On May 2, students at the University of Toronto organized under the banner of UofT Occupy for Palestine seized King’s College Circle at the university’s St. George Campus, establishing what has come to be known as the People’s Circle for Palestine. The People’s Circle has now held its ground for over a month, withstanding threats from university administrators, police, and counterprotestors. Students and faculty have transformed the liberated zone into a space for popular education and community empowerment—breaking down the false distinction between the academy and the surrounding society. This solidarity from the wider Toronto community has been essential, as workers, First Nations, and other sectors of society have converged at the People’s Circle to lend their solidarity to the student struggle. Award-winning journalist Samira Mohyeddin joins The Marc Steiner Show to give a firsthand account of the student encampment at UofT, and how its reliance on community solidarity has made the movement stronger.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us once again. And for the last 29 days, students and their allies have set up an encampment at the University of Toronto, calling for Canada and the Canadian institutions to divest from Israel, to support the end to the slaughter and devastation of Palestinians in Gaza, the release of the hostages as well. The university’s president threatened to have them all arrested as soon as their commencement exercises finish in June. Now the Ontario government is under right wing. Doug Ford has denounced the activists and called for their forceful removal.
Toronto is one of 15 campuses in Canada where encampments to end the slaughter are taking place demanding divestment as we said a minute ago, and this is much like what we experienced much earlier, decades earlier in the battle to end apartheid in South Africa. And today we’re about to talk to Samira Mohyeddin, who is a journalist who had a show on Fork that has been uncorked we might talk about for a minute when we start and has been covering this intensely. She’s also, as I told her, a radical restaurateur in Toronto. So Samira, welcome. Good to have you with us.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Thank you so much. It’s good to be here, Marc.
Marc Steiner:
So let me start with what you’ve seen at the University of Toronto. You’ve been covering it, you’ve been in and out of there. Give us a sense of what’s going on.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yeah, so there’s about 50 students on May 2nd at four in the morning breached a fence that the University of Toronto had put up in anticipation of their students forming an encampment, much like we saw in the US at Columbia and other places. And I was with them at that moment that they breached the fence and it was a very non-eventful moment. There was some campus police milling about, they didn’t get in the way. They opened up one section of the fence and they went in and quickly set up their tents. Now it’s 29 days. Today is day 29. There are 170 some odd people there now. The tents have tripled in size and just in the past two days, there were a lot more tents set up. So the moment that the university gave these threats of termination to faculty and expulsion to the students, a lot of people from the community and more students joined them inside the encampment. So I’ll just briefly describe to you, because I’ve been inside with them for the past 29 days.
Marc Steiner:
You’ve been living in the encampment yourself?
Samira Mohyeddin:
No, I come and go. So I spend between six hours to two hours a day there, depending on my other work. But there is a crochet corner. There is an area where people are doing arts and crafts, so they make signs saying free Palestine or there’s no pride in genocide. And then there’s a large area where they have teach-ins and they’ve had some really big people come onto campus to speak to them, including Fatima Hassan, who’s a South African human rights lawyer and health justice advocate. She was there visiting just two weeks ago. And so there’s teach-ins also a Jewish faculty network onsite, they have a tent set up.
And then there is an indigenous group there also Anishinaabe, who have a sacred fire going, and they have been sleeping inside the encampment and supporting the students also. And then they have this network, it is probably the best compost recycling setup I’ve ever seen in my life. They have a special section just for meat, a section just for paper plates. It’s pretty wild what these students have been able to do in 29 days, and they’re playing soccer. There are children running around. I saw a father the other day flying a kite and blowing bubbles with his kids. There is such a paradox of how this encampment is being reported and what is actually happening on the inside.
Marc Steiner:
So talk a bit about who the students are and their allies who are taking over this space on the campus and exactly what they’re demanding. Exactly how this all transpired and what they’re demanding.
Samira Mohyeddin:
So one of the students that I’ve been checking in with every day and doing interviews with is Erin Mackey, she is 23 years old. She is set to graduate herself on June 15th. She’s a fourth-year environmental studies and political science student. And she was heavily actually involved in getting the University of Toronto to divest from fossil fuels back in 2016. And she is one of the spokespersons of the Occupy UFT, what they’re calling the People’s Circle for Palestine. So I’ve been checking in with her every day and getting updates on their meetings with the administration, how the administration has been reacting to their demands for divestment and disclosure. And one of the things that I’m so blown away about is how knowledgeable these students are.
