The Role of Occupations

[beccy]

Following on from Eleftherios' report of the amazing sounding work of Ravens' Ait, a discussion of a question that keeps coming up for me would be really useful:

What's the role of occupations? At NUS conference, ours came under attack from one of the Cambridge delegates for having had 'yoga and fingerpainting' sessions, and thus 'never having been about Gaza'. Even as someone who feels very strongly about Gaza, and Israel-Palestine more generally, really truly being the issue (rather than wider political concerns that absorb Israel-Palestine without looking properly at the specific case), I did think that the creation of alternative space was one of the purposes of the occupation, and the events, whether educational or recreational, were valid components.

The occupation Eleftherios describes seems to be more about creating alternative space and generating an example of a different society. Then there have been a fair few occupations happening recently in response to job cuts etc: I wonder whether those had 'yoga and fingerpainting sessions'?

Is there a conflict between occupations as direct action, and occupations as creation of alternative space? Might we ever think of doing one in Cambridge Uni purely for the purpose of creating alternative space? Would it have been better if we had in some way used the space differently: why did the recreational sessions make people question our committment to the issue at hand?

Also, on a related note, questions that keep coming up are why we targeted the law faculty; why we chose the issue of Gaza; why we expected the university to do something about it; and whether academic freedom and institutional action on international affairs are at odds?

The following article on what's happening in Sri Lanka does make me wonder why we've totally ignored that:

www.alternet.org/rights/134528/killings_and_concentration_camps%3A_a_colossal_humanitarian_tragedy_is_underway_in_sri_lanka_and_no_one_is_saying_a_word/

Is there anything we can do and, if not, why have we chosen to focus on Gaza?

[anarchistluke]

As regards why take more action over Gaza/Palestine as a whole than Sri Lanka or any other conflict zone, I can think of several reasons off the top of my head:

• As I understand it, although I could be wrong, the only part that Britain really played in this conflict was making the island independent in the first place, and the actual armed struggle ensued afterwards, resulting from a (political) conflict between different ethnic groups within the island. On the other hand, Britain is directly responsible for creating the Israel-Palestine problem as it exists today, by turning over land which belonged to the Palestinians, which we were administering for them at the time, in order to create Israel.
  
• Furthermore, Britain has also been responsible for continuing and intensifying the Israel-Palestine problem by both its political actions in the international arena and our nation's exporting of arms to Israel, etc. I don't think this is as true of Sri Lanka, although it may be partially true.
  
• Britain has historically been quite central to the 'peace process' in the case of Israel-Palestine, and it could be seen to make sense to put pressure on them to see this project through to conclusion effectively, rather than ask them to spread their effort more thinly, etc. I'm not sure that's a very strong argument, but it certainly makes sense on some level.
  
• We have reason to believe that we are likely to achieve a lot more on the Israel-Palestine front:
  -the wave of occupations, which following a "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" line of logic, gets disproportionately stronger as it gets larger, as each occupation can aid the others, they collectively put a general sense of national pressure on those in power, when there are lots of unis being occupied other unis will begin to fear they will be occupied and might try to pre-empt this to some extent, etc;
  -the media outcry and coverage - whether you like it or not, you are more likely to be effective in raising awareness and understanding and achieving material goals, etc when there is already a high level of 'interest' in the issue and a basic level of knowledge about it;
  -we have a much stronger 'excuse' for being concerned as students when it comes to Gaza, and since our detractors tend to focus quite heavily on the idea that we are trying to make non-political institutions take a political stand, I think it is helpful to be able to look at this from the point of view of students protecting the rights of other students to their education, etc.
  

There are probably other reasons I've forgotten, but really this whole outcry about how we've just picked Gaza because it's "fashionable" or whatever is just caused by people's failure to actually think through the reality of the situation and to understand the historical context of Israel-Palestine.

I should, however, point out that I know very little about the case of Sri Lanka and therefore am unwilling to make several other points which also may show a disparity between the two, as I don't really have any evidence that Sri Lanka isn't the same, I'm just assuming it's not. I also may be lacking information about why us acting on Sri Lanka would be an especially bad, difficult, or complex thing to do.

[anarchistluke]

When it comes to what occupations are for, there isn't a single answer. I have a bit of a grumble about the inflation of the term direct action to include any form of protest that isnt a march or static demo outside, and failure to apply it to genuine instances of direct action, but I won't go into that right now...

The point is, each occupation is called for a different reason. Sometimes it's to provide space/facilities for (an)other activity/ies, sometimes it's to take control of the means of production, sometimes it's to put economic or political pressure on those with more power, sometimes it's to give people a home or food (after all, squatting of buildings or land is technically a form of occupation, n'est pas?), sometimes it's simply to create a visible and headline-grabbing protest, as occupations often to get more extensive coverage than 'traditional' demos or pickets of the same size, etc.

So the answer is different in every case. To occupy, in this context, is just to take over a space - it can be done in many ways, for many reasons, and doesn't always qualify as direct action, although it often does. To assume that there is only one way occupations should work or only one reason for them or whatever is to reduce a flexible tactic to a rigid and narrow practice - it would be like asking what the point of photography is: it can be used to produce art, to record historical fact, to aid in administration by identifying people, etc. It's just a tool that we can use for different purposes, and so is occupying.

[eddm]

I was always against the yoga. That's not the first time it's been used to try to discredit us.

I think all occupations are political, if only because they're at root a massive two fingers to the concept of private property. I've never understood, for instance, squatters who try to be just 'arty' rather than political.

But in a more immediate short term respect, we got attention from doing this that a march or rally wouldn't have got, we sparked far more political debate... about the issue and the method we took. And more importantly, we drew more people into political activity.

Doing an occupation isn't always a good idea; this time last year I was vehemently opposed to doing one in Cambridge Uni. It depends on what forces you have and the level of wider support you have, and obviously the urgency of the issue.