The most important test of your education may be how you decide to use your voice in the face of genocide, write Loz and Mishmish, members of the Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society.
As bagpipes herald another round of graduations at Edinburgh University, an unexpected chorus rises above the fanfare.
This month, graduating students adorned in academic regalia used their ceremonies to amplify their calls for divestment, redirecting the event and its attendees to the reality of the Palestinian struggle, much to the chagrin of an administration that seems to have mastered the art of looking the other way.
The customary solemnity of graduation was disrupted as thirty students from the School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures walked out during a key address, leaving a considerable void in the audience. Earlier, ten students from the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology had exited their ceremony as well. Both departures brought to the forefront the pervasive student unrest regarding the university’s position: students clad in Edinburgh University insignia, willingly foregoing a defining moment of their university experience to uphold their convictions and cut through the pageantry of graduation day.
These protests follow a relentless campaign that has made this institution a flashpoint for continued demands for Palestinian rights. From the solidarity encampment within the stone walls of Old College, to the occupation of the Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre, the demands have grown increasingly difficult for the administration to ignore. At the heart of this struggle lies a £20 million question. That is the sum invested by the university in companies complicit in the Zionist occupation of Palestine. This figure, more than just a line in a financial report, symbolises what students perceive as their institution’s moral abdication during nine months of aggression in Gaza that have turned universities into rubble and dreams of education into distant memories.
When students underscored the gravity of their commitment with a 40-day hunger strike, the administration offered their perfunctory ‘concerns’ and made further attempts to bury their justification for Zionist investment under piles of bureaucracy.
Over the past nine months, protests have been labelled “threatening”, students’ voices have been muffled, and pro-Palestinian students have been subjected to verbal assaults on university grounds. Recently, a memorial to Gaza’s martyrs was unceremoniously binned, a callous act which Principal Peter Mathieson regards as unworthy of apology. These actions only served to deepen the divide between the administration and its student body. On June 10th, University Court’s decision to delay divestment considerations did nothing to dampen the smouldering fire as they hoped. It took a match to new kindling, reigniting students’ anger.
This struggle within Edinburgh University is a microcosm of a larger movement sweeping campuses worldwide. It is a tide rising from besieged Gaza, flowing through occupied Palestine and out across the world. Students want the institutions that shape their minds also to shape a fairer world. The gravity of the situation in Palestine demands more than academic discourse. It requires concrete and firm action. Graduation after graduation, and protest and protest, the question hangs in the air: will the university administration address the urgent calls for change that are waved in front of their faces, or will students’ voices continue to echo through blood-stained halls? Ultimately, graduates participating in solidarity action are teaching a lesson not found in any textbook: the most important test of your education may be how you decide to use your voice in the face of injustice and its investors.
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