Student protests pivotal to ending Gaza genocide
SOUTH Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Dr Naledi Pandor has welcomed the growing international movement of student activism in support of justice for the people of Palestine.
Speaking at the second Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Lecture at the University of Johannesburg, Pandor, a crusader for Palestine’s liberation, said: “South Africa’s institutions of higher learning had a special responsibility to show solidarity with Palestine because of SA’S history.”
The lecture commemorates Abu Akleh, a distinguished Palestinian-american journalist who served as a reporter for Al Jazeera and was fatally killed in 2022 while reporting on the West Bank. Pandor highlighted the mobilisation of higher education students across the world in support of Palestine, saying: “We are also buoyed by the growing mobilisation on college campuses across the world in support of the just cause for freedom and justice of the people of Palestine.
“Since October 7, over 34 000 Palestinians
have been killed, and tens of thousands injured by Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza. This includes over 14 000 children and 10 000 women. Today, over 10 000 others are still missing and presumably trapped under heaps of rubble.”
It is evident, both now and throughout global history, that war is extensively destructive. The obliteration of schools, hospitals and various other infrastructure is debilitating in the long term. Wars have an adverse ripple effect. National instability leads to an increase in violence, crime and general lawlessness. There is also a major environmental impact that takes place, affecting living conditions, food production, business productivity and the overall national economy.
For some nations, it takes generations to reverse the effects of wartime. The physical and psychological consequences are perpetually felt. In addition to this, the people that are considerably affected by wartime are innocent bystanders, the civilians.
The psychological impact of war should not be underestimated. Countless people experience post-traumatic stress disorder, debilitating depression, heightened anxiety, among various other psychosomatic issues.
Minister Pandor spoke at length about student protests opposing the Gaza war. Since mid-april, student activism against the war has been extensively publicised, inspired by a camp-out protest that was held by Columbia University students in the US. This has inspired student protests across the globe, from European countries such as Spain, Denmark, the UK, Netherlands and Belgium, to Japan, Australia, Lebanon and Jordan.
The protesters, alongside an array of academics at various institutions of higher learning, are calling on their institutions to dissociate from companies profiting from the Israel-gaza war.
Closer to home, Pandor highlighted in her speech that the University of Cape Town (UCT), the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University Senate members have all released official statements of support advocating for an immediate end to the genocide and barbaric destruction of Gaza. “The UCT Senate has resolved that no UCT academic should collaborate with any academic ... on any research project if they are identified with the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). The majority ... voted in favour of supporting Palestinian academics and the right to have debates on Zionism without being accused of antisemitism.”
Pandor said one of the strongest statements came from the University of Fort Hare (UFH), demanding that an immediate ceasefire be enforced by the UN, along with the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. “The university has expressed its support for our government’s call for the International Criminal Court to investigate international war crimes committed by Israel.”
UFH have also committed not to pursue any institutional links with Israeli institutions, as these have played a central role in supporting settler colonial oppression and apartheid and have been complicit in grave violations of human rights.
The proliferation of student protests across the world has been a stark indication of the extensively blatant human rights violations that are taking place in Gaza, and more so, the inability of superior international organisations such as the UN, to truly protect the people when it matters.
Students, and the youth in general, have a unique power to shape the direction of our society. It is vital that they do not stand silent in times of injustice. Protests and various forms of activism that there are consequences to injustice. Governments should be progressive and stand in solidarity with students protesting the Gaza war. It is an internationally publicised atrocity that will affect Palestinians for generations to come.
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu once honourably said: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”