Morale remains high as the USyd Encampment entered its third week today, despite violent storms over the weekend and persistent high winds.
Much of this morning was spent making repairs and tidying the encampment following last night’s heavy rain.
The schedule for the remainder of the day included a 3pm teach-in about the anti-apartheid solidarity movement with Robert Austin and an open meeting on camp organising for 5:45pm. A noon teach-in about the political economy of BDS by Dr. Claire Parfitt, a lecturer in political economy at USyd, was rescheduled for another day.
31 millimetres of rain fell on Sydney last night, with 124 millimetres having fallen since the beginning of May. This has already exceeded the May average of 117.4 millimetres according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Despite the poor weather, the encampment continues to grow. Honi Soit counted over 70 tents this morning, although several tents had been wrecked by bad weather.
Dante, a non-USyd student who joined the encampment, said that despite Sunday night being “really bad,” the encampment is “still going strong; I don’t think anyone is demoralised.”
“This is an obstacle we have to get through but we have a very strong cause,” Dante continued.
One USyd SRC Ethnocultural Officer noted that the strong showing and extra publicity from last Friday’s protest and counter-protest had “built the community up a lot,” noting that many new faces have “committed to coming and camping out, and donating.”
University security has become concerned about non-students borrowing other activists’ student cards to access campus toilets overnight. USyd security services noted that cameras in areas requiring swipe access could be used to match faces.
A USyd spokesperson said that “for the safety of our whole community, access arrangements to toilets and facilities on campus – including Fisher Library – remain in line with our normal operations.”
The Spokesperson continued: “these facilities are typically open access during business hours and have access restrictions in place after hours.”
The spokesperson reiterated that “allowing another person to use your University of Sydney swipe card is a breach of our conditions of use and could result in disciplinary action.”
USyd Security also requested that the encampment clear the Quadrangle alcove for emergency vehicle access.
Graduations have continued today alongside the encampment’s presence. The USyd Ethnocultural Officer also stated that encampment organisers have aimed to minimise disruption to graduations, for fear of giving USyd Management an excuse to shut the protest down.
“I guess we’ve just been keeping our distance,” they said, “We’re just directing people around the side of the Quad to enter it.” They went on to say that there have been “a lot of graduating students taking photos in front of the encampment.”
Additionally, the USyd Ethnocultural Officer stated that the encampment has a surplus of food supplies, but requires more donations of weather equipment, including sandbags, water-weights, wind-proofing, blankets, and equipment for securing tents. They told Honi that the “overall feeling” at the encampment “was that the protest and counter-protest went quite well” last Friday.
“There were a couple of people that did not follow instructions, but we made sure that the main focus was the actual encampment and standing up against Zionists without actually interacting with them.”
Dante confirmed that the event, which they estimated involved over 1000 people, was “evidence that we can mobilise so many protestors.”
“It’s a strong movement,” Dante said, “even if it seems there’s not a lot of people here right now, we can mobilise so many.”
SRC Education Officer Grace Street attributed the success and efficiency of Friday’s protest to the preparation work committed by the encampment, including the use of marshals and legal observers.
As for USyd’s management, they are yet to engage directly with camp organisers.
“We’ve been speaking to the USyd wellbeing people who have been coming down to the camp every other day and liaising with organisers making sure students are safe, and the encampment is not disturbing students,” the USyd Ethnocultural Officer said, “That’s the extent of our contact with the University.”
At 5:40pm the same evening, campers met to discuss how to use the thousands of dollars raised on a GoFundMe page. As of writing, donations have been paused but the encampment has raised $7,904 in total.
The page says the donations are for “camping basics and activist resources,” but now that the encampment has a surplus of many of those goods, including food, there was initial disagreement among the factions about how the remaining money should be spent.
Some members of Socialist Alternative (SAlt) argued the money should be saved for potential legal fees and used to reimburse the future expenses of campers. Deaglan Godwin said that “activism costs money,” and that people who donated wanted the money to be used on the encampment.
Members of other student factions and groups including Grassroots, the Sydney University Muslim Society, and the Political Economy Society instead called for the money to be directly sent to Gaza, arguing it was disrespectful for the focus to be on the needs of the campers. It was also pointed out that legal fees were not mentioned on the initial GoFundMe page.
It was collectively decided a vote would be held on the matter.
Eventually, a proposal by the meeting chair requesting the money to be used to bring a family friend from Gaza to Australia was accepted by all parties.
A strategy day in preparation for the rest of the semester was also proposed. After the meeting, students formed working groups to prepare materials for tomorrow’s 1pm snap rally at the Quadrangle.
The encampment is expected to continue throughout the further bad weather forecast for the rest of the week.
Follow updates on our Instagram and Twitter as well as Students for Palestine Sydney Uni.
