By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
We’ve been here before. As I wrote back in 2012:
Beginning last spring, Occupy started and spread in the ancient cities surrounding the Mediterranean basin: Tunis, Cairo, Athens, Madrid, Rome, among many others; Alexandria, Manama, Barcelona…. I’m sure I wasn’t the only observer who, watching the Occupations move steadily westward, asked: Will Occupations scale?
After all, Morocco, Egypt, Greece, and Spain are all small-ish [Mediterranean] countries; small in population, area, and GNP, and peripheral at that. And one might also argue that “the square” assumes a different position in the European imagination than “the square” does here, where the agora, if there is one, is “the mall.” Further, the United States is a multi-lingual and multi-national empire of continental scope. And the architects of the Federal system tried to ensure that there would be multiple centers of power in the United States. Would the Cairo + Madrid occupation paradigm scale to the United States?
And yes, amazingly, wonderfully, awesomely, the Occupation paradigm did scale. My own small and small-c conservative state, Maine, has not one, not two, but three Occupations in Portland, Augusta, and Bangor (each of quite different character). When Occupy San Diego, on their way to Occupy Congress, got thrown off the Greyhound in Amarillo, TX, Occupy Amarillo came to their aid. UC Riverside researchers surveyed 482 incorporated towns and cities in California and found that 143 – nearly 30 percent – had Occupy sites on Facebook between December 1 and December 8.”. Rhizomic growth. Occupy didn’t spread because of celebrity endorsements, or online petitions from career “progressives,” or corporate marketing programs, or billionaire funding. There were no focus groups. There was no polling. Occupy encampments spread despite — or because of — “clearing” operations organized by city mayors (who used oddly similar tactics and timing). Occupy participation spread despite — or because of — ongoing police assaults, especially by the NYPD “white shirts” of New York Mayor For Life Michael Bloomberg, and the thuggish OPD of Oakland Democrat Mayor Jean Quan. And Occupy ideas and tactics spread despite a relentless propaganda campaign in our famously free press comparing Occupiers to disease-bearing vermin and filth, with a rhetoric and an intensity worthy of Der Stürmer. (Cleverly, OWS had pre-empted this tactic by using some of its donated money to hire a cleaning truck.) Happily, “We are the 99%” stuck as a slogan, and in just a few months Occupy had changed the discourse to put “income inequality” (translation: class warfare) on the table; something that career “progressives” and their D allies in Washington have, oddly, or not, been unable to do in thirty years. Let’s not forget or downplay these tremendous achievements! I am so grateful to the Occupations and the Occupiers, all of them, for giving me more hope than I’ve had in years.
(I’m using the word “encampments” in the headline, as opposed to the more generic “protests”, because the pre-Occupy occupiers in Europe called themselves campers, because that’s the word used by the participants themselves, and because “encampment” suggests seizing and controlling space, a key feature of Occupy.)
It all seems so familiar. In a good way. Sadly, I don’t have time to do a detailed comparative study between the events of 2011-2012 and those of today. We can, however, get a sense of scale (smaller today), the tactics (slightly more advanced), and the reaction (by which I mean “that which reactionaries do”; instantly vicious, from university administrations egged on by electeds). I’ll look at those three aspects of today’s encampments, and then speculate on the movement’s prospects.
Scale
Quantitively, here is a handy map from Palestine is Everywhere. 91 encampments globally:
(I only show North America.) Here a second map from Students for Gaza; 106 schools globally:
(Again, only North America; this map counts “demands” as well as “encampments,” so the figures may differ.)
These are probably undercounts, since volunteer projects like this are hard to source and maintain. I’d be very surprised, however, if the count was an order of magnitude low. In any case, that’s the scale; impressive, newsworthy, but nowhere near Occupy.
Qualitatively, here is a sampler of impressions I picked up on my travels (there will be a second set of impressions devoted to tactics and reaction later). In no particular order:
Columbia: “Columbia Pro-Palestinian Protesters Haven’t Dispersed—Despite Suspension Threats” [Forbes]. “The university—which has been dealing with the encampment since April 17—gave students the [2:00pm] deadline by distributing leaflets warning students who don’t leave could face “probation, access restriction, suspension for a term or more and expulsion,” according to multiple reports. The encampment was not dismantled by the deadline, though.”
Yale. Rebuilding:
BREAKING: Despite a wave of arrests at campus protests and nearly 50 arrests on Yale’s campus on Monday, hundreds of students have just REBUILT the divestment encampment in a new location.
Dozens of tents have appeared with students forming barricades around them
FREE PALESTINE pic.twitter.com/44CbrvMepo
— Thomas Birmingham (@thomasbirm) April 28, 2024
MIT. Multicolored, various tents:
I’m including the tents because of tweets like this, which were all over my feed for awhile:
Soros!
