Canada: balance sheet of the student strike for Palestine

85,000 students went on strike last week against Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Gaza. This was the largest student strike over international solidarity that Canada has ever seen.

[Originally published at marxist.ca]

The strike took place on Nov. 21 with students from all the major universities in Montreal, both francophone and anglophone, as well as from colleges and CEGEPs. Over 1,000 people gathered in downtown Montreal for the main strike rally with speeches demanding an end to the genocide.

For many schools, the strike continued through Nov. 22, denouncing the NATO summit taking place in Montreal that weekend. Another rally on that day drew another 1,000 people who gathered to let these imperialist war-mongers know that they are not welcome.

Summing up the mood, one student said, “I didn’t know if striking could do anything, especially if it was just us, but considering it’s students across Quebec, it means something now. … I was like, how are people going to show up for something that doesn’t affect them directly? But people do, and they are!”

While all of the campuses on strike were in Quebec, dozens of other campuses around the country held rallies for the day of action on Nov. 21. There were rallies and walk-outs at Capilano, University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, University of Alberta, University of Calgary, all three campuses of the University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, YorkU, George Brown College, Humber College, Ontario College of Art and Design, Dalhousie and more.

This is a fantastic step forward for the Palestine solidarity movement. After over a year, with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating, boycotting products, signing petitions and calling their MPs, everyone knows that nothing has changed. Israel continues their genocidal policy and continues to be supported by the western imperialist countries.

This is why in August, the Revolutionary Communist Party put out the call to organize a student strike for Palestine. We argued that a student strike was the logical next step to escalate and breathe new life into the Palestine solidarity movement which has clearly entered a period of confusion and lull.

RCP activists took this strike campaign onto 45 different campuses across the country, arguing in favour of a student strike, amassing thousands of signatures calling on the student unions to begin mobilizations. The fact that some student unions in Quebec went on strike on Nov. 21-22 is a great step forward.

However, just one or two days of strike is not enough to affect the situation. This is why we call on all of the student unions who voted for strike action to not simply see this as a one- or two-day stunt but to seriously commit themselves to a general campaign to mobilize for strike action next semester, appealing to all student unions across the country to join the movement.

This is the only way to take the movement forward.

An uphill battle

This strike was not achieved easily and not without confronting great obstacles. When the RCP launched the strike campaign, we knew that a small organization like ours could not organize a strike all on our own. That is why we appealed to all Palestine solidarity groups and student unions to dedicate all of their resources to mobilize for a student strike.

If this took place, there is no doubt that a genuine mass student strike movement from coast to coast could have developed.

Unfortunately, we did not meet a positive response from most of the groups that currently dominate the Palestine solidarity movement. We were told on multiple occasions that a strike “wasn’t realistic,” because students “didn’t care about Palestine” or that they wouldn’t strike on this issue. The strike of 85,000 students proves these naysayers wrong.

Some even opposed the strike because they thought it was too extreme, calling it the “nuclear option”. We were told that continuing to pressure the administration and propose “reasonable” demands was the way to go. But this approach is precisely what has led the movement down a blind alley. Yes, when there is a genocide, we do need a “nuclear option!” No business as usual while a genocide is ongoing!

There has been a clear division in the movement between those who propose revolutionary class struggle methods, and those who are stuck in a reformist-liberal mindset and are content with making moralistic appeals to imperialist institutions.

This reached ridiculous proportions when Students for Justice in Palestine called for a strike on Nov. 21. While we had already called for a strike day on Nov. 22, we quickly changed our plans in the interest of unity of the movement. Scandalously, various SJP chapters such as the one at Toronto Metropolitan University defied their own parent organization and refused to support mobilizations for the student strike on campus. Instead they told Student Strike for Palestine activists that they preferred to “pressure the administration to divest.”

There was even a layer of sectarians who attempted to sabotage the strike campaign on various campuses. At UBC a small group of liberals undemocratically took control of the student strike social media and banned the RCP. This was just a week before Nov. 21, which paralyzed the student strike Instagram page and majorly hampered mobilizations. This sectarian attitude, that places their own petty grievances against the communists above the interests of the movement, is far too prevalent and has to be vigorously denounced.

Only in Quebec did the movement end up leading to a student strike. However, even here we met stern opposition and sabotage. Under the pressure of events, with Nov. 21 approaching, a lead activist with SPHR Concordia requested that the student strike campaign wrap up so that they could save face and be the ones who would be seen to be calling for a student strike! This petty sectarian madness is exactly what repels people from the left and damages the movement.

Fortunately, a good number of student associations did end up voting to strike. This is a huge step in the right direction. But this is only one step. For us to have any sort of impact, we need to shut things down, in every province.

The way forward

The RCP are prepared to do our part to build this movement. But we are still a relatively small force and we cannot do this on our own. This movement must have the resources and mobilizing power of the main student unions and Palestine solidarity groups.

The obvious place to start is with the student unions who went on strike for Nov. 21-22. These unions can and should appeal to other student unions and all Palestine solidarity groups to unite and organize a pan-Canadian student strike against the genocide.

85,000 students on strike for Palestine is a big success we can build upon. Let’s shut down the campuses and force them to divest from the Israeli war machine. Let’s build a movement so powerful that it spreads to the working class. Let’s build a movement so vast that it does not respect borders and spreads to the United States and Europe and brings western imperialism to its knees.

That is the way that we can liberate Palestine.