01.04.2009

Successes and shortcomings

Laurie McCauley and David Sabbagh describe the student occupation at Sheffield university

Sheffield became the 34th university to be occupied on Monday March 16, when students took control of three lecture theatres in the Hicks building right outside the students union. The willingness of students to act in a radical fashion has been thoroughly inspiring, and this has been no different in Sheffield. Clearly, new layers of students are starting to see through the lies of the British state and the imperialist project it pursues. Solidarity with the people of Gaza has become a symbol for a shifting political consciousness amongst students and this can only be welcomed.

We used the space to hold meetings and film showings, which attracted up to 70 people, and built support with stalls on campus. The university refused to negotiate with the occupiers, and applied for a court injunction to have us removed by the police. They also moved all lectures, though some lecturers cooperated with us in letting them continue. The area was locked down with no-one allowed in. The authorities let food be taken to the occupiers, not being quite so brutal as to try and starve us out, as the university management did in Manchester.

We in Communist Students were involved in the occupation from the start - including keeping up the momentum over a long weekend when many left and were locked out. We are greatly enthused by the number of students who have thrown so much in for the cause of the Palestinian people.

Activists had at first argued for an occupation at meetings of the university’s Palestine Society, but this tactic was repeatedly rejected by the members of Socialist Action, who effectively control PalSoc. A list of demands similar to those put forward at other universities was sent to the vice-chancellor in the hope that he would be reasonable.

However, when the university refused all of the demands and SA members continued to argue against occupation, those of us willing to take direct action decided to organise separately. It was clear from the experience of other universities that occupation is usually the only way to achieve any demands around Palestine, and has achieved far more than without direct action. We decided on a location, started building a meeting under the banner, ‘Practical action for Palestine: what can we do?’, and about 40 of us went ahead after hearing speakers from the Manchester and Birmingham occupations.

There are benefits to the tactic in itself, even if no demands are met and you are kicked out. Our occupation has been largely very democratic, and this is a new experience for many. Though it was the ‘usual suspects’ of the left who were pushing hardest for an occupation (Socialist Workers Party, the left-Zionist Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, the Anarchist Federation and Communist Students), a substantial number of unaffiliated students took part, largely inspired by the fact that we were actually doing something.

The process of building for the occupation, and raising awareness once it began, has shown the left can work together, albeit around the low-level demands of this short-term action. This has been inspiring for all involved, and CS members have engaged in many productive discussions about the broader politics of Israel-Palestine, the student movement and Marxism. Whereas members of the left would previously ignore each other and plug away at building their own dogmatic sects, the occupation had forced them into debate, such as on imperialism and the resistance to it, the use of boycotts as a tactic and so on. These have been far more interesting than the usual small, badly attended meetings organised by the individual left groups. In this sense the occupation  provided us with a glimpse of the kind of unity we need in order to proceed - honest, open and frank criticism of ourselves and each other does not preclude unity - it fortifies it.

AWL members tried to smuggle their poisonous pro-imperialist politics into the occupation. Generally they chuntered on about working class internationalism and avoided pushing their actual policy; if they did, no-one would touch them with a bargepole. There is, however, a constant playing up of the level of Israeli opposition to the Zionist project, and comrade Dan Randall actually told us that the left is “confused about the meaning of Zionism”. In a meeting on the history of the conflict, Randall made the offensive contribution that, as Arab states had refused entry to millions of Jews fleeing from fascism, this somehow made it more acceptable for Jewish people to expel millions of Palestinian Arabs and colonise their land. Ethnic moralism, not the working class internationalism which the AWL make frequent reference to, but these are the sort of crass equations which result when serious arguments for a position are so sadly lacking.

Another recourse is outright lies: Randall asserted that everyone on the left apart from the AWL wants to “drive the Jews out” of Israel and that we were all under suspicion of anti-semitism. A nice way to make friends and influence people. In fact there was no-one at the occupation who thinks that or has argued anything like it. Yet for the AWL, anyone arguing for a one-state solution - or a two-state solution with the right to return - is guilty of Jew-baiting. They argue the right of return would mean the poles of oppression would be reversed, with Arab dominating Jew. Why this would necessarily be the case is left unexplained. The AWL claims to be for Arab-Israeli unity, yet cannot seem to imagine the masses acting on anything but chauvinistic impulses.

Leading Socialist Action member Fiona Edwards (student union women’s officer), who opposed the occupation from the start, threw tantrums and tried to undermine the occupiers in what was clearly a case of sour grapes once we started something she could not control. Nevertheless she used all the bureaucratic levers at her disposal to stymie genuine collective action - Stalinism at the level of a student union.

We heard on Thursday March 19 that the university was willing to negotiate with “all those involved”, including the Palestine Society, Islamic Society and a delegation from the mostly rightwing students union. We predicted that this would likely bypass the role of those actually involved - we had been demanding that the vice-chancellor come to the occupation and negotiate with us as a collective. Nevertheless, it was agreed to send a delegation to the negotiations as observers, who would report back to the occupation before decisions were taken. A post on the occupation blog welcomed the decision to bring on board ‘all interested parties’, and perhaps because of this the vice-chancellor reversed his position the next day. Now he would negotiate only with representatives of the students union, the Islamic Circle, PalSoc and the new addition of the Jewish Society.

Talks began, with one of the pro-vice-chancellors representing the university. The management agreed some paltry measures, such as paying the postage for materials sent to Gaza (insisting it was up to individual departments to decide whether they wished to provide the material itself), and to publicise the Disasters Emergency Committee aid appeal. It was also agreed that the university would investigate the matter of scholarships and the possibility of sending a delegation to Gaza on a humanitarian and fact-finding mission.

The vice-chancellor began negotiations with these societies while still pursuing the court order to kick out the occupiers. With an injunction looming, the occupiers decamped from the Hicks building and moved into the exhibition centre in the university’s new flagship, the Jessop building, which cost £21 million to build, but contains little useful space for students. We were immediately locked down, and it became clear that management would simply keep isolating and trying to evict us. This, combined with the fact that negotiations had begun with the societies and comrades were getting fatigued, influenced the decision to end the occupation on a high note with a rally.

The occupiers who had managed to get into Jessop came out on March 25 to applause and we proceeded to Firth Court, where management’s offices are situated, and did a sit-down in the lobby after security, anticipating our plans, locked the entrance. It is our direct action that resulted in the negotiations, and now that it has ended they will probably be fruitless. The occupation was inspiring for all involved, and it is a shame that management succeeded in splitting our support. Morale remains high though, and we plan to re-occupy if the demands are not met.

Communist Students members tried to deepen the politics of the occupation, arguing that we need to discuss broad questions of strategy, not just the tactics we can use in the UK to achieve what are, after all, a small set of low-level demands. The SWP’s line - that we must simply build for the next demo while uncritically cheerleading Hamas - or the pro-UN position of the Palestine Society are totally wrong. Reactionary forces like Hamas are at best temporary allies of socialists against imperialism, and we must always put forward our own politics - across the world.

CSers have argued for building concrete solidarity with secular and democratic currents in the Middle East, and for a radical worker’s movement across the west and the Arab world as the only effective opposition to US-sponsored Israeli expansionism. As part of this battle of ideas, we are hosting a day school on May 2 on the theme of ‘War and capitalism’, where we will be making the case that ending war is bound up with ending the rotten system of nation-states which keeps creating it.