Spirit of protest among students to be celebrated
Determination to draw attention to palpable injustice can lead to tangible change, writes barrister
Australian universities, like their US counterparts, have been political activism deserts since the anti-Vietnam War protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s. That is, until now. The destruction of Gaza and its people by Israel, a clearly disproportionate response to the October 7 attacks by Hamas, has finally reignited that spirit of protest and a refusal by students to back down in the face of political and university administration pressure. We should celebrate it. For too long, students have been apathetic.
Occupying university buildings is part and parcel of the student protest movement. This is not to condone trespass, but when frustration boils over because of tin eared administrators who are timid and cowered by government and the media, the determination to draw attention to palpable injustice leads to such measures.
Monash University, this columnist’s alma mater, had one of the most potent anti-Vietnam War protest movements in Australia. And it included among its number the former Labor premier of this state, Jim Bacon. Albert Langer, one of the leaders of the movement, became a household name in Victoria. And it was effective. It helped shape the end of that unjust war. And just as now the conservatives, anti-communists and stuffed shirts of the higher education establishment threatened students with expulsion and discipline. Fortunately, the students were not deterred.
And nor were they deterred when their protests took on apartheid South Africa. The vision of invasions of rugby pitches when the whites only South African team toured Australia in 1971 was a seminal moment in this nation’s political history.
These protests across Australia today represent the conscience of the nation. As the American writer Chris Hedges said last week, “These protests are built around a vision of a world of equality, dignity and independence. This vision, and the commitment to it, will make this movement not only hard to defeat, but presages a wider struggle beyond the genocide in Gaza.”
Students in Australia, and across the world, are demanding that universities divest themselves of investments in companies that are linked to Israel. This campaign is modelled on the successful movement that forced corporations to cease their operations and investments in apartheid South Africa.
While universities in Australia constantly cry poor, the reality is they have huge investment portfolios. For example, the University of Tasmania, according to its own figures, had an investment fund of $106m in 2022. In its usual opaque fashion there is, when one reads that year’s annual report on the fund, no mention of the companies it is invested in, but it does say its investments are climate change mitigation focused. Given the global condemnation of Israel it is incumbent on the fund to tell us if they have any investments in Israeli companies or companies that operate in Israel in that environmental space. The fund may not, but it owes students and the community that information. And if it does have such investments it should get out of them now.
One of the disappointing features, albeit predictable, of some of the mainstream media coverage of the university protests, has been uncritical coverage of allegations of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is horrific and should be called out whenever and wherever it happens.
But let’s not make that allegation simply because students are supporting the end of oppression of the Palestinian people and outraged by the killing of tens of thousands of men, women and children. Too often the label anti-Semitism has been used for that purpose.
The other feature of the media reporting is that reporting of antiSemitism and fears that Jewish students are not safe is dominating the coverage. Henry Reynolds, the Tasmania-based historian, in a powerful piece published on the Pearls and Irritations website last week, rightly observed, “it’s not Western governments alone that have deliberately crafted their language and their diplomacy to protect Israel from the outrage felt around the world, arguing with wellrehearsed casuistry that antiSemitism is a more egregious
Anti-Semitism is horrific and should be called out whenever and wherever it happens. But let’s not make that allegation simply because students are supporting the end of oppression of the Palestinian people
problem than genocide”. The media in this country, and in other countries, including the ABC, have corrupted “the news to defend Israel itself and the sensibility of Zionists everywhere”.
And as two academics from US universities wrote in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last Friday, “We are empathetic to the experience of Jewish and Israeli students on our campuses who say they feel threatened and uncomfortable. But experiencing discomfort, anger or hurt shouldn’t be confused with feeling unsafe. And we should care about the safety of all our students, including the protesters, many of whom are Jewish.”
What a pity that we are not hearing and reading this nuanced perspective from our political leaders and media. They should remember this, just as the anti-Vietnam protests awakened conservative university campuses over 50 years ago, Israel’s actions have unleashed a new movement among our students.
Long may it live because university should be about developing and acting on a conscience for change.
Hobart barrister Greg Barns SC is a human rights lawyer who has advised state and federal Liberal governments.