A lot of them are teenagers, 19 year olds, 18 year olds. They are so aware of the history of their own university in terms of, and you mentioned it, South Africa, and getting the University of Toronto to divest from apartheid South Africa, which by the way, the University of Toronto was one of the last universities in Canada to divest. They really had to go kicking and screaming towards divestment from apartheid South Africa. But one of the things that they’re very aware of is how those students back then in the eighties were characterized very similarly to how they’re being characterized today as violent, as racist, as rabble rousers, disruptors and uncivilized behavior. And so we’re seeing a pattern and one of the things that I’ve noticed is how a lot of the people who are opining on this encampment, not only have they not even come down there or inside to see what is actually going on, but they have such an unsophisticated ahistorical view of what these students are actually trying to do.
Marc Steiner:
So it’s interesting that the way you describe what’s going on inside the encampment, I mean, let me start this way. When you describe what’s happening in Toronto, it’s on other campuses. Toronto itself is one of the campuses I understand is one of the more conservative campuses in the country. Is that fair to say?
Samira Mohyeddin:
The University of Toronto, yes that’s very fair to say.
Marc Steiner:
And I’m curious if other campuses around the country are having the same semi-violent reaction to students’ encampments against the war in Gaza as happening in Toronto or are they similar?
Samira Mohyeddin:
Actually, I wouldn’t say that the University of Toronto has, they’ve threatened [inaudible 00:07:03] to have the police go out, however, the University of Alberta and University of Edmonton were extremely violent with students. So their encampments didn’t even last a couple days. Police went in right away assaulting the students, assaulting the faculty, and just did away with the encampments. And in their dealings with the University of Toronto, the administration has said to the students, “We don’t want to be like the University of Alberta. We don’t want to be like the University of Edmonton.” However, just like those universities, they did go ahead and push for an injunction to have this encampment dismantled, which I’m sure they are not happy about this, but the injunction date has now been set for June 19th and June 20th, which is way past the convocation.
And the university really wanted this cleared up within a couple of days after they went to court. But it hasn’t really gone their way. I mean, they have presented, and I just finished reading it, they’ve presented the court with a 1000-page affidavit. And the lawyers for the students said, there is no way that we can get through this in 24 hours. So the court has recognized that and given them time. Now, the other thing that’s interesting is you have 20 different organizations, Canadian organizations wanting to intervene on behalf of the students at this injunction, including the top two labor unions in Ontario who are going to be intervening and one of the presidents of the Ontario Federation of Labor said, “If you think you’re going to get to the students, you’re going to have to go through us first.”
Marc Steiner:
That’s interesting to me. I am going to talk about that for a minute, about the labor unions. I was reading about that earlier today before began our conversation. The Ontario Federation of Labor. What’s the woman’s name? Who’s the head of it?
Samira Mohyeddin:
I don’t know her name. I think it’s Ashley something. I could quickly look it up, but I don’t know.
Marc Steiner:
That’s okay. That’s all right.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yeah, Ashley Winton I want to say.
Marc Steiner:
But it’s interesting to me that the labor unions in Canada and in this particular instance are backing the students or a large portion of the faculty.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yes, yes.
Marc Steiner:
I mean, so this kind of alliance, what does that alliance mean and what could it mean long term and what could it mean for these demonstrators? I mean, having labor stand behind them and having so much faculty stand behind them.
Samira Mohyeddin:
When I spoke to the students after the… So it was the United Steelworkers Metallus and the Ontario Federation of Abour who have come out in favor of the students. And when I spoke to the students, they were so heartened by this and the fact that they’ve said, “You have to go through us in order to get to them.” It was huge. I mean, this is a huge thing. I don’t recall this, and you could correct me if I’m wrong, this happening at any of the encampments in the United States.
Marc Steiner:
No. Laura Walton is her name.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Laura Walton. Yeah. I said Ashley Walton, excuse me. Yes, yeah.
Marc Steiner:
The head of the union. I’m sorry. Yeah.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yeah. So I don’t recall this happening in the US. I actually don’t recall any of the faculty getting behind the students either in a organized fashion, the way that it’s happened here in Canada, and one of the biggest supporters of the students has been the Jewish Faculty Network. So this is a national organization with dozens and dozens of Jewish faculty who have signed on and are supporting the students in this. And I think it’s important to note that what’s important about the University of Toronto is that the University of Toronto was the first site where Israeli Apartheid Week was launched in 2005, and it was at the University of Toronto in 2006 when students against Israeli Apartheid asked their administration to divest and disclose. So this has been a really long time coming in terms of organizing. This isn’t something just has popped up with this specific war in Gaza. They’ve been working at this for a very long time. Successive student organizations, successive faculty organizations.
Marc Steiner:
So what do you think, in all your years observing this thing and being part of as a journalist, what do you think will come of this in terms of Canada and Canadian Israeli relations?
