Pro-Palestinian students camp out night and day at the University of Lausanne to put pressure on the rectorate. These activists claim to be peaceful. They are not.
New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Paris, and finally Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich. Across Western countries, thousands of students are mobilizing on campus in support of Palestine. The aim here is not to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but to analyze the method employed by these students: an «occupation» they describe as «non-violent». This method is in line with the civil disobedience, We're just like the environmental activists who stick to the road to block traffic and get their message across.
At the University of Lausanne, the students' strategy could not be clearer: illegally occupy the Geopolis building day and night until their demands - notably the academic boycott of Israeli institutions and a clear stance by the university on the conflict - are met. The activists will not request not, they require. By refusing to leave the premises and imposing their physical presence to bend the rectorate to their will, they are demonstrating violence. Passive, of course, but no less coercive. The proof: they're taking the place of debate par excellence hostage. They don't seem interested in dialogue, as they claim, but in power.
Faced with this situation, the rectorate seems to have only two options: give in to the militants« demands or evacuate the building by force, at the risk of being accused of »police repression". In a reversal of roles - remember that it is the students who are breaking the law - the monopoly of violence thus passes from the state to the militants. It ceases to be legitimate. Although the latter hide behind the pretext of pacifism, an occupation remains by definition violent. And pro-Palestinian activists know this better than anyone.
Write to the author: yann.costa@leregardlibre.com
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