Spiegeloog - Protests on Campus: A Series of Interviews

A scream rang through the library. Then another one. Angry voices that were coming from somewhere on the second floor of the ABC hall on Roeterseiland. Yet most of us kept our eyes on our books and laptops. By now, we all knew what was going on.

For more than two months now, I have not gone a single day without hearing some mention of the pro-Palestine protests on campus. The university is sending us weekly newsletters, students are fighting in every group chat, and social media is flooded with photos and videos of crowds, barricades and police violence. However, most of the public discourse is either shallow, biassed, or both. The University of Amsterdam chronicles every major protest on their website, yet so far I have not seen a single explicit mention of police violence. Notably, they nevertheless did mention that the board was “shocked by the violence against the police” (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024). Calls for protests and footage of riot police interventions are being shared on Instagram, but the captions of 15-second reels leave little space for thorough statements on the protesters’ demands, or for acknowledging the 1.5 million euros of damages (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024) caused during these protests. And I have yet to read an in depth discussion of the outright fear some Israeli students have been feeling in these past few weeks. Will the Spiegeloog therefore publish a single article, provide the one true answer to every question surrounding these events, and do so in a completely unbiased manner; the first magazine in all of human history to achieve true neutrality? Probably not.

What we will do is conduct a series of interviews. The UvA is hosting dialogue sessions, but only a small part of students attend. For everyone else, much of the parties involved in the recents events, their views and motivations, remain largely unclear. What exactly do the protesters want? Why were invitations signed “VIVA INTIFADA🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸”? Is this anti-Semitism? How much violence was there, really? How about the university’s staff, and why was the riot police sent? These are the questions we will ask not only to one of the groups that are involved, but to as many different people as we can.

Statement from the author:

I am aware that each individual has their own nuanced set of opinions and views on the protests, as well as on the conflict itself. I therefore want to ask you, the reader, to view this article as just one sample from a large pool of diverse individuals, that might not be representative of any group. Furthermore, I am not expert enough to comment on the truth of any of the statements made, and I did not write about them because they reflect my own opinion. Instead, I wrote this article because I believe that it is interesting and valuable to understand as many perspectives on these events as possible. While my questions and writing are shaped by my own biases, I worked closely with the interviewee to accurately reflect his views. Please understand this interview as an insight into the mind of someone involved in the protests, but not as a verified source on the Israel-Palestine conflict. If you are interested in more information about Thomas’ views, you can find some sources he selected at the end of this article. If after reading this article, there is anything you would like to discuss with me, or if you are interested in giving an interview yourself, you can reach me at lioba.roggendorf@gmail.com. Lastly, I would like to thank Zhen Cong for connecting me with a large majority of the students I have interviewed so far – I could not have written these articles without you!

And now, please enjoy this article with a critical but open mind.

Thomas – On Protesting

Our first interviewee was Thomas, a first-year student in the psychology research master’s programme. Before moving to Amsterdam and becoming active in the pro-Palestine protests on campus, he had been living in the US. There, he had been part of the Black Lives Matter movement, and a volunteer for local racial justice organisations. After moving to Amsterdam, Thomas started to organise a “bewonerscommissie” to promote the rights of tenants in his complex, joined the Spiegeloog team as an editor, and finally became active in the protests on campus, where he experienced police violence first hand, and agreed to a written interview with the Spiegeloog. To place his statements in context, let us begin with a short overview of the recent protests:

Timeline of the pro-Palestine protests at the UvA, created on June 30th, 2024, by editors of the Spiegeloog, some of whom had attended the protests themselves