Samira Mohyeddin:
One of the things that the university has actually offered to the students, which is interesting, is that they’ve offered them to set up a Palestine studies center at the university. So nowhere in Canada is there a Palestinian studies center. I know that Columbia has one, but there is none in Canada. So that’s something that I think that when I spoke to the, they said, this is great. We really like this. We’re not going to reject this, but we need more. And I think that really, this is something that is historical. We are on a precipice here. And the fact that the faculty are behind the students in the way they are is a huge thing.
Now, one of the faculty members who is part of the administrative council and is also a professor in environmental science, was very angry and has said that he would actually quit. He would resign if the university moves towards a violent means towards the end of this encampment. So a lot of people are putting their careers on the line. And the students also, they’re very aware of the risks that they’re taking. A lot of them, you’ll see in the images that they’re masked and churlishly, people say, “Oh, look at these cowards.” But they’re not cowards. They know what it means when your face is exposed.
Marc Steiner:
Absolutely.
Samira Mohyeddin:
And when you’re humanizing Palestinians and when you’re fighting for the Palestinian cause. I mean, the girl that I check in with, Erin Mackey, she’s dealing with death threats on a daily basis. She’s being doxed, her home address, her phone number. So they’re taking real risks and people are very aware of that. So to call them cowards is really something else.
Marc Steiner:
Who are the people who are making these threats? Where’s this divide? Who are the folks that are really opposing them that vehemently?
Samira Mohyeddin:
I mean, there’s the Hillel, which is the Jewish students organizations on campus. There are the well-known Canadian Jewish organizations like CIJA, which is a Canadian Israeli, I don’t know what to call them. They are really just a pro-Israeli, not a think tank, but really yeah. I don’t know what you would call them. They’re almost like a mouthpiece for the government of Israel in Canada.
Marc Steiner:
The number of Zionist organizations that are very closely to the Israeli government and they are their voices in different countries. Happens [inaudible 00:14:06].
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yes and what’s interesting also is that there was, in Parliament, they set up a committee to talk about anti-Semitism on campus. And that’s something else that we should talk about because they’re basically calling the Jewish faculty and Jewish students, dozens of them who are inside this encampment, sleeping there, supporting the students as anti-Semitic. And so they set up this parliamentary committee, but a lot of the so-called students that they had come and speak are all tied to these Israeli organizations who are operating within Canada. And so it isn’t just that these are organic students coming and saying, “I feel threatened.”
I mean, I’ve been at this encampment for 29 days. The only violence, the only harassment that I have seen has been outside of the encampment and has always been when agitators arrive, and I’ve been documenting this on a daily basis. They come there and they call these teenagers who are inside, racists. They call them rapists, they call them terrorists. And the fact that you have people in their fifties and sixties coming down to a university campus to verbally assault these students is just wild to watch. I mean, I’ve been documenting it. I’ve been putting the footage online, and they’re really, some of them are very rabid. They’re actually foaming at the mouth when they’re talking to these students.
Marc Steiner:
Literally.
Samira Mohyeddin:
They are literally foaming at the mouth. And the fact that I was documenting one day that two women who had come in, these pro-Israeli agitators, were yelling, get out of our country, to one of the indigenous women-
Marc Steiner:
I saw that on your feed. Yes.
Samira Mohyeddin:
… Who was beating a drum. They said, “You’re ruining our country.” To the indigenous woman who was beating her drum, telling her to get out of Canada. I mean, you can’t even make these things up. It’s wild. It’s wild times down there.
Marc Steiner:
And one of the things you said earlier, the fact, the kind of multinational multicultural makeup of this encampment is really important. I mean, indigenous people, Jews, Muslims, others gathering together to say no to what’s happening in Gaza. And I think that’s really an important mean leap in this struggle.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Very much so, because I’ve documented chaplains inside of the encampment. I’ve documented rabbis inside of the encampment. There are imams inside this encampment. So the characterization of it as being hateful, as being anti-Semitic is really just way off. It is really manufactured and merchandised for consumption.
Marc Steiner:
It belittles the depth of anti-Semitism in the world to use it in the way that it’s being done now. Especially in a group that is multi-ethnic, living together, working together, fighting together for a peaceful world and a different world for Palestinians. It diminishes the fight against anti-Semitism.
Samira Mohyeddin:
It makes a mockery of anti-Semitism.
Marc Steiner:
Yes, that’s it. You said it better than I did in one word. Thank you.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yeah, it makes a mockery of it and it’s also extremely dangerous because there are real acts of anti-Semitism happening. And when you make a mockery of anti-Semitism, all acts come into question. And that’s the danger here.
Marc Steiner:
So how do you think this plays out politically in Canada?
Samira Mohyeddin:
Well, yeah. I mean, it is playing out in the exact same way that you think it’s being played out. So you have these more leftist-leaning NDP calling for an immediate ceasefire, calling for a supporting of students. And then you have all the way to the right, the progressive conservatives calling this a hate-filled… They’re actually referring to it as little Gaza. I mean, it’s pretty disgusting. It’s pretty disgusting when you consider what is actually happening inside Gaza.
