Non-violent« occupation or the activist's oxymoron

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, Londres, Berlin, Paris, et enfin Lausanne, Genève et Zurich. A travers les pays occidentaux, des milliers d’étudiants se mobilisent sur les campus en faveur de la Palestine. L’objectif ici n’est pas de débattre du conflit israélo-palestinien, mais d’analyser la méthode employée par ces étudiants: une «occupation» qu’ils qualifient de «non-violente». Cette méthode s’inscrit dans l’approche de la 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.

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