The British singer Roger Waters, expected this Friday at the Bell Center, offered significant support to students who campaign for Palestinian rights at McGill University. They say they are victims of reprisals from the administration and their student association.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
Last March, 71% of students voted for a Palestine solidarity policy that called on the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) to boycott “companies and institutions complicit in colonial apartheid against Palestinians.” “. The measure was part of the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
“It’s a crushing defeat for [l’organisation juive] B’nai Brith and for the Zionist movement in general in the world”, launched the leader of Pink Floyd during a videoconference organized Thursday by the Canadian Institute of Foreign Policy.
PRESS SCREENSHOT
Roger Waters
However, the policy of solidarity with Palestine was abandoned by the SSMU after the administration of the University threatened to cut funding to the undergraduate student union. The initiative encourages “a culture of ostracism and lack of respect due to the identity, religious or political convictions of students”, justified Fabrice Labeau, first deputy executive vice-principal for studies and student life at the University, in a massive email.
“The referendum was organized on the basis of a rigged question and the quorum was barely reached,” adds Marvin Rotrand, director of the B’nai Brith human rights league.
The majority of students did not even know that a vote had been held. The University wanted to overturn the result because it violates its values.
Marvin Rotrand, B’nai Brith Human Rights League Director
The collective behind the referendum, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), strongly condemned the volte-face of the board of directors of its student association, renamed “council of dictators” in a parody statement. In retaliation, the SSMU decided to deprive the SPHR of its resources for 105 days.
The organization also accuses members of the SSMU executive of having participated in the creation of a “black list” of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian students. Some allegedly targeted for online surveillance and intimidation, student newspapers report McGill Grandstand and McGill Daily. The association has opened an investigation into these allegations.
SSMU had not responded to our interview request at the time of publication.
McGill in the sights
The Pink Floyd singer, like SPHR, believes that the McGill University administration is complying with requests from organizations like B’nai Brith Canada and the Advisory Center for Jewish and Israel Relations. The latter described the pro-Palestinian initiative as “anti-Semitic, polarizing and anti-democratic”.
On May 6, Roger Waters, Canadian author Yann Martel and some 200 academics, artists and thinkers as well as some forty organizations signed an open letter to denounce the “anti-democratic” threats of the administration of the University. McGill. “Your administration seeks to silence the debate on Palestinian dispossession and prevent McGill students from protesting Israel’s abuses,” they wrote.
Joined by The PressMcGill University declined to comment.
Since 2006
During his speech on Zoomthe author ofAnotherBrick in the Wall said he was reassured by the mobilization of young Montrealers. “That more than 70% of students at a great university like McGill feel challenged and vote for such a cause is remarkable. It shows how much things have evolved since my involvement in Palestinian human and political rights in 2006.”
That year, the English rocker was scheduled to perform at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel, but conversations with Palestinian allies dissuaded him.
It was finally in a field in Neve Shalom, a peaceful village where Jews and Arabs lived side by side, that his concert and his activism took off.
According to the singer, movements like BDS and efforts like SPHR are paying off. “Five or six years ago, you couldn’t use the word apartheid in reference to the Zionist program,” he observes. We wouldn’t make it. Today it is impossible to have any discussion of the Zionist project in Palestine without using the word “apartheid”. It has become accepted by everyone who has a minimal IQ or who has any knowledge of the situation in the occupied territories. »
According to Mr. Rotrand, of B’nai Brith, Roger Waters adopts “extremist” and “anti-Israeli” positions.
“You have to have a partner who wants peace to be able to achieve that. Mr. Waters does not facilitate dialogue and a peaceful solution that could be recognized by the diplomatic world. »
Roger Waters presents his concert This is Not a Drill this Friday at the Bell Center and Sunday at the Videotron Center.