Students for Palestine activists in the University of Melbourne Student Union are campaigning to donate $19,000—the remainder of their 2024 budget—to a Palestinian popular resistance group in the West Bank. The intended recipient of the funds is the Ni’lin Popular Committee, an activist organisation dedicated to grassroots campaigning against illegal Israeli settler aggression that also delivers aid including food and legal support. Its work is critical to the day-to-day survival of many Palestinians. 
Ni’lin is a West Bank town seventeen kilometres from Ramallah. The 1993 Oslo Accords designated it part of “Area C”, where Palestinians live under Israeli control. Ni’lin is surrounded by the West Bank Apartheid Wall to its west, an Israeli military base to its south, two Israeli settlements—Nili and Na’ale—to the north and a settler-only road to its east. 
Ni’lin made international headlines during the construction of the Apartheid Wall—a wall dividing Palestinian settlements from Israel—in 2008. In response to peaceful protests, Israeli border police shot and killed 10-year-old Ahmed Moussa, spurring on the campaign. Israel continued to respond with violence: rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas canisters, the uprooting and burning of olive trees and even “skunk”, a sewerage water designed for crowd control that causes vomiting when inhaled. 
Like most Palestinian towns in the West Bank, residents of Ni’lin face constant invasion by settlers. These incursions have ramped up tenfold since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, most recently in “Operation Summer Camp”, during which Israel invaded the West Bank and laid siege to the Jenin refugee camp and other cities. Popular Committee organiser Saeed Amireh explains: “There are so many restrictions by Israeli security against us, but we have managed to find solutions in order to continue to help the people with all means we can to survive this genocidal war”. 
By supporting them financially, Melbourne University students want to show those resisting occupation that students in Australia stand with them. This should be an uncontroversial stance for a student union. But the union is controlled by members of the Labor Party, and the current party of government gives political cover to Israel’s aggression. When activists in the Education Department attempted to use union money to fund campaign essentials, such as posters for pro-Palestine events, the Labor students blocked it. Instead, they have spent union money hiring lawyers to help them strategise against Palestine solidarity action, and more recently and absurdly, spent $3,000 on 1,000 elephant-shaped stress toys. 
Students at Melbourne’s Monash University during the war in Vietnam raised funds to donate to the Vietnamese resistance fighters in the National Liberation Front. Politicians and the media at the time deemed them “un-Australian” and “treacherous”, but 1,000 students at Monash nevertheless voted against attempts to discipline the activists. A student representative from Canberra’s Australian National University told the Canberra Times
in 1967, “Australia can either live on the side of reaction as an outpost of US imperialism ... or it can live on the side of change, progress and national independence ... we should support [the Vietnamese resistance] morally and materially”. We should do the same for Palestine. 
Emma is the Environment Officer in the University of Melbourne Student Union.

Emma Dynes

Anti-war students to fund West Bank resistance group

Deanna “Violet” Coco this month was sentenced to fifteen months’ jail, with a non-parole period of eight months, for the “crime” of blocking one lane of traffic on a Sydney bridge for 25 minutes as part of a climate change protest. She has since been released on bail pending an appeal, but a dozen more climate activists have been similarly charged for “serious disruption” of pedestrians and vehicles in the meantime. This is the most serious attack on the right to protest in Australia in decades.
Coco is the first person to be convicted under changes brought by the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, which became law in April. The draconian changes introduce severe penalties for “behaviour that causes damage or disruption to major roads or major facilities”. For simply protesting on roads, rail lines, bridges, or in tunnels and worksites, activists can be fined up to $22,000 and jailed for up to two years. 
NSW Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet described the jailing as “pleasing to see”, saying that protest should be allowed only if it “doesn’t inconvenience people”. The presiding magistrate, Allison Hawkins, reportedly described Coco’s actions as a “childish stunt”, which had caused the “entire city [to] suffer” as a result of her “selfish emotional actions”. Labor opposition leader Chris Minns was quick to join the reactionary chorus, saying: “When you inconvenience literally hundreds of thousands of people ... there will be legislation action to that”, and that he has “no regrets” about supporting the authoritarian measures.
In NSW then, the right to avoid “inconvenience” trumps not only the democratic right to protest, but also the right to a habitable planet. Causing a worse-than-usual traffic jam is punishable by jail time, but not the inconvenience caused by waiting for ambulances that never arrive in the middle of a pandemic. Nor the inconvenience of spending hours waiting in under-resourced hospital emergency departments or waiting years for public housing. We are expected to put up with it when it’s the government inconveniencing us to the point of destroying lives and endangering our health, while people attempting to raise the alarm about environmental destruction are branded detestable criminals.
 The real agenda of the government is to demonise protest and ensure that only ineffective ones take place. Effective protest, whether it’s strikes and picket lines, sit-ins or mass marches, almost always cause disruption and inconvenience of some sort. History shows that such actions are essential to winning social change. Segregation in the US South was overthrown through a long-term mass civil disobedience campaign. Gay rights were pioneered by the riots in 1969 outside New York’s Stonewall Inn. In the late 1990s in Australia, students and workers stopped the Jabiluka uranium mine project going ahead. None of these campaigns were polite and respectable. They involved confrontations with the police, boycotts, stopping traffic and disrupting business as usual. And they won. 
 The disruption and inconvenience caused by protest is nothing compared to that already being caused by climate change, and which will only intensify as the planet continues to heat. Coco was berated for letting “entire cities suffer” but that’s exactly what the system is setting us on track for. Think Sydney choking on smoke in early 2020. Think Islamabad drowning from the unprecedented monsoon floods while malaria spreads within climate refugee camps of millions. Think eight workers dying in an Amazon fulfillment centre in December 2021 because management refused to let them evacuate as a tornado hurtled through Illinois. Think of the 18,000 displaced in Australia during the 2019 bushfires, with many survivors still languishing in tents and other temporary accommodation. Where is the official concern about their inconvenience?
Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies continue to make huge profits. There are no consequences for those profiting from environmentally damaging industries. Instead, they are rewarded with generous government handouts, while laws are changed and approvals given to ensure destructive new projects can go ahead, like the Adani coal mine in Queensland or the Scarborough gas project in Western Australia, and that any resistance to them is criminalised. And it’s not just the Liberal government in NSW—the Victorian Labor government has passed similar laws to criminalise environmental protest. 
To stop climate change and save the planet, the way society is organised will need to be upended. Polite protesting that has no tangible impact simply will not cut it. Roads will need to be blocked; business as usual will have to be disrupted. Anti-protest laws will need to be broken. Violet Coco must be freed, and charges dropped against other activists. We need to fight not only to repeal anti-protest laws, but to win genuine environmental justice before it is too late.