“What was your goal when protesting on campus?”, I began the interview. To sum up the elaborate explanation that followed, Thomas replied: “The end of the perennial abuse and violence committed against the Palestinian people”. Putting an end to violence, who would disagree. But what was the University of Amsterdam to do about violence in Palestine? Why had students from a different continent gotten involved, and why had our campus been chosen as the location of their protests? Firstly, Thomas wrote, most of us at the UvA were incredibly privileged. In his eyes, this privilege came with responsibility. “It is vital that those who are in positions of privilege use that privilege to advocate for justice”. If we have the power to end or at least reduce injustice, we should not just stand and watch. And as students of one of the most renowned universities in the world (U.S.News, 2024; Qs, 2024), Thomas thought we held such power. “My hope was that with all of us coming together, we could get the UvA to, as the chant goes, disclose and divest their ties to the Israeli government, including academic institutions, as it did with South Africa during the anti-apartheid movement”, he explained. This description aligns closely with what the protesters explicitly demanded from the university in their negotiations:

“Full disclosure of all lines of communication with Israeli institutions and companies.
Stopping all academic cooperation with Israeli institutions that participate in genocide, apartheid and colonial violence.
Ending all contracts with companies that profit from genocide, apartheid and exploitation of the Palestinian people.”
(Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024)

But even though Thomas was stating this as his principal motivation for participating in the protests, these demands were not the reason he had gotten involved in the first place. “Admittedly”, Thomas said, “I only became aware of the events at REC on May 7th, the day after it happened”. The initial cause for his involvement lay much closer to home.

Violence on Campus

“It was the reports of police violence that were the catalyst for my involvement,”

Thomas told me. When I then asked him how he had felt during the protests, he replied with a single sentence: “I felt unsafe due to the police”. Later, he added “When I was beaten, I wasn’t even a part of the encampment”. I saw what Thomas meant when I opened Instagram on May 13th, the day of the staff walkout on the Roeterseiland campus:

A video of police violence during the protests on Roeterseiland, shared on Instagram by Linksinhetnieuws, May 13th, 2024

“It was important for me to show that, despite the threat of violence towards us, the people have a right to use their voice that cannot be silenced”, Thomas explained. “However, joining on that basis alone would have been inappropriate since it isn’t the focus of the protests, so I first researched the issue”. The combination of what he had seen on campus, and of what he had learned from his research on the conflict, was what finally led Thomas to participate. In a report of his research that spanned several pages, Thomas detailed the results of his research for me, including mostly mainstream Israeli sources for every single claim that he made. You can find his position at the end of this article. Yet to summarise what Thomas found: “The Israeli government bears responsibility not only for its own actions but also for propping up Hamas. However, I think this shouldn’t matter as much as the simple fact that the Israeli army has killed at least 35,000 Palestinians during this invasion”.

Reading Thomas’ views on the conflict, and especially on the role of the UvA in it, did not paint a flattering picture. It seemed to me that, in his view, the university was a large and powerful institution that could have been a meaningful force for change, but instead chose to sit back and watch to indirectly profit from a genocide that was happening just far away enough to be ignored, while keeping their actions hidden from their students. Since this interview, the UvA has published several statements regarding their ties to Israeli organisations (Universities of the Netherlands, 2024; Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024). On their website, the UvA writes that “we were and remain transparent about that” and “we see no reason to think that these collaborations contribute negatively to the situation in Gaza”. They have also been engaging in roundtable discussions with staff and students, as a starting point for reassessment of their collaboration policies (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024). However Thomas, too, has read these statements and made the following comment on the “Open letter on behalf of Universities of the Netherlands”:

“In that statement, they told us in no uncertain terms that they are unconcerned with such banal matters as morality or humanitarianism.”

[…] their concept of academic freedom rests in the freedom to collaborate with whomever they see fit without any concerns of morality or ethics, except for those that are legally imposed upon them”. In short, these steps towards more transparency and new policies are recent, according to some protesters insufficient, and thus the protests are still ongoing. Even if these issues were solved, those were not the only criticisms Thomas had for the university. Not even remotely.

The Executive Board – Deceitful and Dehumanising?