— Sandi Foster (@sandidavidson5) April 25, 2024
I mean, come on. Maybe Amazon had a sale on green.
Berkeley. More tents:
The Free Palestine Encampment at UC Berkeley has grown to around 150 tents pic.twitter.com/0ZMnfzPB2q
— Rae Wymer (@rae_wymer) April 28, 2024
UCLA: “Fights break out between pro-Israel, pro-Palestine protesters at UCLA” [The Hill]. “A small number of counterprotesters attempted to breach barriers erected by the university to separate the two protest groups in the early morning, the Bruin reported. Pro-Palestine protesters later breached the same barriers, resulting in small skirmishes…. The protests remained largely peaceful on Sunday, on both sides, the Bruin reported. No arrests were reported from the skirmishes.”
Northwestern. More organization:
Day two of Northwestern’s Gaza solidarity encampment, tents have quadrupled, students have built in, and we’re not leaving anytime soon. https://t.co/wET9pUWUQP pic.twitter.com/4H2uMFXFEi
— Christian (@thechristianpr) April 27, 2024
New Orleans. The only non-campus encampment I have seen:
Roughly 10 tents are setup within the square. @WWLTV pic.twitter.com/gO60NLJ71i
— Lily Cummings (@lilyrcummings) April 29, 2024
All active and evolving, but… small.
Tactics
Controlling the space of the encampment means providing amenities for “campers” and visitors, and defending the space against assaults by the authorities. (I’m leaving surveillance out because nobody seems to be talking about it. No discussion of drones or Stingray or anything like that.)
First, amenities. These will seem very familiar from Occupy.
1) Community kitchen:
Day 3 of the CUNY City College Encampment. The overall vibe is much better organized they now have a “community kitchen.” Community building and training are happening all over. As this is the only encampment open to the public in NYC, almost the whole area is full of tents pic.twitter.com/btKnMtkkM2
— Ali (@MerruX) April 28, 2024
2) Library:
Refaat Alareer Memorial Library in the Northwestern encampment in solidarity with Palestine ❤️ pic.twitter.com/zgIwQENY0p
— Shishi (@ChiTownShishi) April 28, 2024
3) Drumming (granted, not all would consider this an amenity):
CUNY Encampment Day 3, we’re not going anywhere pic.twitter.com/eYoNNxVz0j
— Qaid (Sicilian) 🇮🇹☪️ ☭ (@rossisparaneri) April 28, 2024
4) Jail support forms:
Students are already filling out jail support forms. pic.twitter.com/vunEi9ekDR
— Stu (@thestustustudio) April 28, 2024
Second, defense:
1) Barricades. This is so great; the generation that was trained to build barricades in school against “active shooters” applies their lesson in a different context:
This is the video that I saw. https://t.co/GjohH3r5ru pic.twitter.com/GfxHQbiuX1
— Lumpy Louise 🍎🥄🔑 The US are the Baddies (@LumpyLouish) April 27, 2024
2) Linked Arms:
Columbia University faculty have linked arms at the entrance of the encampment as the 2p deadline passes for students to vacate or face suspension. pic.twitter.com/oY899kr0Rf
— Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) April 29, 2024
3) Marching:
Students are encircling the Columbia University encampment as the 2 PM deadline to clear the tents passes.
These Brave students are leading the world in standing for Palestine 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/tFFTK5YIW5
— Khalissee (@Kahlissee) April 29, 2024
4) ADA compliance (a special case of barricades):
BREAKING: The University of Florida Divest Coalition is trying to make an encampment using chairs only. They are claiming to be disabled and in need of the chairs. The UF Divest Coalition are trying to weaponize the Americans with Disabilities Act against the University of… pic.twitter.com/xViQSAdIH6
— Stu (@thestustustudio) April 29, 2024
5) Kettling police:
University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne protesters have encircled police using reinforced banners & signs pic.twitter.com/DmMecmBGhY
— escalatenetwork (@readytoescalate) April 27, 2024
All of this — especially kettling the police — strikes me as marginally more forceful than Occupy proper (though perhaps my memory needs refreshing). This is all tough stuff, particularly in the face of our brutal and stupid police forces.
Reaction
Here I’m going to skip over the snipers, the hasbarist trolls, the agent provocateurs, the private investigators, the bulldozers, the various exercises in bad faith by administrators, to focus on the changing roles of professors and administrators in the modern university. (After all, presumably people like McConnnell are muscling the administrators, and not, say, the AAUP, because that’s where the power lies.)
