Curtin University students have camped out in front of Vice-Chancellor Harlene Hayne’s office for Palestine for nearly a month. Our central demand has been that Curtin cut ties with companies connected to Israel. 
The camp has played a central role in bringing the fight for Palestine to the fore of campus and mobilised hundreds of students every week in the biggest student protests seen at Curtin in years. Ahmad, a Palestinian student who got involved during the encampment, told Red Flag that the camp had “lit a spark of hope, which had been long gone”. 
The encampment was started by a coalition of different groups, including Students for Palestine WA, Socialist Alternative and the Curtin Student Guild. Everyone involved agreed to work together to put as much pressure as possible on the university to cut ties with Israel. So it was a shock to many students at the camp, including myself, when the Guild agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the University in secret last week that ends Guild support for the camp but does not address the campaign’s core demands. 
From the beginning, differences of political strategy coexisted within the encampment. Activists from the Socialist Alternative club and Students for Palestine collective argued that we needed to mobilise as many students as possible in protest and other activities that were disruptive enough to force the university to listen. 
The Curtin Student Guild had a different political approach. Guild representatives mostly did not participate in protests that the camp organised, especially any that might become disruptive, instead emphasising the importance of private negotiations with the university administration. 
Daily meetings were held at the encampment which included Guild representatives, and those meetings collectively discussed and made decisions about what to do. The camp agreed that any negotiations occurring between the Guild and the university had to be reported on and agreed to by the encampment. Despite this, the negotiation and signing of the MOU was never reported to the students at the encampment by the Guild. 
This was a slap in the face to the students active within the encampment. Sadie, who was involved from the first day, told Red Flag, “They betrayed the camp for a thinly veiled PR stunt; our democracy, our values, our demands—everything”.
As well as undermining democracy, the MOU gives a free pass to the university to continue business as usual. The agreement does not require Curtin to cut any of its ties to Israel or weapons companies. 
Arguably the most significant section of the MOU is an agreement for disclosure, in which Curtin must annually publish a list of weapons or defence companies it has dealings with in relation to research and teaching. But disclosure is not enough without breaking these ties, and it commits Curtin to little more than what is already listed on it<a href="https://research.curtin.edu.au/research-areas/national-resilience-and-security/">s website</a>. 
The MOU also required Curtin to release a statement on the “war in Palestine”. But the statement released was not an expression of solidarity with Palestine or opposition to Israel’s genocide, but “both-sidesism” nonsense. The suffering of Palestinians was equated with the suffering of Israelis, which only serves to sanitise what is happening in Gaza. 
The statement also assures us that the university “does not invest directly or indirectly in entities relating to the manufacture of weapons of war”, but then goes on to repeatedly state its commitment to “Australia’s national resilience and security”. Given military hardware is central to “security”, it’s hard to see how this doesn’t involve relationships with weapons companies. Indeed, Curtin is extremely intertwined with the defence sector in Australia. Curtin is key signatory to the AUKUS workforce alliance, Curtin’s National Resilience and Security Program Office is expanding its connections to the weapons industry, and Curtin is the major sponsor of the Indian Ocean Defence and Security Conference. The weapons companies involved or showcased in these endeavours are the same ones fuelling Israel’s brutal slaughter in Gaza. 
It will take a big fight to get Curtin to break its ties to Israel. The Guild claimed the signing of the MOU as a victory and pulled their support for the encampment the next morning. But what this experience really demonstrates is the ineffectiveness of secret negotiations. They achieved nothing from the perspective of the Gaza solidarity movement, but were a propaganda victory for the administration. This is hardly surprising—negotiating behind closed doors with those who preside over million-dollar institutions like Curtin, when your side has little leverage other than the ability to cause some disruption on the campus, are always going to be weighted toward the administration. 
The Guild representatives have indicated they will not mobilise for any future Palestine solidarity actions or seriously push for the demands. Students at the camp rejected the MOU and although the camp has now wound up, are determined to grow and build our fight against Curtin’s ties to Israel during the winter break and next semester.

