Speech at studentprotest Palestine

The mayor, the university board, and the police, I wish this was the beginning of a joke, walked into a student encampment.

There was pepperspray. There were batons. There was, consequently, police violence.

Whose safety? Who is being guarded, protected and secured? Who bears the brunt of state violence?

Recently a law was passed, hastily, allowing identity checks at higher education. The background is that some jewish students feel unsafe. That is a terrible situation. That is unacceptable. That warrants ours support, and solidarity. But this law, by design, will protect some groups. While this law, by design, will target others.     

Listen: Discomfort does not equal being unsafe, while finding something ‘complex’ is no substitution for critical analysis. We are, after all, still a university. There is no place for repression at a university. There is no place for police officers at a university. Lets protect academic freedom.

Whose safety? Who is being guarded, protected and secured? Who bears the brunt of state violence?

I am not a scientific positivist. But here are some facts. This is a university after all, so let’s talk facts. Israel has killed more than 35.000 Palestinians. Israel is tying to finish the Nakba of 1948. Renowned genocide scholars, like Amos Goldberg and Raz Segal, agree that this is precisely that - a genocide. Yet Dutch university boards are still hiding behind empty, hollow, meaningless words of empathy, dialogue and neutrality.

Whose safety? Who is being guarded, protected and secured? And who bears the brunt of state violence?

No vandalism! The prime-minister, and the mayor of Amsterdam cried. Damaged property is in this neoliberal, capitalist society - the crime of all crimes. Yet no word on the complete annihilation of Palestinian life and infrastructure.

Safety! The mayor said. But what about the safety of those other students? Whose safety?

Let’s talk facts. The established order values private property more than Palestinian lives, more than the lives of anyone who sympathises with their cause.

University boards, again all across this nation, resort to dialogue, empathy and openness. But you will not hear them say: occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Our students are teaching them lessons, while they ignore and deny facts.

Some don’t understand why we are full of indignation, why we are angry. They want to continue with their business as usual. But what is happening in Palestine,  as Angela Davis said, is a litmus test for all of us. The emperor is again naked. That explains our indignation and anger.

In this mess that the political and cultural elite is creating, students are rightfully rising up and acting as political beings. They are shaking up the status quo. They are reminding the establishment on their failed promises.

They said you were the self-involved generation. They said you believed only in yourself. But you possess more conviction than the ruling classes together. You are teaching lessons on solidarity, on principled action, yes, on human rights, or what is left of it.

You understand that this is not about empathy. That hollowed out, useless, empty word of liberal democracy. It is not about being more empathetic. It is about being more political. Everyone standing here has understood that lesson, and applies it to practice.

Whose safety? Who is being guarded, protected and secured? Who bears the brunt of state violence?

I have a message to mayors, university boards, and the police. You do not want to be on the wrong side of students. Unless you want to be on the wrong side of history. Students are again leading the way.

Now the only remaining question is this: How do we get to a shared future? By stubbornly portraying our commonality, our interconnections, our shared fate as humanity.  The goal should be a joint fight against racism and fascism. We have to keep confronting them on their failed promises, and we have to demand that they do better. When politicians, mayors, university boards, journalists, writers and so forth on don’t speak on your behalf. Your task is to speak on your own truths.

I am not optimistic at all. Look around. The far-right is gaining momentum everywhere in Europe.

I am not an optimist. An optimist buries his head in the sand, looks at the world with blinders on, and refuses to see the ugly, the evil, and the bad. The optimist seems harmless, gullible, well meaning, but does harm too. The optimist says dialogue, empathy and neutrality. The optimist writes books like De Meeste Mensen Deugen. Meh, Not All People Are Bad.

I am not optimistic at all. But I am hopeful. Your courage is contagious.

Hope is the recognition of the mess that we are in, a recognition of our terrible condition and the stubborn attempt to keep our own fire burning. Cornel West says: we must be held hostage by hope, we are prisoners of hope, because we have no other choice. Hope despite the evidence. Hope in spite of it all. Hope without the promise of redemption or liberation. Hope as a here-in-the-now practice.

We cannot afford to remain a spectator to our own lives, and the lives of the Palestinians. Acting on hope is an act of love for our shared humanity.

The hopeful person does not stare at the surrounding fire. But rather jumps from his chair, cups his hand and starts carrying water. The hopeful person shouts to the optimists. 

Help us, or we will perish together.

Hope is the continuous narrow victory over despair.

Read, write, protest, mobilize, and in the words of Edward Said, keep speaking truth to power.  Continue to show us the way, and keep teaching them lessons on solidarity and love.