“What do you think the university should have done differently?”, I asked Thomas and thereby opened the floodgates for three pages filled with detailed recounts of everything that had gone wrong during the protests. “My biggest complaint throughout the events of the past month rests with the Executive Board. They acted in bad faith throughout the protests”, Thomas began. To illustrate, he detailed the events of May 8th. Apparently, the Executive Board had agreed to meet the protesters at Oudemanhuispoort, to negotiate with them. After the first discussion, they decided on a second meeting later in the day (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024). “The problem is”, Thomas recounted, “riot police and bulldozers were already on the ground at that time”. While the Board was talking to the protesters for the second time, batons and bulldozers were already waiting outside the door.

“How could the negotiations have been in good faith if the police were already mobilised?”

“It is almost hard for me to wrap my head around, except when I take into account other deceitful actions of the Executive Board”

, Thomas continued. “In one of UvA’s official statements, it suggested student protestors launched fireworks as weapons at the 7 May encampment. As reported by every Dutch news outlet that covered the story, it is widely known that counter-protestors were the ones who launched fireworks at the encampment”. This is the UvA statement Thomas was referring to: “Over the course of the evening, an unsafe and grim situation developed, with several incidents involving fireworks thrown, people being hit, the Israeli flag being burned and barricades erected” (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024). Additionally, Thomas told me that “the CvB and others really need to stop suggesting that wearing a face covering is incompatible with nonviolent protest or somehow ‘wrong’. The right to wear a facial covering at a protest has been validated by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, to the point that they declare it to be their official legal advice” (United Nations News, 2020).

Another of Thomas’ criticisms concerned involving the riot police at all. According to Thomas, the Executive Board is telling the “ongoing narrative that peaceful protests only became violent because of the actions of a few violent outsiders that infiltrated the protests”. “The Executive Board response to events 13 May 2024” might serve as an example (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024). On May 13th, when the situation escalated once again (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024), “the Executive Board was already fully aware of how violent the police had become in previous protests”, Thomas reasoned.

“How does it make sense to have the riot police show up and take action against hundreds of students, if you think one or two outside individuals are culpable? Especially knowing that it will inevitably end in police brutality.”

The repeated occurrences of police violence against students made Thomas question the Executive Board’s priorities. “I do not believe the Executive Board when they say that choosing to authorise the use of riot police has anything to do with student safety”, he wrote. To Thomas, it seemed like the Executive Board was “much more concerned about property and the appearance of order”, than about their students’ wellbeing. “By their actions and rhetoric, [the Executive Board] have communicated that

“they see the appropriate price for property damage to be the blood of UvA students and faculty.”

Though expensive screens got damaged in the process of what Thomas views as a necessary fight to stop profiting from genocide, “Why is property valued more than people?”.

Viva Intifada?

But the members of the Executive Board were not the only ones whose actions had been called into question over the past few weeks. The protesters’ chants of “from the river to the sea” and their invitations signed “Viva Intifada🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸” had been raising questions about anti-Semitism. The destruction of more than a million euros worth of property and the disruption of teaching and research, as well as doubts regarding polarised narratives, had been the subject of much discussion. So what did someone who had been attending the protests think about this? I began with the chants. “What were the protesters trying to say when they chanted ‘from the river to the sea’?”, I asked. “Prior to the influence of European imperialism, there wasn’t the tension we have now”, Thomas began. According to him, Jews, Muslims, and Christians used to live together relatively peacefully, until the British took control of the region after World War I. Thomas therefore believed that a peaceful coexistence was possible. “‘From the river to the sea’ looks like true equality and self-determination for all people, without the existence of an apartheid state”, he summarised what the phrase meant to him. Thomas’ interpretation of the phrase “Viva Intifada” was an equally peaceful one. “Just like ‘viva la revolución’, ‘viva intifada’ can refer to non-violent uprising or resistance. Just like the former, the latter is about capturing the spirit of the fight against oppression. […] By equating “intifada” with terrorism, we dehumanise the struggles for justice across the Middle East and reinforce stereotypes about Muslims and Arabic people”. When I explicitly asked about the accusations of anti-Semitism, Thomas’ response was brief, but clear.