To ‘inconvenience’ now a major crime in NSW

The University of Melbourne Student Union council for the second time voted in favour of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel and in solidarity with Palestine on 15 August.
The motion, which was passed 16 votes to three, was moved by Palestinian international student and activist Dana A, and recognised that “the growth of the Israeli economy and land is built on the exploitation and colonisation of Palestinians” and called for the university to “divest from corporations complicit in and profit from the Israeli apartheid and that operate on illegally occupied Palestinian land”.
This follows a months-long battle between Zionists and Palestine solidarity activists over a previous pro-Palestine motion passed in April. That motion provoked a significant backlash from Zionists on campus, as well as from the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/melbourne-uni-condemns-student-union-over-call-for-israel-boycott-20220504-p5ailz.html">University administration</a> and the Murdoch press. Threats from a Liberal Party-aligned student to launch a class action against the union resulted in the <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/student-union-backs-down-support-palestine">council rescinding the motion</a> in June.
The union then hired a consultancy firm to survey the student body on the question of Palestine. A large majority—73 of 124 surveyed—believed the union should adopt a motion endorsing the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. This was an important factor in strengthening the council’s resolve.
The successful vote also followed the Israeli Apartheid Week event on campus, organised by Students for Palestine. The central demand of the week was for the University of Melbourne to sever its ties with Israel. The University shrouds itself in progressive gloss—from the huge WOMENJIKA sign at one entrance to the campus (Womenjika is the Woi-wurrung word for welcome) to the array of pride and trans flags scattered throughout campus. But despite this anti-colonial posturing and pink-washing, the University proudly supports Israel.
The University works hand in glove with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer and a major collaborator with Israel. According to a <a href="https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-il/who-we-are.html">Lockheed Martin </a>information webpage, the value of “collaboration between Lockheed Martin and Israeli industries [from 2004 to today] is expected to exceed $4 billion”. The University of Melbourne opened up a research and development centre for Lockheed Martin in 2016, which is used to advance research in military technology and channel students into the military sector. In partnership with Lockheed Martin, Melbourne University is funding the creation of drones and missiles that will be used to attack Gaza and the West Bank.
Another partnership the University maintains is with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which offers programmes to train up future Israeli Defence Force soldiers, the same people who go on to terrorise, brutalise and kill Palestinians. In 2014, the Hebrew University publicly declared its support for Israel’s war on Gaza and called for donations to bolster the war effort. More than 2,000 Palestinians were murdered during this eight-week onslaught. The Hebrew University administration called the cops on Palestinian students as they protested the war.
Israeli Apartheid Week activities on campus demonstrate that there is support for the Palestinian struggle, and that people will not easily be intimidated by legal threats from Liberal students. Around 65 students and staff attended a speak-out in solidarity with the people of Gaza, where Victorian Socialists candidate for Northern Metro Jerome Small spoke about Israel’s recent attack on the Gaza Strip. The attack killed more than 47 Palestinians, among them 16 children, and 360 people were injured. Just prior to launching the attack, Israel ramped up its long-standing blockade of Gaza, cutting off access to fuel and electricity and bringing an already strained hospital system to the brink of collapse.
Other activities included a forum on “Why you should oppose Israeli Apartheid” and an artwork on the university’s South Lawn that encouraged students to write solidarity messages on Palestinian flags.
The union’s official endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign means there is an opening for students and staff to further demonstrate their solidarity with Palestinians. Given there have been threats of <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/student-union-doubles-down-on-anti-semitism-with-fresh-boycott-call-20220812-p5b9aa.html">further legal action</a>, continuing to unapologetically stand with the oppressed against Israel will be important.

