while the floor of the building where the meeting was to be held would be locked down and security stationed at all entrances.
However, the university administration’s attempts to muzzle the long list of divestment campaign endorsers – including over 2,000 letter and petition signatories, both the undergraduate and graduate students associations, and more than 25 student clubs, academic workers’ unions and university service centres – deeply backfired. During one of the busiest academic weeks of the year, more than 400 divestment supporters rallied at every entrance of the building to challenge the illegitimate decision-making process, and to voice a united message: “Board of Governors, we won’t rest, we won’t rest til you divest!” In an inspiring show of solidarity, students and their allies engaged in a diversity of creative protest tactics, ranging from sit-ins to salsa and dabke dance-offs for divestment, successfully blocking several BOG members from entering the meeting. Eventually, the highly mobilized and energetic crowd became too much for the BOG to ignore, and they announced to the crowd that they had cancelled the meeting. The BOG members who had literally walked over students to go upstairs to the meeting then exited the building through a ‘walk of shame’ created by the crowd of cheerful protestors.
Divestment supporters proceeded to hold an ad-hoc, student-run General Assembly in the lobby of the building, voting to: divest from Israeli military occupation; open a Sexual Assault Centre on campus; abolish tuition fees; and create a new, democratically elected and representative membership for the BOG. While the General Assembly was only a symbolic exercise and real
institutional divestment still lies ahead at Carleton, we are confident that the university administration will eventually bow to student pressure, as we plan to increase the campaign’s momentum next year.
The unprecedented support and dedication from our allies in the lead up to the rally not only illustrated the community’s unanimous rejection of the practice of investing students’ tuition money in funding war and illegal occupation, but also showed that the SAIA-led divestment campaign is now a campus-wide movement. Our allies have made the campaign theirs; for example, Inés Barreda-Castañón, member of the Humanitarian Organization of Latin American Students (HOLAS), stated at the rally: “Our tuition money is going to fund war, to fund money and to fund murder. It’s gone past SAIA and Palestine. HOLAS will always be here… if it’s a humanitarian issue, we’ll be there.”
Ending Carleton’s unethical investments is also part of a broader struggle against the university’s repeated attempts to silence the student body and implement undemocratic decision-making processes. It’s no coincidence that the same meeting the public was barred from was also the meeting where the BOG intended to announce an increase in student tuition fees. As media spokesperson Reem Buhaisi said of the rally: “This is about reclaiming our space, this is about tuition fees, this is about being respected and heard by people who say they advocate the things we ask for.”
SAIA’s actions to expose Carleton’s appalling lack of ethical principles and accountability have publicly shamed the university administration, who would like nothing better than for the issue of divestment to go away. However, as the crowd dispersed from the rally, SAIA and our allies were quite clear that the movement to divest from companies violating international law in occupied Palestine will only grow until our demands are met: “We will be back!”
