USyd encampment Town Hall meeting
On Friday May 17, encampment organisers spoke at a town hall meeting, where USyd’s administration, including Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott, were invited to speak publicly with students. As university management did not attend, the meeting was turned into an open forum.
Mahmoud from Sydney University Muslim Students Association (SUMSA) began by asking the people of Gaza to “forgive us, we have failed you on so many levels.” He then said that encampments must continue to make it clear how universities are complicit in genocide, especially regarding its investments and use of student fees.
He continued by saying that people are sacrificing their time, efforts and health to take a stand, and while “the encampment has a bit of hype to it, we must not lose sight of our goal” before extending an invitation to Mark Scott to speak to the encampment and negotiate.
“If you can’t answer these questions, we are willing to keep going with respect to legal means and policies and procedures,” Mahmoud concluded, “the party has just started.”
Shovan Bhattarai spoke to the university’s responses, including the targeting of SUMSA for using pallets for their tents, thereby “damaging the grass.”
In particular, the “right-wing and centrist media outlets” attacks on Randa Abdel-Fattah children’s excursion to the USyd encampment were deemed “disgraceful,” especially for suggesting that it would radicalise children.
“Intifada, just because it’s a word in Arabic… is linked to extremism, violence and antisemitism,” Bhattarai said.
She disagreed with the university’s communication on negotiations, saying “we are not going to let the absence of Mark Scott be a thorn in our side… we will continue to protest.”
Bhattarai then told attendees of a massive NTEU, staff and student rally planned for Thursday, May 23.
Deaglan Godwin addressed Scott directly: “we know you have a lot of CCTV cameras in this room and you can switch them on and listen that way.” He pointed out that ties to Israel have been strengthened, and not reduced or cut since the genocide began.
USyd recently announced a PhD scholarship with Thales in underwater situational awareness under the new ARIAM (Australian Robotic Inspection Asset and Management) research hub, opened in December 2023.
This lab is partnered with and funded by French manufacturer Thales, who works with Elbit systems, one of Israel’s largest ‘defence’ companies making drones used on Palestinians.
“Why do they feel compelled to not offer an explanation,” Godwin said, ”they want to bog us down in semantics of chants and concerns about the quality of the sandstone, lawns, usage of bathrooms on campus.”
Godwin then said that if anyone from the university wanted to meet, “here we are… you can still make it from F23 if you jog”, vowing that the students will stop protesting when Scott addresses the encampment’s demands in public and announces immediate divestment.
During question time, one encampment member asked whether “radical decolonisation” were merely words that are easier said than done, especially when concerning brown people. They then asked fellow campers how that can be better translated into practice. By the conclusion of the forum, the general sentiment was that “we have to exhaust every avenue because that is what we owe to Palestinians.”
Staff sign letter in solidarity
On May 17, university academics and professional staff released an open letter defending students’ right to protest, reiterating their demands of disclosure and divestment, and denouncing the university’s response thus far.
“We work, teach, and research at these Australian universities, and we equally condemn the violence against these peaceful encampments, the relentless media campaign to demonise student protestors, and the refusal by university leadership to engage with the reasonable and urgent political demands of the liberation camps.”
Israeli flag over encampment
The night of Saturday 18 May saw an Australian and Israeli flag hung atop the Quadrangle building.
Two days later, tradies were hired by the university to take down the flags, with no known details about how this occurred or if it involved access to the building.
Key points from Mark Scott’s article in The Australian on student encampments
- In reference to the announcements made by student campers during Peter Morgan’s lecture, who felt intimidated, Scott stated in the opening sentences of the article that “some view these actions as a legitimate form of protest. The university does not.”
- “While the encampment at Sydney has been mostly peaceful”, Scott maintains his understanding over how the presence of the encampment is uncomfortable “for some of our Jewish students and staff” but argues that as long as it is “peaceful, respectful and not disruptive to university life, it remains a legitimate protest”.
- The right to political speech is reiterated by Scott, who says “we do not believe, nor understand, how our campus can be a place where people are less free to speak than they are in the wider world.”
- In reference to the “intifada” and “from the river to the sea” chants, Scott recognised the “difficult debate” and reiterated the need for “clear phrases” that are not open to different interpretations. By declaring that criticism of Israel and its foreign policy “should never descend into anti-Semitism”, Scott implicitly recognised that the student protestors are criticising the conduct of Israel as a state, and not Jewish people as a group, while simultaneously denouncing anti-Semitism.
- Scott reassures those criticising the response of university leadership that “if an investigation currently underway proves these protesters have crossed the line from peaceful protest to unacceptable conduct, disciplinary action will be taken.” However, he balances this by saying that “our aim is to de-escalate tensions rather than fuel them, and foster understanding and learning”, given the escalations both in the US and other Australian universities.
- “There is no difference between the views expressed on the front page of this masthead by Western Sydney University chancellor Jennifer Westacott and my own,” Scott continues. Westacott’s article condemned anti-Semitism within campus protests after the University Chancellors Council agreed not to explicitly do so.
- Scott emphasised that the university remains committed to not allowing free speech and academic freedom to “cross into hate speech”, before citing the university’s successful appeal of Tim Anderson’s unfair dismissal case.