“I have never once heard any antisemitic sentiment from anyone at the protests nor from anyone I know who supports the cause.”

Later, however, Thomas wrote to me “I do want to add that I have since spoken to Jewish friends about this, and they have told me that they have experienced this first-hand or know someone who has. And I fully believe them when they say this; just because I have not personally witnessed it does not mean that it does not happen. I firmly stand by the fact that anti-Zionism is not itself antisemitism. That said, antisemitism has absolutely no place in the pro-Palestine movement. We need to ensure that the movement is a safe space for everyone, including Jewish students. As the saying goes: Nazi punks, fuck off”.

Before this interview, I had asked other potential interviewees whether they had any questions for a protester. One of them asked “It is extremely difficult to understand the whole conflict well enough to organise a protest without polarising, getting things wrong, telling a one-sided narrative etc. What is your view on that?”. Thomas seemed very familiar with these questions, to the point of being weary of them. He told me that organisers of the protests had been working for over half a year prior to the large protests on campus, organising small-scale protests and demonstrations, trying to appeal to the board, and more. These protests did not happen on a whim. Additionally, Thomas asked “Why is the burden to understand things perfectly on the protestors? […] I think it is unreasonable to expect “perfect” understanding of an issue to participate in a protest”. Thomas argued that the public discourse around the protests turned it into a “binary issue”: Protesters were either pro-Palestine, or against it. However, according to what Thomas had experienced at the protests, this was not how the protesters actually thought. “I find that most people have nuanced opinions on the entire issue”, he wrote. In short, viewing the protesters as one large, polarised mob, guided by the very same views with no room for nuance and discussion, is oversimplified and inaccurate. There was no polarised or incorrect narrative guiding the protest, because there was no single shared narrative in the first place. The only exception to this, Thomas wrote, are the protesters’ “publicly stated, unified positions: What is happening to the Palestinian people in Gaza is wrong, and needs to end immediately with a full withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza”.

Creating Crisis

Finally, our conversation turned to the effects which the protests had had on the university. “Why the destruction?”, I asked Thomas about the 1.5 million euros of damages caused on May 7th and 8th alone (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2024). “Was it planned? What happened? And what do you think about interrupting research and teaching?”. Most UvA buildings had been closed from May 13th to 16th due to the protests.

A room on Roeterseiland Campus after the occupation of June 21st, shared by Universiteit van Amsterdam (2024) on their website

A video taken during a Roeterseiland occupation in May, shared by Linksinhetnieuws on Instagram (2024)

“No, it was not planned”, Thomas clarified immediately. “The protest leaders have repeatedly told protestors to 1) not escalate with the police, and 2) not to cause property damage. It has been repeated ad nauseam, both in text communication and verbally at the protests”. Regarding the disruption of teaching and research, Thomas seemed less regretful. He ended our interview by quoting Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963): “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. […] There is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth […].

“The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”

Where to learn more

If you are interested in learning more about Thomas’ position and the sources he considered before joining the protests, here is a summary of his views, including all sources he referenced:

“In no uncertain terms, the Israeli government’s policy is the intentional oppression of the Palestinian people”.

“The Netanyahu government’s aid to Hamas is not just theoretical, it is tangible”.

Qatar sent millions to Gaza for years – with Israel’s backing. Here’s what we know about the controversial deal | CNN

“The imperialist ambitions of the Israeli government have only become more pronounced since the invasion of Gaza began”.

“The Israeli army has killed at least 35,000 Palestinians during this invasion; even Netanyahu himself cites the death toll as at least 30,000. Given that death count, the displacement of virtually every person in Gaza, the destruction of the overwhelming majority of health facilities and schools, and the destruction of every single university, the lack of electricity, and on and on and on, we should be able to simply say that what the Israeli government is doing is wrong”.

References

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