pc 8 maggio - La rivolta nelle università USA - La repressione non ferma ma alimenta la ribellione! Video e informazioni dagli USA

info dirette in via di traduzione

• After 108 people were arrested at the Columbia encampment on April 18, dozens more encampments were established around the country. Columbia students started a new encampment the same day as the arrests, and sustained it in the face of constant threats. The day after Columbia was “cleared” of protesters in an even more violent and militarized raid on April 30, the protesters held a mass press conference in the street outside its gate, 100 faculty and staff held a rally supporting the protesters, and the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) called for a vote of no confidence in Columbia’s president, while the Barnard College (part of Columbia) AAUP unanimously voted no confidence in their president. 
• Also a day after the April 30 Columbia raid—and a raid the same night on City College of New York (CCNY) with mass arrests of students there—students at Fordham University’s Manhattan college started an encampment there, saying things like, “Seeing what the Columbia students went through, it’s inspiring.” The NYPD immediately vamped on it that same night—this time adding drones to their weapons arsenal and arresting “multiple protesters,” and the university also suspended an undisclosed number. Protesters took to the streets shouting that being suspended was “nothing short of an honor”! 
• In Portland, Oregon, Portland State University protesters had established an outdoor tent encampment for a week and had occupied a library for three days. On May 2 city and state cops raided both. They succeeded in arresting about 30 people, but were then confronted by hundreds of PSU students blocking their vans. Responding forcefully, including with pepper spray, cops were able to leave with the arrested people. But, “after police left, protesters were quick to replace barricades and signs, re-establishing their presence on campus.”
• After Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers attacked an encampment at Emory University, tasing, pepper spraying, and/or arresting several dozen, and after Georgia’s governor declared that “college campuses… will never be a safe haven for those who promote terrorism and extremism,” 200 Emory professors staged a walkout on the last day of classes calling for the head of the university to resign. One professor stated, “The administration was ruthless. The use of violence against students and faculty who were exercising the right of free expression non-violently is appalling. It’s a betrayal of what a university is.” Two days after that there was another mass protest on campus, and video of the arrest of the head of the Philosophy Department went viral, with 20 million views.
• At Princeton University in New Jersey: 15 students began a hunger strike, stating, “Millions of Gazans continue to suffer due to ongoing siege by the State of Israel. Two million residents now face a man-made famine” and that they “refuse to be complicit in genocide.”
• And, even with thousands of students suspended and shut out of graduation ceremonies, vibrant protests erupted at a number of commencements, including at the University of Michigan and Indiana University. A young woman who walked out said, “I think sometimes it is scary to do the right thing. I was scared. But people are dying and there’s no way I could not do something about it.”

The courage of these students is forcing others—on their campus and throughout society—to take a stand. One student arrested at the University of Texas said, “I didn't even know there was a protest going on today, but once I got three texts from the police saying that everyone on South Lawn needs to disperse or be arrested, I felt compelled to go and offer some support." 

The students themselves have expressed their determination not to stop until the genocide of Palestinian people ends.

After a mass arrest at UCLA, a journalist asked an arrested student on line to be processed by the cops: “Is this the end of the protests?” His reply was: “No, not at all… People will be back. People will be back. It’s not the end… until the genocide ends, and the funding, when the genocide ends, the billions of dollars spent.”

After the pro-Israel (Zionist) attack on UCLA protesters, a student group released a statement saying, “The zionist attacks, their use of chemical weaponry, their hatred, their destruction, are but a microcosm of the genocide in Gaza. The university would rather see us dead than divest… Call on UCLA, protect your fellow students, & call for what we need—a divestment from systems of death that profit off of indiscriminate bombing and a call to end the genocide in Gaza & the occupation of Palestine.” Another statement noted that “Today is day 207 of Israel’s genocidal campaign against Gaza, and 76 years into the Israeli occupation of Palestine,” and ended with: 

We would relive this week again and again if it means the liberation of Palestine and we remain committed to our just cause—as should you all. We will not stop, we will not rest.

MAGA Fascist America First Thugs Amass

Not only have the student protests been met with vicious state repression, there have been increasing cases of violent Zionist thugs coming together with MAGA fascist and pro-pig mobs, including large numbers of racist frat boys to uphold America and its attack dog Israel.

At UCLA, there was a pro-Zionist rally of hundreds wrapped in the American and Israeli flags. Then, just two nights later, a mob of violent Zionist thugs attacked the Gaza Solidarity Encampment (see above). After hours of the Zionist attack, when the police finally did march onto campus to intervene, the Zionists started chanting “USA, USA.” The presence of the police did result in the Zionists leaving campus, but there were no arrests of people who were wielding metal rods, wood, bear spray and more to beat on students.

The American flag—as a symbol of American chauvinism and dominance in the world—has become a concentration of this fight.

On April 30, New York Mayor Eric Adams had a fit because protesters at CCNY had taken down the American flag and raised a Palestinian one. Adams sputtered “That’s our flag folks… It’s despicable that schools would allow another country’s flag to fly in our country. So blame me for being proud to be an American.” 

On May 1, a battle ensued around the flagpole at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. Shortly after being driven out of their encampment at the campus quad, a group of anti-genocide protesters returned, pulled down the American flag, and raised the Palestinian flag and were dancing around it joyously. The acting chancellor made a big show of marching up to the flagpole with a battalion of police to re-raise the American flag while a pro-America and pro-Israeli crowd cheered and chanted “USA, USA.” A second attempt to take down the American flag was stopped by a group of frat boys and there was a standoff. Eventually officials decided—for reasons that aren’t clear—to take down the U.S. flag, leaving the pole empty, for now.

In the wake of this, the “frat boys” became reactionary celebrities, with over $500,000 raised to throw them a “rager.” Republi-fascists like Trump and North Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham praised them as “heroes.”

On May 3, a small—but brave and determined—walkout for Palestine at Louisiana State University was met by a growing mob of fascist counter-protesters, later joined by a fascist Senator, chanting USA, USA and waving the American flag.

And at University of Mississippi—in an extremely ugly incident that proved the lynch-mob mentality remains powerful and is in fact coming back wrapped in MAGA hats and American flags—a howling mob of lunatics surrounded and taunted a Black woman standing up for Palestine.