Bella Beiraghi

Melbourne University student union reaffirms support for Palestine

The University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) student council on 26 May voted to rescind a historic pro-Palestine motion after receiving a threat of a class-action lawsuit. The motion, which passed a month earlier, included support for Palestinians to engage in armed struggle in their fight for self-determination and endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. 
Since passing the motion, the union has faced a <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/historic-pro-palestine-motion-passes-university-melbourne-student-union">torrent of cynical accusations of anti-Semitism</a> from the university administration, various Zionist organisations and the Murdoch press. This blowback culminated in a student member of the Liberal Party, Justin Riazaty, who is a former head of the now-defunct Monarchist Society, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-uni-student-suing-student-union-for-israel-palestine-motion-20220513-p5al0f.html">initiating a class-action</a> lawsuit. 
Gladwin Legal sent a letter to UMSU instructing the council to rescind the Palestine motion and issue a formal apology to Riazaty, who is not Jewish, to avoid legal action. Greg Barns, Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman and SC, accurately described the class action as “aggressive threatening” and a “vicious attack on freedom of speech”. 
The letter claimed UMSU was in breach of the Associations Incorporation Reform Act 2012 and the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001. On the <a href="https://umsuclassaction.com.au/">webpage</a> set up to register interest in the class action, Gladwin Legal declared that UMSU had acted outside the scope of its purposes by passing a political motion and that the union had engaged in “oppressive conduct” by not consulting Jewish students. 
Riazaty’s class action sought a declaration by the court that the BDS motion was outside of the UMSU’s purpose and, among other things, “an order regulating the conduct of the UMSU’s affairs in the future”. 
This was a full-frontal assault on the student union. It is an outrage that a right-winger with money and connections, unable to win a vote in the student council, can engage lawyers to threaten to gag a student union for expressing solidarity with Palestine. 
“The arguments made in the lawsuit are cynical and dishonest, conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism”, a <a href="https://overland.org.au/2022/05/open-letter-umsu-should-not-back-down-over-palestine/">Students for Palestine open letter</a> with more than 300 signatories said in response. “This is an attempt to undermine solidarity with the Palestinians. The Israeli occupation of Palestine denies Palestinians basic civil and human rights. It is a militarised apartheid regime.”
This class action attacked support for Palestine and attacked the right of student unions to take political positions and exercise internal democracy. Student unions historically played a key role in championing left-wing campaigns. During the Vietnam War, Melbourne University student union hid draft dodgers in Union House. At Monash, the union supported students accused of treason for raising money for the National Liberation Front resisting US imperialism. Student unions have battled in courts to defend their right to take political positions. 
Under the threat of legal action ahead, the interim CEO of UMSU and other Labor students united with Zionists arguing to rescind the motion. Two Labor left students, President Sophie Nguyen and Education Academic Officer Moira Negline, moved a new motion to rescind the Palestine “BDS and Solidarity Policy” motion. This motion was debated for two hours. 
The Labor students scare-mongered about the potential for UMSU councillors to be personally responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees if UMSU was taken to court. It was suggested that the key priority should be student service provision, not defending the union’s rights to free speech, which would be a “waste of money”. 
These student politicians, who posture as progressives, advocated for rescinding opposition to apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide. They hid behind the argument that they were concerned about ensuring UMSU didn’t become insolvent, but it was clear that self-interest, political aspiration and cowardice motivated them. The Labor left students have a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/from-the-river-to-the-sea-labor-s-havoc-over-palestine-and-israel-20210610-p57zvv.html">track record of backing down on support for Palestine</a> to protect their future careers in the Australian Labor Party. 
The few Zionists in attendance, who were clearly delighted by the lawsuit, spoke at length about what a mistake it was to move an “anti-Semitic motion” in the first place. The motion was rescinded by a ten to six vote. This is a resounding defeat for student unionism. 
Fighting for Palestine in a high-profile free speech court case and campaigning around it on campus would have raised the pro-Palestine sentiment among the student population. It would have strengthened the cause rather than undermined it. UMSU could have engaged political civil liberties lawyers for pro bono work (in fact, one such lawyer has since contacted the union). 
UMSU could have crowdfunded from Palestinian organisations and supporters in the case of any legal or other fees. UMSU would have been on the right side of history, as it was during the gay liberation movement or in the campaign against South African apartheid. The Israeli military murdered journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh in cold blood, and has killed thousands of Palestinians in recent years. The very least we could do in solidarity with Palestinians is fight a stupid lawsuit. 
Instead, this vote sets a precedent that any right-wing snowflake can veto the democratic decisions of the student union if they disagree with them. The vote accepts the right-wing lie that pro-Palestine sentiment is anti-Semitic and suggests that student unions should not take up progressive politics. 
Student unions, Riazaty said in an Age interview after the vote, “shouldn’t be taking sides, especially on complex political issues when that is not what their mandate is”. “I do trust”, he continued, “that the union now recognises that their actions have consequences and their anti-Semitic propaganda will not go unchecked”. 
Those pro-Palestine supporters who mobilised to defend the motion, including Palestinians, activists, students and academics on campus and allies interstate, should be commended. 
Despite the defeat, these efforts were not in vain. It was important that six councillors did not back down or concede the absurd proposition that opposing apartheid is anti-Semitic. Carving out a space against the Zionist arguments and tactics, in the student council and with the open letter, lays the groundwork for future campaigns on our campuses in solidarity with the Palestinians, who face far greater risks every day in their struggle for justice.

