By Sarah Nixon
Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) commenced its twelfth annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) at Carleton University on March 7 with a screening of the documentary Born in Gaza before a week filled with events, each meant to illuminate a different facet of Israeli apartheid.
IAW was first executed by SAIA in 2005 in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement which began in that same year.
In June of 2005, the BDS movement was called for by a coalition of Palestinian organizations and has since spread across the globe. Last year, IAW took place in 215 cities around the world. The events which comprise IAW are meant to garner support toward the three main goals of BDS: to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, to end discrimination against Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and to enable realization of UN resolution 194 which advocates refugees’ right of return to their homes and properties.
Formed in 2008, Carleton’s SAIA chapter was the first in Canada to undertake a campaign for its administration’s divestment from corporations that support Israeli apartheid. Although this remains a goal for SAIA, the particular focus of this year’s IAW was to “make connections between Palestine and our own communities,” according to IAW organizer Charana Jayatilaka, by “hosting events that compare Israeli and Canadian colonialism” and “hosting activists fighting against anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and white supremacy across North America.”
This focus reflects SAIA’s commitment to opposing apartheid in all its forms, and therefore its necessary opposition to the Canadian state’s continued colonial domination of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island, said Jayatilaka.
With this goal in mind, SAIA organized an event on March 9 entitled “Intersections of a Movement: Palestinian, Indigenous and Black Struggles.” Attendees at this event far outnumbered seats in the room and many students, faculty and community members stood or sat on the floor to hear Bridget Tolley and Tawana Petty share their respective experiences within Indigenous and Black struggles for liberation and speak to the connectedness of Palestine with these local struggles.
“Verses Vs. Apartheid” on March 11 also drew attention to the intersections of global struggles as artists used their performances to speak to oppression experienced not only in Palestine but also within immigrant and other communities of colour within Canada.
Artists shared messages of common struggle and also collective empowerment through self-expression and compassion.
This event garnered so much interest that its venue had to be changed from Rooster’s Coffeehouse to St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts, where SAIA still managed to sell out an increased number of tickets.
There was an increased attendance from previous years at both the March 8 panel “Refugee Settlement, US to Canada: Neoliberalism and the Potential for Alternatives” that discussed the relationship between neoliberalism, refugee resettlement and the NGO-industrial complex, as well as at the March 10 event “The Palestinian Nakba: A Historical Analysis of the Colonization of Palestine.”
It was important for the success of this year’s IAW events to be situated within their context of heightened social and political controversy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has maintained his pro-Israel stance at the United Nations, abstaining or voting against resolutions aimed at recognizing Palestinians’ fundamental rights at a UN committee in November. On March 13, he has also shared across Twitter his view that “the BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses,” adding that he was “disappointed” by McGill University students’ now defeated motion to support the BDS campaign.
The Prime Minister’s opposition to the BDS campaign and to IAW is rooted in the popular charge that both the campaign and the week are anti-Semitic. However, SAIA has consistently maintained its mandate of opposition to “all forms of racism, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism,” while advocating instead for Israel’s compliance with international law, an issue completely detached from the religion of apartheid’s perpetrators.
However, the contention that this week of events inspires was reflected by the experiences of some SAIA members. One member reported two separate instances that became heated. In one incident, a SAIA member was called a “terrorist” and had papers thrown in his face and in another, a student tore down an IAW poster in front of a member, accused him of manipulating the term “apartheid,” threatened to damage SAIA’s other promotional material and informed the member that they would remove any posters they came across on campus.
This reaction to advocacy on behalf of Palestine is not uncommon. Nonetheless, the students of SAIA refused to be intimidated and executed a hugely successful week of events amidst this climate of controversy.
This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol. 8 No. 6 (March 2016).