Ella Marchionda

Curtin Gaza solidarity encampment betrayed by student union

On 20 November, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/campaignarf">Campaign Against Racism and Fascism</a> (CARF) held a rally of over 1,000 anti-fascists in Melbourne to stand against the sustained far-right movement marching in our streets. Rallies and speakouts have also been organised by anti-fascist activists in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CARFBrisbane">Brisbane</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/carfsyd">Sydney</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/carfcbr">Canberra</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/adelaidecarf">Adelaide</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/UNITEDABR">Perth</a>—bringing together left-wing people outraged by the anti-human politics of the far-right “freedom movement” against pandemic related public health measures.
CARF—which formed in Melbourne in 2015 to fight the growth of the Islamophobic, neo-Nazi led outfit <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaim_Australia">Reclaim Australia</a>—is a collective of socialists, anarchists, and other left-wing activists who want to build public opposition to racist and far-right movements in Australia. The growth of the freedom movement—in Melbourne and elsewhere—has given the far-right its best opportunity to organise and grow for decades, and CARF activists are determined to push them back.
CARF jumped into action following the attack on the CFMEU headquarters in Melbourne in September. Immediately following the attack, CARF called an online public meeting to discuss how the left should respond, which over 600 people attended. The following night we held an organising meeting of over 300 people.
The “pro-vax, pro-union, anti-fascist” campaign was launched, involving <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3030797317208905&amp;type=3">hundreds of trade unionists joining our photo petition </a>in solidarity with frontline workers. We mobilised hundreds of activists to put up over 4,000 posters across Melbourne, to spread a clear pro-public health and pro-union message in the streets. We have since then had weekly organising meetings bringing together between 50 and 150 people who have wanted to do something to oppose the far right. 
Over the past month, it has become clear that the far right was continuing to organise, particularly around the “kill the bill” demand (referring to the Victorian Labor government’s pandemic powers bill, which passed on 2 December). This movement has been sustained, confident, and has the backing of far-right political forces like the hard-right of the Liberals, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, and Monica Smit’s Reignite Democracy Australia. The protests are notable for the widespread flying of “Red Ensign” flags (a traditional symbol for the far-right in Australia), the presence of many Donald Trump supporters, and believers in fringe far-right conspiracy theories like QAnon. The neo-Nazi presence has been more and more apparent.
Week after week they have been able to mobilise tens of thousands, and have had a constant presence of a few hundred outside the Victorian State Parliament. Members of the movement have attacked front-line workers, vaccination centres and politicians' families. They have harassed and attacked left-wing activists leafleting in Melbourne’s CBD. 
At the core of the movement is a complete opposition to any measures implemented by the government to control the spread of COVID-19. The movement didn’t oppose just this or that measure in the pandemic powers bill—which actually creates a more democratic and transparent process for implementing public health measures than exists in other states. It opposed the idea that the government should have any powers at all to deal with COVID-19 or any future pandemics that might arise.
With recent <a href="https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8868-victorian-state-voting-approvals-vaccine-november-2021-202111240941">opinion polls</a> showing majority support for mandatory vaccinations in Victoria, it’s clear most ordinary people oppose the movement’s anti-public health demands. The so-called “freedom movement” represents a small minority of Australian society, but they are currently a majority in the streets. CARF’s rally in Melbourne on 20 November, and the other actions that have been organised by activists around Australia, are the first steps in building public opposition to them, and ensuring the far right no longer have a free pass to organise and grow.
Some in the liberal media and even on the left want to downplay the seriousness of this movement—arguing that alongside the far-right elements there are also many ordinary people who are just sick of lockdowns, and who might be open to left-wing arguments if only we would engage with them more. But it seems doubtful, to say the least, that small groups of activists have the capacity to win people away from a mass movement that’s so dominated by openly and explicitly right-wing and far-right forces. To the extent that the left softens its stance on people who appear very happy to march alongside known neo-Nazis, it will only put wind in their sails. The left didn’t beat back Reclaim Australia, or the upsurge in support for Pauline Hanson and One Nation in the late 1990s, by trying to better understand where those on the right were coming from.
Rather than trying to convince participants in the “freedom movement” to change sides, CARF’s aim is to draw as many people into action as possible from among the big majority who are already opposed to the movement—people who can see that its claim to be fighting for “freedom” against “tyranny” is just cover for the desire to foist an extreme right-wing, anti-human politics (like that of their hero Donald Trump) on the rest of society.
The left doesn’t tolerate scabs in our workplaces sacrificing our chances of winning improved wages and conditions through collective action. Neither should we tolerate and seek to “understand” people who undermine society’s capacity to limit the death and disease inflicted by COVID-19 due to their own personal opposition to vaccines and other public health measures.
The far-right won’t go away without a fight. Internationally this movement is real and dangerous, and in Australia it’s showing no signs of waning. With the emergence of the new Omicron variant of COVID-19, questions of public health will continue to dominate politics, and the far right will continue to respond. In coming weeks and months, our side needs to keep building the public opposition to them. For those in Melbourne, this starts with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/602441544290047">a second counter-protest</a> this Saturday 4 December at 12pm at the Eight Hour Day Monument on the corner of Russell and Victoria Streets. Actions are also planned for the coming weeks in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/188955126776356">Brisbane</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/243553831045572">Sydney</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/626454918484746">Canberra</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/271806254996594/">Adelaide</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/995127921218106">Perth</a>.
Ella Marchionda is an activist in the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism in Melbourne.

Curtin Gaza solidarity encampment betrayed by student union

Anti-fascists are getting organised

Other Media

Shop

Manage Your Subscription

Contact Us