Student union backs down on support for Palestine

The University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) student council has passed a historic motion in support of Palestine. The motion, “UMSU stands with Palestine—BDS and Solidarity Policy”, was moved by people of colour officer Hiba Adam and seconded by POC council representative Mohamed Hadi.
It argued that UMSU should “stand against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and condemn the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” and “support the self-determination of the Palestinian people and their right to engage in armed struggle against their occupiers”. It recognised “Zionism as a racist, colonial ideology” that should not be conflated with Judaism.
UMSU is now committed to these political positions, supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli institutions and is calling on the university to cut all ties with Israel. 
Around 60 students, mostly from the Melbourne University Jewish Students Society (MUJSS), a Zionist organisation, mobilised for the student council Zoom meeting to argue that the motion was anti-Semitic because it simplified a complex “thousands year old” conflict. “Israel is the religious, cultural, spiritual and historical homeland for Jews”, MUJSS president Andrew Feiglin argued. “If you remove Zionism from Judaism, you don't have Judaism.”
Criticising Israel, and its policies towards Palestinians, is not anti-Semitic. Israel is a settler-colonial state and a nuclear-armed imperialist power. Its founding in 1948 marked the beginning of the destruction of Palestinian society: more than 500 villages were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homeland on a day referred to by Palestinians as al-Nakba (“the catastrophe”).
Today, Palestinians continue to be driven off their land, their homes bulldozed to create settler-only colonies. Just a few days ago, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/05/israeli-court-evict-1000-palestinians-west-bank-area?fbclid=IwAR1NQXPeYO_uZe8ffwMEdfiTqa-umulR5UZTxAHXvD_vBi9HrX5g5trSV3Uhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/05/israeli-court-evict-1000-palestinians-west-bank-area?fbclid=IwAR1NQXPeYO_uZe8ffwMEdfiTqa-umulR5UZTxAHXvD_vBi9HrX5g5trSV3U">Israel’s High Court gave the green light to evict 1,000 Palestinians from the West Bank</a> and repurpose the land for military use—one of the single biggest expulsion decisions in more than 50 years.
<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">Human Rights Watch</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/">Amnesty International</a> have criticised Israel for practising apartheid. So have the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114702">United Nations</a> and <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2022/04/harvard-law-school-apartheid-report-leaves-israels-defenders-speechless/">Harvard University’s School of Law</a>.
The idea that all Jews support Israel is blatantly false. Since the beginning of the Zionist movement, there has always been an anti-Zionist Jewish tradition. In Israel, <a href="https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/reportage-2/young-refuseniks-israel-defence-force/">some young people risk imprisonment as conscientious objectors to military conscription</a>. In the West, there are plenty of Jewish people willing to criticise Israel. Jewish people do not have to accept the colonial project of Israel.
The UMSU motion passed with a 10-6 majority. The ten votes came from the autonomous departments of the student union (people of colour, Indigenous, queer, disability and international) aligned with the election ticket Community, plus one Greens councillor, one independent media councillor and a Socialist Alternative councillor.
The votes against the motion included three Community councillors and three Labor Party-aligned councillors. Four of these councillors are members of the Labor right campus club. The Labor left student councillors abstained. None of them in the meeting publicly expressed solidarity with Palestinians.
Backlash to the passing of the motion has been fierce. Zionist organisations and right-wing media predictably attacked the student union motion as “anti-Semitic”.
The <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/melbourne-uni-condemns-student-union-over-call-for-israel-boycott-20220504-p5ailz.html">University of Melbourne also condemned the student union</a>, stating: “This anti-Semitic motion ... is not the position of the University of Melbourne; nor is it one that is endorsed or supported by the university”. The university has several ties to apartheid Israel. It works closely with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons company, which supplies the Israeli Air Force with “its most important fighter jets”. In December, <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/morrison-and-jobkeeper-saved-australia-solomon-lew-20211208-p59fst?fbclid=IwAR1ElFixVfbFfiaRx38ISoLvdjhmO1tr72wcB4Ut1pgoF7CgFPPSCWNzMOk">Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell attended a luncheon hosted by Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne</a>.
The Australian ran an article titled “Antisemitism’s ugly march”, which demanded that the university act “to show the students why their conduct is unacceptable”. Attacks on the motion again reveal the political right’s hypocrisy on free speech. While right-wing culture warriors carry on about a purported left-wing “cancel culture” suffocating university life, support for the Palestinian liberation struggle has been the most “cancelled” position on campuses for decades. It has always been the political right stifling discussion of the issue.
Melbourne University student councillors are calling for more student unions to take the same pro-Palestine positions and pledge support to the BDS campaign. An <a href="https://overland.org.au/2022/05/umsu-stands-with-palestine-an-academic-solidarity-statement/">open letter</a> organised by University of Melbourne academics Jordy Silverstein and Jeanine Hourani, signed by more than 150 academics and researchers from Australian universities, is an incredibly positive development in this direction.

