The Encampment Movement leads the way under Trump

 

As social movements in the U.S. plan ahead for the Trump administration, we should look to the campus Palestine movement for lessons on how to organize under the repressive conditions we will all soon face.

On January 20, Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States. As the country reels from his inauguration and the sweeping executive orders of his first week in office, American progressives are left grappling with the implications of a new Trump Administration, and how our organizing projects might come under renewed assault by a hard right Republican trifecta that controls both houses of Congress and is well positioned to enact its legislative agenda.

Many organizations are rightfully concerned about the repression and lawfare that Trump’s return to the White House threatens. As the left stands in a defensive posture, the Palestinian solidarity movement and its university student organizers — in Trump’s line of sight for his first offensives against civil society — leads the way.

For university student organizers and the campus coalitions that initiated nationwide solidarity encampments this spring, steep university repression — the bending of rules around public space and assembly — are not new, and a mere precursor to the looming repression of Trump’s second term. In the aftermath of numerous agreements that ended many encampments peacefully, students returned to campuses this fall to universities that had utilized the summer term to prepare for their arrival, and put in place new institutional obstacles to public assembly and protest.

At Columbia University, 116th Street, which is a crucial pedestrian thoroughfare for Harlem residents and transit commuters, has been closed to public access as the university has paralyzed the campus under a tight shutdown since April. An October 7 walkout, which drew hundreds of students, was met by the implementation of strict, 7:00PM curfews for several days, with all academic buildings closed to student access. Nevertheless, student organizers adapted, holding a number of large protest actions over the duration of the fall semester.  (more...)

The Encampment Movement leads the way under Trump