Marc Steiner:
So I’ve been thinking a lot about this in terms of both the war taking place at the moment, and the slaughter taking place inside Gaza, the devastation of the entire area, what’s happening in the West Bank, and it’s so explosive, it could affect the entire planet. I mean, we don’t know where this can end. It’s a really frightening moment. And it spills over into our countries, whether it’s the United States or Canada, in terms of what it does for the politically and emotional divide in our countries. And I think we’re really facing a very dire moment that doesn’t have to end badly, but it seems very dire at the moment.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yeah, it really is a flashpoint right now. And one of the things, and I’ll tell you this because I saw a couple of the students crying, children in Gaza held up a sign saying, “Thank you, university of Toronto students.” So if we think that what these students are doing isn’t having an impact around the world, it is, it really is. And they’re very aware of that. And what’s so disheartening is that this could really be a moment where people come together and change things for the better. But as happened in other struggles, we’re seeing an implosion, not only of Israeli society. I mean, look what’s happening. There are daily, daily massive rallies happening in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem. And you have Israeli police beating down the actual families of the hostages.
Marc Steiner:
Right. Jewish Israelis. Exactly.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Exactly. Who are asking for their families to be brought home and not be used in this way by the Netanyahu government. So everything is really coming to a head. And what happens at this point is anyone’s guess.
Marc Steiner:
So where do you take this in terms of your work, what are you looking at and what do you think your next steps are in terms of covering it and being inside the encampment?
Samira Mohyeddin:
For me, what these students are doing isn’t just work. I mean, I am an alumni at the University of Toronto. I graduated with a master’s in Modern Middle Eastern history in 2007. I was a part of that first year that the Israeli Apartheid Week happened. We would bring journalists like Robert Fisk to come and speak. And so what I think these students are doing is quite historic, and I think they should be supported in what they’re doing because I know that their intentions are pure. Look, you have kids, students who have been watching in the palms of their hands for the past eight months, some of the most brutal, horrendous and horrific images that we have ever been exposed to in our lives. We are watching a live-streaming of a genocide taking place. And you expect to teach students about ethics and human rights, and then for them not to act on it. That’s not how it works.
Marc Steiner:
Yeah, I think it’s even a similar moment inside the Jewish community.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yes.
Marc Steiner:
I mean, for me watching this in 1968, I was going around speaking against the occupation after trying to volunteer for the Israeli army in the Six-Day war. But meeting Palestinians and Israeli activists changed that. But what we’ve morphed into now is seeing a real right-wing government in Israel, take over, fundamentalist like the country that you came from, Iran.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Yes.
Marc Steiner:
Jewish fundamentalists deep inside the Israeli government and the split inside the Jewish world is significant and nobody’s talking about that either. How deep that is right now.
Samira Mohyeddin:
It’s so deep. And it’s from dining tables to newsrooms, to boardrooms. I mean, these splits are happening. But the good thing that I have found, marc, and I don’t know if you’re feeling this or any of your listeners, I have gotten to know that there are a lot of monsters around me, and a lot of people have shown who they really are in these past eight months. So Palestine, to me, has acted like a sieve. I have gotten to know a lot of people in solidarity whom I have really become quite close to in the past eight months. And a lot of people who I thought were who they were and have shown that, no, they are not the humanitarians I thought they were. They are not good faith people. And so again, it’s acting like a litmus test, I think, for a lot of people, this issue.
Marc Steiner:
Well, we’ll see where this goes. And I do want to stay in touch and see how this unfolds in Toronto and in Canada, have you back to talk about that as this gets closer to commencement and see where all this happens. And I really appreciate the work you do. We’ll be linking to all of your work.
Samira Mohyeddin:
Thank you so much.
Marc Steiner:
And so folks, you can check out the work that Samira Mohyeddin has done, and it’s well worth the read and well worth the look. And we’ll be connecting to all of that. So thank you Samira so much for joining us here on the Marc Steiner Show at The Real News today.
Samira Mohyeddin:
It really was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you.
Marc Steiner:
Once again, thank you to Samira Mohyeddin for her work and for joining us today. And thank all of you for joining us today. We’ll link to the work of Samira Mohyeddin on our site here at The Real News, and we’ll bring you updates from Samira, as you heard at the end of our conversation. And thanks to Cameron Grandino for running and editing this program and the tireless Kayla Rivara for making it all work behind the scenes and everyone here at The Real News for making the show possible. So please let me know what you thought about what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com and I will write you right back. And once again, thank you Samira Mohyeddin for joining us. And for the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved, keep listening, and take care.
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