Historic pro-Palestine motion passes in University of Melbourne Student Union

“A sense of relief” is how Sudanese political activist Muzan Alneel, speaking via Zoom from the capital, Khartoum, describes the mood on the streets of Sudan in the first hours of the coup on 25 October. “I remember seeing people come into the street singing, like they’re singing against the coup and they’re singing against [coup leader General] Burhan, but they’re singing”, she says.
Relief is not an emotion usually associated with military coups. But in Sudan, people believed the coup to be inevitable. There was a failed coup attempt in September; the coup on 25 October clarified the terms of battle and threw the fight into the open. Relief came from confirming what the revolutionaries had been steeling themselves for.
Resistance was immediate. Bank workers announce a strike at 7am, two hours after the coup began. For weeks they had made it known that they would shut down the country’s financial industry as soon as the military deposed the government. People began building barricades. Neighbourhood committees and social and political organisations called for civil disobedience. By the end of the day, the country was paralysed by a general strike. 
In Khartoum, the military erected their own barricades to stop people marching towards the Military Command, but these were quickly overrun by protesters. Tyres burned across every street and barricades were made more elaborate by the hour: tens of thousands had responded immediately to the military’s move. “Let’s have it. Let’s have this fight. Let’s be done with it”, is how people saw the coup, Alneel says. It was a battle that had “been delayed for way too long”.
<div class="column_width_image article_inline_image"><img alt="A protester holds a placard that reads &quot;My friend, death is living fearfully under their boot&quot;." src="https://cms.redflag.org.au/sites/default/files/inline-images/250276879_4446425405464354_2176961365989619682_n.jpg" /></div>
<div class="article_inline_caption">A protester holds a placard that reads "My friend, death is living fearfully under their boot"</div>
The crisis has its roots in the revolution that swept the country from December 2018 to mid-2019. That movement began when the ruling National Congress Party’s headquarters in Atbara was burned down by students protesting the five-fold increase in the price of bread. The protests spread, with people initially outraged by the cuts to fuel and bread subsidies, and eventually climaxed with a months-long sit-in outside the Military Command in Khartoum. Omar al-Bashir, the despised dictator of 30 years, was deposed by the military in April. His replacement, Lieutenant General Ahmed Aban Ibn Auf, lasted just 24 hours before the pressure of the movement forced him to step down.
The leadership of the revolution, a political coalition led by the Forces of Freedom and Change, entered negotiations over a transition to democracy. The result was a civilian-military coalition, called the Sovereignty Council, that has ruled the country for the past <a href="https://longreads.tni.org/why-it-hasnt-fallen-yet-lessons-from-the-sudanese-revolution">two years</a>. 
Protesters did not accept the compromise with enthusiasm. On 3 June 2019, prior to establishment of the Sovereignty Council, security forces had attacked the sit-in outside the Military Command, killing, raping and injuring hundreds of people. Strikes erupted in response but were <a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/6848">quickly called off</a> by the Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella group of more than a dozen white-collar and professional unions. 
The Professionals Association led the movement on the ground and was the key force in the Forces of Freedom and Change coalition. Its influence was instrumental in demobilising the revolution and selling the military-civilian compromise. The Professionals Association’s closeness to the protesters, and its reputation for organising resistance to the regime, gave it a credibility that the other political forces lacked.
Calling off the mass movement and instead negotiating with the criminals in the military was a betrayal of the revolution. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who became chairman of the Sovereignty Council and now leads the country, was a political ally and army commander under al-Bashir. He was a key protagonist of the genocidal campaign in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
Despite the civilian section of the Sovereignty Council having more weight—six votes to five— Forces of Freedom and Change coalition’s strategy was total compromise with the military. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok implemented austerity measures, such as cutting fuel subsidies, which contributed to crippling inflation on basic goods. The popularity of the civilian section allowed it to sell the agenda of the Sudanese ruling class, despite it being the same austerity that had led to the revolution in 2019. 
The military was momentarily forced to concede to civilian rule, but it was never content with sharing power. The Professionals Association helped to create the conditions for the latest coup by channelling the revolution into an asymmetric power-sharing deal. But the hope for democracy in Sudan never lay in the Sovereignty Council, or any deal with the military. Instead, it lies with the strikes and protests that brought down Bashir and Ibn Auf.
Neighbourhood resistance committees have emerged as an alternative leadership in the renewed movement. They played an important role in 2019 but have become the leading force on the ground today, immediately responding to the coup and organising a “Millions March” on 30 October. 
 
