Canada: Student strike for Palestine campaign gains momentum!

Image: Communist Revolution

This school year, RCP activists have launched a campaign for a student strike for Palestine. We have hit the ground on multiple campuses around the country and are happy to report that thousands of students are already supporting this campaign.

But this campaign will only succeed as a mass movement of tens of thousands of active participants. We urge everyone reading this to get in touch to help build the student strike for Palestine! Whether you are on a campus in which the campaign is already under way or want to start it on your campus—we all have a role to play!

Early successes

In the first few weeks of classes, our activists have been using every means possible to popularize the idea of a student strike.

Thousands of students are signing petitions calling on their student unions to organize strike general assemblies. Teams of campaign agitators can be seen every day on campuses. They have distributed tens of thousands of leaflets. “Help build the student strike for Palestine” posters blanket campuses around the country. Activists have unfurled huge banners and made speeches denouncing the genocide in Palestine in cafeterias and other busy areas.

Organizing meetings have been held with hundreds of students turning out on campuses around the country. For example, at York University in Toronto, over 30 people present from the RCP, YorkU Muslim Students Association, YorkU NDP, Osgoode Hall Law Union and the Trotskyist League voted unanimously to launch the campaign, and even raised $300 to support the movement! Similar meetings took place at Concordia University in Montreal and the Toronto Metropolitan University where 40 people and 30 people respectively came to the first organizing meetings.

Equally, a sit-in at the Université de Montréal campus attracted 30 people to begin mobilizations on the campus. At Sherbrooke University, the Front d’action collective has officially joined the strike campaign and 25 people attended the first organizing meeting in preparation for strike action.

So far the most impressive organizing meeting was held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver with over 100 people in attendance! This was after only a week of mobilization, where the administration systematically removed the 500 or so posters that were put up. But they cannot stop the students who want to mobilize against the genocide in Palestine!

An excellent example of successful mobilization comes from Toronto Metropolitan University. Just a handful of students managed to organize a walkout on Friday, Sept. 6 which drew out 150-200 students. The mood at the rally was ecstatic as students marched through the corridors calling on students to walk out of classes and join the rally. This even garnered sympathy from some professors, at least two of which let their students leave class to join the mobilization. The rally then marched to the University of Toronto where we joined forces with a demonstration at the University of Toronto.

Repression

But fighting against genocide doesn’t only win supporters. It also has attracted the attention of those who want to silence us, starting with security and police on every campus.

We already reported the case of our comrade Francis, arrested at Carleton University for committing the “crime” of leafleting. But more examples of repression are piling up daily. Recently, a student at the University of Alberta was threatened with expulsion from campus just seven months before his graduation!

Almost everywhere we go, campus security and even police officers disrupt our activities, remove our posters and threaten pro-Palestine activists.

In a scandalous move, Concordia’s Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights group has been denied official student club status.

In response to this attempt to silence us we have a clear message: we will not be silenced! We will not back down!

In fact, repression only strengthens our resolve. We will respond by building a movement so broad that it’s impossible to ignore or suppress.

This is just the beginning!

The movement for a student strike for Palestine is still in its infancy, but the first steps have already been made. What is needed now is to take the movement to the next level!

So far, the biggest successes have come from places where the broadest possible layer of students have taken the campaign into their hands. This cannot be stressed upon enough. We seek to build a movement, the likes of which we have not seen for a long time. We need not simply a mass movement, but a movement of the masses.

Too often, the movement is monopolized by a clique of activists. This ultimately weakens the movement and makes it easier for the administration, the government or the capitalists to subvert or crush. The strength of a mass movement is to be found to the degree in which the masses are involved actively in building the movement and determining its direction.

The Black Panther Party has something to teach us here—the “two by two” method. For every rally they held, their members would speak to the crowd and tell them that each of them should bring two people to the next rally. With this simple formula, the next rally would be three times as large! This helped everyone to see that they had a role to play.

This is why we appeal to all students and to all pro-palestinian groups. Join the movement! Help build the student strike for Palestine! If we all join together, we can build a powerful movement, unlike any we have seen for a long time that will make the imperialists shudder!

Learn more: StudentStrike4Palestine | Linktree

Open letter to all pro-Palestine groups: Unite for a student strike!

[Originally published on Marxist.ca on 12 September 2024]

Join us

If you want more information about joining the RCI, fill in this form. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Read More