Liberated Zone VI

The occupation of Hamilton Hall

This is the fifth in a series of dispatches from the Columbia campus. You can read the first here, second here, third here, fourth here, and fifth here.

I’ve also attached an audio account of last night, recorded for Lever News.

I went to campus last night because I heard that something was going to happen.

The administration had announced that negotiations had failed; that they would not divest from Israel; that protestors would have until 2pm to clear the encampment. The protestors said they would not. By evening there was talk of more arrests, of a late night police sweep.

I didn’t quite believe that would happen. The administration’s behaviour has certainly been bizarre, and contrary to its own interests, and difficult to anticipate, but over recent days I had developed the sense that they had finally learned their lesson. They knew, surely, that their first attempt to clear the camp was exactly what had consolidated support for the camp. They would surely not make the same mistake again.

I felt vindicated as I approached campus. There were fewer police patrolling the outside than I have seen in weeks. Typically they like to line up along Broadway, standing bored and useless with thumbs hooked into black, velcroed vests, but last night only a small number were there collecting overtime. There were no prison vans and there was no riot gear.

I entered at the 117th Street gate—one of the few entrances that was still accessible to students—and then approached the main square of the University. What I noticed first was that it was quiet. On nights when arrests are expected the camp usually has a lot of sound. Loudspeakers give out information: ‘mike check’ call-and-response spreads it through the crowd. Typically someone is going over the best practices of arrest. Tents are moved around to remove trip hazards, students move back and forth excitedly, and fearfully.

But that wasn’t what I came upon. The students were clearly not preparing for a police sweep. The first odd fact was that the camp itself was more or less empty. The square, however, which surrounds the camp, was filled with students. They behaved queerly. I noticed first the proliferation of the keffiyehs. They have been popular for some time, but last night they were almost universal. Face masks, too, were everywhere.

The students moved together like schools of fish (in my mind I began to call them squadrons). They spoke quietly but excitedly. The dominant sound in my memory is giggling. I started to feel anticipation in my body, and realised that even though I had no information, I was picking that sensation up from those around me.

I could tell immediately and intuitively that the students were under instructions not to speak with people they did not know, and I decided not to press my case as a reporter. I decided just to watch. In the middle of the campus, the administration has this week assembled scores of palettes holding stacks of floor tiling—little towers about 1.5 metres high. These palettes are there because the tiles were supposed to have been placed on the lawn in preparation of Commencement, but the encampment prevents it. I have made it a habit to use these towers as parapets: I found one at the centre, climbed upon it, and had a 360 degree view of the square.

Time passed. Midnight approached and receded. I started to feel confused, then disappointed. Would anything happen? The breeze cooled and I started to shiver slightly. I thought about going home. Then at about 12.30, the squadrons, which had been roving around the square, suddenly coalesced upon the steps in the middle. I realised for the first time how many students there were. I estimate they totalled a thousand. Then suddenly, as if spurred by a signal I was not privy to, they formed a long line and began to march in an arcing chain around the square, with me and a small gaggle of student journalists watching awkwardly from the centre.

Suddenly I realised what was happening. This was not a protest, it was a distraction. I turned from my pedestal to my right and saw a new squadron move fast up from a far building, altogether ignoring the marching students, towards Hamilton Hall. A group of them entered the open doors and immediately began to barricade themselves inside. Others began to move the heavy metal outdoor furniture of the square to press against the doors. And a third team joined arms, backs to the door, and made a semi-circle defence against would-be attacks. They students had occupied the building.

They unfurled a banner, renaming the building Hind’s Hall, after Hind Rajab, a 5 year old child killed, along with the paramedics who were trying to save her, by Israeli forces as she hid in a car. From the balcony of the building they declared the Hall ‘liberated.’ They released the university staff who had been caught on the inside of the building as they barricaded the doors.

There is much about the protestors I do not understand; there is much I do not like. But I cannot have any reservations about their bravery or their organisation. I rushed to the Hall, found a new pillar to stand on above the crowd, and felt waves of admiration for what I was witnessing. A thousand students had kept this secret from the world while they coordinated. What political party has such discipline? They successfully supported a smaller number to do something dramatic, something they knew would get them expelled. Indeed the University announced this morning that would happen.

Over the course of two hours the protestors linked arms, five deep in places, to defend the students indoors against the arrival of the police. The police did not come. If the University has any political competency (and I have had my doubts) it must have had in place some plan for this contingency, and that plan seems to have been not to call the police onto campus if a building is occupied. There was a small contingent of campus security—perhaps five, who stood to the side and watched in powerless bewilderment at the scene. I believe they could not have done anything even if they had been instructed to. When I arrived in front of the Hall there were 50 protestors completing the action. Within 15 minutes the number was 500.

Many of the crowd were clearly not of the protesting core. They were not hardened, radicalised activists. They were loosely-connected sympathisers there to tread the border of cheerleading and participation. And yet repeatedly I watched as they chose to cross that line, to take a hand in the game.

I was no such hero. I have tried these recent days to position myself as a sympathetic, curious witness. I often remind myself that if I am arrested, my residency in this country is threatened. True, as far as it goes. But I felt some shame as around me fellow spectators made the decision to step over that thin line that divides the passive and the active. They were told by the student crowd marshals that they had better step back if the police arrive—without a clear delineation, the police tend to arrest spectators and participants alike. Instead of stepping back, I watched three in front of me step forward, link arms with their fellow students, turn their backs to the door, and their faces to me.

Sooner or later one must take a hand in the game. It is not sufficient to live a passive life. The world is real, and it is unjust, and where there is unjustice there is obligation, and no manner of excuses and self-justifications, however sophisticated and intellectualised, abrogate our obligations to our fellow humans—and to our own souls. I want now to speak honestly of my frustration with those willing to critique the actions of student protestors but unwilling to themselves act vigorously in pursuit of justice. I am implicated, like many of you. I consider such behaviour a cowardice; our cowardice.