<iframe frameborder="0" height="448" scrolling="no" style="border:none;" width="560"></iframe>
The membership of the committees varies. Because they are geographically based, they can be composed of the unemployed in Khartoum districts such as El-Haj Yousif in the north and al-Kalakla in the south, or wealthier sections of the population in affluent suburbs such as Al Riyadh. Their more grassroots and activist nature, however, makes the committees the most responsive and democratic bodies in Sudan. Many committees have elected leaderships.
An initial challenge they faced was a continuing countrywide internet blackout. They organised mass leafleting and night marches to promote upcoming actions, including the Millions March. They also organise the distribution of food and other necessities, garbage collection, medical supplies and maintenance of the barricades, which are key to stopping the “thatchers”—the security forces vehicles, which are used to arrest activists in their neighbourhoods.
The committees also play an important political role. They released statements popularising the demands of the revolution, which include “no negotiations, no partnership and no bargaining” with the military and the call for full civilian rule. While they are not explicitly political organisations, young revolutionaries are drawn to them as the most effective organisations to fight the coup. In Sudan, political parties are mostly middle class with a legacy of sell-outs and association with the old regime. 
Alneel argues that the committees “seem to be the main factor that stopped the coup many times up until now” and “they’re the only [force] creating a threat to the system”. They are the only defence against another compromise. For example, the committees in Greater Omdurman, the country’s largest city, rejected the offer of a closed-door meeting with Hamdok and demanded a public address. A press release, shared on social media, read: “Our position is unequivocal: no negotiations, no compromise, and no power over that of the people”. 
The country from 25 October has been engulfed in a general political strike. According to a report on one resistance committee’s Facebook page, in the first week strike participation rates were 91 percent, 96 percent and 100 percent in the oil, banking and education sectors respectively. Similarly high rates have been reported across all industries. Doctors and nurses are refusing to work in military hospitals and treat only emergency cases at civilian hospitals. Committees representing workers in the oil, banking and aviation sectors have put out a coordinated plan for civil disobedience. 
The workers’ movement suffered under the Bashir era, and many unions were controlled by the state. With the old dictator’s fall, space began to open for union organising. While the leadership of the Professionals Association preferred the negotiating table, labour activists in the oil, communications and university sectors established democratic leadership bodies that have been organising the strikes, circulating demands and sometimes coordinating with neighbourhood committees.
The success of the revolution depends on these democratic organisations, particularly the independent unions and elected workers’ committees. They have demonstrated that they can bring the Sudanese economy to its knees in a matter of hours, giving the mass movement a power it does not have simply through the resistance committees. But it is too early to know whether they will use this power to provide a political alternative to more compromises. 
The situation is in flux. In the past week, Hamdok, under house arrest, has met with Volker Perthes, the UN special representative to Sudan, to find acceptable negotiating terms with the military. International pressure for a compromise, particularly from US and Western diplomats, has been intense. 
Another limitation is the lack of any revolutionary organisation that could lead the movement clearly against the compromising forces and argue clearly for the working class to lead the revolution.
Despite the challenges, and the repression that has killed at least fourteen in Khartoum, Sudanese protesters have shown courage and resilience. As Alneel remarked about the Millions March on 30 October: “[It] was huge. I haven’t seen anything this big ... We couldn’t even march because the whole street was full”. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">MY PEOPLE ARE POWERFUL <a href="https://t.co/1BkzKBLocl">pic.twitter.com/1BkzKBLocl</a>
— Bashy (@ElbashirIdris_) <a href="https://twitter.com/ElbashirIdris_/status/1454442902415884297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2021</a></blockquote>
<div class="column_width_image article_inline_image"><img alt="A map showing locations of protests on 30 October" src="https://cms.redflag.org.au/sites/default/files/inline-images/251929454_1631971390487878_3306921073448289764_n.jpg" /></div>
Videos have shown young women proudly leading chants and making public addresses. The elderly are seen with tears in their eyes, hugging young protesters. References to poetry are common among chants and slogans. On the day of the coup, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/317737892213356/videos/833103764023793/">a video</a> appeared of a young man scrawling part of a famous Arabic poem on a billboard. “Whenever people decide to live, destiny will heed them, the darkness will come to an end, and chains will be broken”, he wrote, as many protesters cheered below.
The Sudanese people have decided to live, and they are intent on breaking the chains of military rule for good.
<img alt="A propaganda poster for the 30 October “Freedom parades” reading “To break the bonds of the military forever&quot;" src="https://cms.redflag.org.au/sites/default/files/inline-images/250063071_4438159169624311_22083465903143353_n.jpg" />
<div class="article_inline_caption">A propaganda poster for the 30 October “Freedom parades” reading “To break the bonds of the military forever"</div>

