Intifada - Brosnachadh

Archive

9 May

Written By

Rory Hamilton

Solidarity has never been more important, and it might be found in more places than we expect. In his denunciation of the student solidarity encampments, US President Joe Biden condemned the use of the Arabic word intifada. The word means “to shake off” and has been used to describe acts of rebellion, uprising and resistance for many years. A first intifada took place between 1987 and 1993, and a second between 2000 and 2005. In Scotland, we might give ‘incitement to rise’ by the Gaelic word brosnachadh, a word beautifully brought to life in the Hamish Henderson poem of the same name I have trailed throughout this piece.

Break the iron man. Forsake

The arrogant robot’s rule. Take

Peace down from the wall. Make

Waste the fenced citadel.

(Hamish Henderson, ‘Poem for Partisans’, Conflict, May 1949)

It feels as though we are living in a critical moment where the politics of neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy are being truly tested, at the same time as their dominance asserted. In the last two weeks or so we have witnessed the incredible bravery, solidarity and compassion of students in America and the world over, stand up to those who perpetuate the status quo and make demands for social justice.

The student encampments at Columbia, NYU, and UCLA especially which have featured so prominently in the news and in the discourse of social media have been met with the disproportionately heavy hand of the state. Teachers, students and staff alike are seen dragged by their hair, arrested in their own place of work and study, classrooms turned into battlegrounds as barricades are set up and brute force is used to enter.

Of course, the straw that broke the camel’s back when it comes to the Democratic establishment’s acceptance of resistance was the issue of Gaza. The encampments of the students are solidarity encampments with the people of Gaza - the near 35,000 dead, and the millions displaced, starving and facing the constant barrage of bombs and pain inflicted by the Israeli state.

The students are awake to the ways in which their lives are affected by the genocide in Palestine. They make demands on their administrations to divest from arms companies selling weapons to the Israeli government.

In light of the actions by the Israeli state that have transpired since the 7th October 2023, one might question whether it is not unreasonable to acquiesce to these demands? With ample evidence demonstrating in the International Court of Justice that there are plausible grounds Israel may be committing a genocide against the Palestinian people, in the case made by the South African government against the State of Israel, the student protestors have a strong case to be made against the continued complicity in the killing of innocent Palestinians.

But the reason for the heavy-handed response by universities and the State alike merely highlights the relationship between neoliberal ideology and the way it reaches into all sectors of society. Indeed, between investment in research projects and pension schemes tied up in the shares of companies like Elbit, BAE, Raytheon, and Leonardo, what do the universities stand to gain from these relationships other than finance? In the current climate it surely does not lend them any more credibility, although it might do in the eyes of the US government.

And what does this tell us about universities - in the era of neoliberal hegemony, they have become marketised, run like businesses, and seek profit over good outcomes or ethical behaviours. We’ve seen the same in the UK. So the demonstrations by students on campuses strikes fear into the minds of senior level administrations at universities and in government departments because they are not simply highlighting the complicity of their institutions in political violence, but they are shining a broader truth on the structures of the capitalist system that uphold the status quo.

It is the block which, if removed from the tower, will bring the whole thing tumbling down. That’s why their actions and demands are being met with such violent responses. Because elites see the other side of the truth and fear the outcome. By giving in to their demands elites realise that they let go of power and recognise the legitimacy of the voices demanding change. It is chaos or ‘radical hope’, as Judith Butler [1] puts it, that the state/the university fears, and their response to fear, rather than to confront it rationally is to quash it with force so that it may not rear its head again.

Tell of the rebellion’s truth. Foretell

At street corners the awakening. Swell

The insurgent armies of knowledge.

Foregather on field and fell.

(Henderson, ‘Poem for Partisans’, 1949)

What is particularly striking about the encampments though is the mode of resistance. It is a very public display of an alternative set of values. The use of bodies to physically recognise a popular sovereignty of a self-constituted people in which they express democratic demands. This physical assembly is not just the embodiment of those demands however, but an active rejection of the university or the state as given.

We see in these encampments the opening of alternative modes of learning, with teach-outs, and libraries, and a solidarity between resistors who support each other inside and outside the encampments with equipment and with food, and by amplifying their message.

There is a congruence here between the encampments and the resistance to home office deportation raids. The collective action two years ago in Kenmure Street - now mythologised - was the very enactment of a different city. It was a spontaneous act of democratic politics, with people joining to define the city not in the values of the state (which rejects compassion for those fleeing oppression, and targets people of colour), and force the state to comply with a different politics.

The need for action such as this has not gone away, and the good work of No Evictions Network, Refuweegee, Right to Remain and others continues to resist and protect the rights of the vulnerable. Indeed, in these last two weeks we saw a number of calls made to the Glasgow public to resist further raids, and a strong blockade of a home office bus in Peckham, London bound for the Bibby Stockholm ’prison’ barge for asylum seekers.

Just as the students have physically set up a new university on the grounds of the old, so too the people of Glasgow, of Peckham, and elsewhere have used their physicality to make collective demands on higher powers, by saying “it is this body, and these bodies [â€¦] that live the condition[s]” enforced from above (Butler, 2015: 10).

In the face of governments in the UK and the US decrying the loss of freedom of expression on university campuses, because the views of a few right wing academics and figureheads were rejected en masse by student populations, we are actively seeing freedom of expression being curbed by those same institutions because it does not suit their financial interests.

In this sense it becomes apparent the importance of the separation between freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. The ability of people to gather is “an important political prerogative, quite distinct from the right to say whatever they have to say once people have gathered. The gathering signifies in excess of what is said” (Butler, 2015: 8).

We are at a critical juncture: the cracks are showing, and if we can find the will to organise collectively, then we may be able to prize them open and begin living - not just imagining - a better politics.

Above all be quick. Love

Never outlasts its moment. Prove

That with us is no ‘villainy of hatred’

And history will uphold us - justify and forgive.