First, let’s look at the case of Caroline Fohlin, assaulted by cops at Emory. Here is a long thread:
And a second case, Steve Tamari, assaulted by cops at Washington University in St. Louis:
Police at Washington University in St. Louis assault a professor for filming at an anti genocide protest. 🇺🇸
pic.twitter.com/b6IaNnvk0x
— EMPIRE News 🗞 (@TheEMPIRENewsx) April 28, 2024
Now, there’s only one reason those cops were there: The administrators called them in. And there’s only one reason neither administration is up in arms protecting its professors: The administrators believe that what the cops did was right. Obviously, that has profound implications for university governance. From Splice Today:
Maybe “I’m a professor” registers a certain privilege, but it’s a real privilege attributed to faculty by administrators. As you arrive and every semester after, they tell you, “This is your place; you perform the most important function here; and you run it too, because we have faculty governance.” The ultimate authority on most campuses, no doubt, is the board of trustees. But the day-by-day academic decisions have to come from or through the faculty Senate. As a prof, you have the run of the place: your key card gets you into every building. You’re welcome anywhere, really.
So you’ve been told, maybe for decades. You feel entirely at home on the campus; it’s your place. You know everyone, seemingly. You’ve taught dozens or hundreds of the students milling around.
When they say you’re “trespassing,” that seems incomprehensible. And when the administration calls the cops on you and the cops violently restrain and arrest you, you’re liable to see your understanding of your institutional role dissolving instantly. It’s hard to grasp how Emory and any other institution that has been arresting faculty can recover from these events. One thing’s for sure: it will be a long road.
In the usual end-of-year (May) and at the beginning-of-the-year (September) faculty meetings, administrators including the president will come before the faculty with various updates. How does next year’s class look? How’s the budget going? In this case, the people in the audience will have been subjected directly to violent arrest and restraint on expression by those very administrators. I don’t think Emory can have a faculty meeting successfully for the next couple of years. That would be a problem at a university. Emory—along with schools such as Vanderbilt and Rice, often thought of as “Southern Ivies”—will be in crisis for the foreseeable future.
It has long been unclear to me what value highly paid university administrators add. Presumably, having professors assaulted and arrested is one such. If so, we may need to revert to a more… medieval structure; the university as an institution is, after all, over a millenium old. Perhaps we should simply unbundle the entire mishegoss and have students band together to hire professors of their choice. Kidding. I suppose.
Prospects
From a long article in the Colorado Sun about the Auraria Campus encampment in downtown Denver, where Angela Davis spoke:
“I want to emphasize what this means for history,” Davis told a crowd of more than 200 while visiting campus after speaking at Colorado College on Friday. “As you imagine this period being narrated 10 years, 20 years, 50 years from now, you will be the historical actors who made it possible for a breakthrough in the struggle against Zionism, the struggle to free Palestine. “I cannot tell you how you make me feel,” Davis said, “because after having struggled for decades and decades, I realize that this is what we’ve been struggling for and I stand here not as an individual but to bear witness for all of those who have been involved in this struggle to generate solidarity with Palestine, justice for Palestine, freedom for Palestine. And if Palestine can be free, then the entire world can be free.”
I applaud these encampments, and the courage and dedication of the students. It’s pleasant to see people trying to do the right thing in the face of reactionaries trying to punish them for it. I think that the encampments and Occupations of 2011-2012 had highly beneficial effects on the body politic that continue to be felt, and the same will be true for 2024’s. It is not clear to me that today’s encampments have sufficient strength to achieve the goal that Davis set for them; they are certainly not of Occupy’s scale, let alone the Civil Rights movement (which also took decades of solid planning); here is a conservative’s cynical or realistic view. But–
But I am extremely dubious about free-floating words like “freedom” and “justice”, even “solidarity.” For example, of the analytical frameworks that could be applied to Gaza, (anti-)imperialism and (anti-)colonialism seem to me to be the least simple-minded and most supple (imperialism, being finance-driven, appeals to me). Very well. Now let us suppose we applied the neo-colonial frame to a woman in the sacrifice zone of East Palestine, OH, whose home was rendered valueless and whose water was poisoned because Norfolk Southern’s capital accumulation-driven adoption of Precision Scheduled Railroad caused an enormous derailment followed by a chemical fire. Maybe throw in some Sachler-damaged family members from the oxycontin epidemic. Isn’t it fair to regard East Palestine as “colonized”, just near to us, and not far away? And is there not some way that thinkers like Davis can bring “solidarity” to the two situations? Would that not, indeed, be pragmatically useful?
Appendix: Helpful Hint
“Stop Using Your Face or Thumb to Unlock Your Phone” [GIzmodo]. “‘The general consensus has been that there is more Fifth Amendment protection for passwords than there is for biometrics,’ Andrew Crocker, the Surveillance Litigation Director at the EFF, told Gizmodo in a phone interview. ‘The 5th Amendment is centered on whether you have to use the contents of your mind when you’re being asked to do something by the police and turning over your password telling them your password is pretty obviously revealing what’s in your mind.’…. The law is still in flux, so there’s no hard and fast rule for protecting your phone from searches. Still, if you know you will be interacting with police, your best bet is to turn off biometrics before you head out, according to Crocker.” • Convenience isn’t everything….