Matt Laidlaw

‘Let’s have this fight’: Sudan resisting a coup

Last week’s University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) elections dealt the incumbent right-wing bloc, Community, a significant blow, after they spent a year stifling campus activism.
Through second preference votes, the biggest opposition ticket, Stand Up!, won the Education (Academic Affairs) office and the Environment office, two positions with key responsibilities relating to student activism. Stand Up! also gained the Clubs and Societies office, and retained the positions of President and Education (Public Affairs). However, Community still maintain a majority on the students’ council.
Community is an apolitical, opportunist coalition of various leaders of campus clubs and societies. In office, they’ve been the ultimate bureaucrats, characterised by a love of right-wing identity politics reminiscent of the US Democrats and an intense animosity towards left-wing protest. During the first Semester, they scheduled multiple students’ council meetings at the same time as protests to free the Park Hotel refugees locked up around the corner from Parkville campus. They spent $15,000 on lawyers to fight UMSU staff in EBA negotiations and $17,000 on reusable razors to give away in O-Week, but refused to help pay fines for Melbourne University students who had received fines at the refugee protests–saying it wouldn’t be “good governance”.
When students organised a rally against climate change, Community’s student union office bearers denounced them because marching on the road was a “non-consensual” and “unsafe” activity. Throughout the last year, they’ve argued that organising climate justice protests, demanding refugee freedom and marching on the road were acts of “white supremacy”. So Community’s inability to win a decisive reelection on this platform is a positive development for the future of campus activism.
But Stand Up! can’t be trusted to fight Community, or to decisively change the direction of the student union. They’ve refused to challenge Community’s anti-activist vitriol in student council meetings. It’s often been hard to tell that they’re a separate faction at all.
Stand Up! is a ticket associated with the student Labor Left faction, organised at the University of Melbourne through the campus Labor Left club, and connected to their National Labor Students (NLS) faction. For young Labor members, winning a position in a student union is a good way to learn how to manage bureaucracies, to get training for a future job as a trade union official, or as a step on the path to becoming the next Anthony Albanese. For many of them, running an office is not about rebuilding student activism on campus but learning to lobby (code for “network with”) politicians, lobby (code for “collaborate with”) management and put “UMSU 2022” on their resumes.
Their commitment to the Labor party means they cannot be trusted to defend progressive positions. At this year’s massive Melbourne rallies in solidarity with Palestine, the Labor left students came along after they’d spent the morning volunteering for Ged Kearney. Their club took a photo with the ALP politician, which they then uploaded to their Facebook page with the popular slogan “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free”. But as soon as the Labor Party apparatus cracked down on this, denouncing the slogan as anti-Semitic–a common argument weaponised against pro-Palestine campaigners–<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/from-the-river-to-the-sea-labor-s-havoc-over-palestine-and-israel-20210610-p57zvv.html">the mighty Labor left immediately deleted the post and “conceded that they’d been ignorant of the true meaning” of the slogan</a>. As with their hero Ged, their left posturing proves very shallow when it jeopardises their future careers.
When it comes to student unionism, Stand Up! share far too much with Community. Stand Up! argue that the student union should be a charitable service provider for students, rather than an institution responsible for organising activist campaigns to demand that the university’s management provide vital services. Like their more openly right-wing rivals, Stand Up! also cynically weaponise identity politics to undermine activism and suck up to various Community-aligned councilLors–in fact, they have a longer tradition of attacking campus activism through right-wing identity politics than the relatively new Community.
Stand Up! ran on a more right-wing basis this year than they have in the past. <a href="http://farragomagazine.com/2021/09/02/presidential-candidate-profile-sophie-nguyen-stand-up/">In a Farrago interview, Stand Up! president-elect Sophie Nguyen</a> outlined her approach to UMSU. She argued UMSU departments needed to create “not only activist space but social space[s]”. This is hardly a good way to oppose Community’s anti-activist hostility. In the context of unprecedented attacks in higher education, Nguyen cites an “amazing” performance of pop group Lime Cordiale at a past O-Week as an example of her vision for UMSU. The interview shows Stand Up!’s approach to student unionism: apolitical service provision. This is the exact strategy that has made student unions weaker and more right-wing for decades. Instead of fighting the key enemy, university management, the union simply fills in where management falls short, or organises social events when higher education is in crisis.
Socialists running on the underdog ticket Left Action argued for a left-wing, activist student union. We won roughly 12% of the vote for the activist office positions, students’ council and National Union of Students (NUS) delegates. This vote landed us two student council positions and a delegate to NUS National Conference in December. We’re happy with that result: we won votes through campaigning and political argument, unlike the two major tickets who rely on bloc votes from university clubs and societies.
 In the Presidential debate between tickets, Left Action highlighted the savage attacks on higher education funding, the latest IPCC report that warned of “hell on earth” if carbon emissions aren’t halted, the intensity of racism toward refugees, and the Liberal government and big businesses’ current push for a premature reopening that puts profits above health. Representing Left Action in this debate, I argued: “The government and the university administration have gotten away with far too many attacks. What we need is a student union led by experienced leftwing activists to organise a student fightback. What we don’t need is another year of bureaucrats like Community or wannabe Labor politicians like Stand Up... UMSU should be a fighting body that organises students to protest on our campus and in our city and takes up leftwing positions”.
During the election campaign, Left Action emphasised the activism we organised this year. Two of our members, graduate representatives in the GSA, established the Stop the Liberals - Menzies Institute off our Campus campaign, attracting national media attention. We relaunched Students for Palestine and mobilised for Melbourne’s massive Palestine solidarity rallies. Through Uni Students for Climate Justice, we organised hundreds of protesters demanding the university divest its $70 million from fossil fuel and weapons manufacturers. We put a particular focus on campaigning to free the refugees locked up in the Park Hotel, just around the corner from our university campus, while holding Community to account for their abstention from this important campaign. These campaigns were organised without us controlling any office bearer positions in UMSU, but such a position would give us media reach, institutional weight and a budget we could use for campaign promotion. An UMSU led by activists would lead the key campaigns on the campus, fight the Liberal government and attacks from university management and take up left wing positions.
Our unapologetically activist-oriented platform resonated with over 400 students who voted for Left Action for the activist positions of president, education and environment. For President, which had 3781 votes cast, Left Action won 457 primary votes (12%), while Stand Up! received 1470 (38%) and Community 1535 (40%). For Education, Left Action again won 12% of the 3781 votes, with Stand Up! at 36% and Community 41%. Out of the 2801 votes for Environment office, we won 14%, over a third of Stand Up!’s vote at 36%, while Community received 41%.
This is a good result for the socialist left in a new world of online-only student elections. It gives us the platform to build progressive student campaigns and fight for left wing positions in UMSU and NUS. We will continue to campaign against the establishment of a right wing think tank, the Robert Menzies Institute, on our campus. Uni Students for Climate Justice will keep mobilising students to demand University of Melbourne to divest from fossil fuels and we will continue to rally on Swanston Street to free the Park Hotel refugees. Our council positions will give us a platform next year to take on the right on campus and rebuild an activist culture on campus.

Melbourne Uni student elections: right pushed back, solid vote for activist left

West End Brewery workers in Adelaide are on strike to secure a fair redundancy payout when the brewery closes in June.
The four main gates are being picketed by striking workers, union officials, socialists, university students and other supporters. “Nothing in, nothing out” is the motto. In the lead-up to the busiest and most profitable time of the year, the brewers and packers have set up a hard picket to block all trucks.
Since the morning of Wednesday, 2 December, every truck that has tried to unload or pick up supplies has been met by picketers linking arms and chanting, “Union power!” Around midday on Wednesday, managers came out to try to get a truck through. One condescendingly tells the picketers, “I don’t mind a picket, but you just shouldn’t block the gate”. He is duly heckled. Cheers erupt as the truck drives off. 
Many drivers leave in solidarity as soon as they see there’s a strike. One with a load of toilet paper agrees not to scab, joking through the window as he leaves, “You guys should use the toilet paper to throw at management”.
At the main gate, passing cars, buses and trucks honk in solidarity. When there are no trucks around, we discuss the strike, past union actions, politics and brewery work.
This brewery has operated for 160 years. The giant facility produces beers and ciders such as West End, Hahn, James Squire, 5 Seeds and Guinness. In October, the company, which is owned by the multinational Kirin, announced the closure of the site and the lay-off of 90 staff. Workers told Red Flag that management decorated the place with “R U OK?” material on the day of the announcement, adding insult to injury.
The strikers are demanding 52 weeks’ redundancy pay. The company has guaranteed only some long-term workers a payout. For casuals and workers who have been around only a few years, the company is offering nothing. Workers say they are fighting for the new people as well as the long-termers.
“They’ve made huge profits year in, year out”, one worker says. Indeed, Kirin made a profit of more than $540 million last year, with the boss taking a salary of $2.8 million. “They’re a company that’s just all about profits over people”, another says. “We’re on strike to try and get a better deal for all of the workers here at West End.”
The bosses have become more anti-union in recent years. A young worker says, “They actually said that as a company they’ve gone from being a people-focused company to a KPI-focused company”. (KPI stands for “key performance indicator”—capitalist jargon for what matters most, i.e. profits.) Management heavyweights have been flown in from Sydney to undermine the strike while getting all-expenses-paid hotel stays. They try to intimidate strikers by filming them and threatening legal action. 
The imported scabs are predictably hopeless. Every time the workers hear the machinery malfunctioning, strikers honk an air horn to embarrass them. When we hear bottles smashing, laughter crosses the picket line.
For many, this is not their first strike. Older workers share stories from a time of union strength. Back when the site was a closed shop, if a worker was arrested on the weekend, the company was expected to bail them out. Workers won perks, including a shared company-maintained holiday house. 
A story circulates about a manager twenty years ago who tried installing a camera in the workshop, suspecting workers of stealing tools. Hundreds of workers stopped work and chanted for this individual’s head, after which he was promptly dismissed.
But a lot has changed since then. For one, the size of the workforce has dwindled. The bosses have also attempted to drive wedges between workers through subcontracting and other means. Union organisation hasn’t kept up with these trends. In past strikes, all workers operated as one, but this time it’s a struggle to get sparkies, fitters and some truckies on side. 
But the strikers are determined to see this through. On 3 December, they voted to continue the action. “It’s unreal”, one says. “The response has been fantastic. People power works.”

Anti-war students to fund West Bank resistance group

To ‘inconvenience’ now a major crime in NSW

Melbourne University student union reaffirms support for Palestine

Student union backs down on support for Palestine

Historic pro-Palestine motion passes in University of Melbourne Student Union

‘Let’s have this fight’: Sudan resisting a coup

Melbourne Uni student elections: right pushed back, solid vote for activist left

‘Nothing in, nothing out!’: Adelaide brewery workers on strike

Other Media

Shop

Conferences

Manage Your Subscription

Contact Us