An interview with Waddah, one of the lead student organizers at Ontario Tech University who was part of the campus encampments against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Ontario Tech University became the first university in so-called Canada to win a deal with their university administration. How are you feeling? And how are the students and Ontario Tech community feeling after this deal?
We’re very happy and glad that we were able to come to this resolution with our university. You know, it’s unfortunate that many places portray it like that the administration is your enemy. But for us, we saw value in working together with our administration, and I think that was kind of the key part of why we were able to come to this agreement – because we worked together, not against each other.
Can you walk us through what you won?
Our final agreements involved getting full disclosure of all investments from the university. So the university is going to disclose every investment they have to any company or Defense Contract or whatever it may be. And we’re going to be able to have that transparency with our university as it should be. I think every university should have this without needing an encampment to begin with.
And then the second thing we came to an agreement on is the divestment. So as a university, they’re going to make an appropriate policy with a committee of students in order to divest from any company that deems to be inappropriate and goes against this policy, which, from our understanding, is going to be anything that’s going to benefit or aid any war around the world. So that way we could prevent and minimize what’s happening over the turbulence in Gaza, and obviously, to prevent anything like this from happening in the future.
And the last, but definitely not least, is the three fully funded scholarships for three undergraduates from Gaza. Given that every single university in Gaza has been destroyed, I think this is huge to be able to open opportunities for students who are living there and are struggling to find food now; to give them the opportunity to do their education.
Can we pause on the second point that you mentioned? If I’m hearing correctly, you’re saying that the university agreed to basically divest from not only Israel, but any war?
So one of the things that the university didn’t like at the beginning was how we’re only wanting divestment from Israel. And again, it shouldn’t be a surprise that, as students, the last thing we want is our tuition money being the reason why those bombs are dropping at that speed and that scale, right? We wanted to prevent any sort of aid to this genocide that is happening. And in doing so, we thought, why just stop there, right? Why just limited to that one? We could stand for all of humanity –- which is what we are doing. We want to stop any aid or funding to any war around the world, whether it be now or in twenty, thirty years, right? So it’s important that we involve everyone here through the Palestinian struggle.
What were some of the strategies you used to achieve this win?
First day, May 6, I believe in the first hour, the Head of Security came down and told us to leave. [He said,] “What you guys are doing is wrong, the cops are going to be called” and so on. And that was just the first hour, right? So they started off strong. They wanted us gone from the get go, and we told them, no, we’re students. We have every right to be here. We’re paying tuition, and we’re paying to walk on the grass here, so we’re gonna stay in. We haven’t done anything wrong, and we really did our best to uphold that throughout the two weeks that we were there.
Administration kept trying to have us removed through side threats and trying to intimidate us through certain techniques. But at the end of the day, we knew our rights, and we were there for a reason.
I’d be lying if I told you we had a strategy for [bringing the broader community together]. But what is beautiful about this movement is that when you’re standing on the right side of history, you don’t need to convince people and you don’t need to be trying to prove to people why you should be out here. It is common sense.
Ever since the first day we touched down there, community members were dropping off coffee, food, and tents. And I’m like, “What’s your name?” And people would say, “Don’t worry about me. I’m just here to support”.
Some people, even the university, accused us of having third party support – which was disgusting, to be honest, and not true. This was a student-led pro-Palestinian encampment, and the community members were just amazing.
Three days into the encampment, the university had written a trespass notice, and they showed it to us two days after it was written. So at the start, our university was definitely not moving forward in good faith. Slowly, after they started to realize we’re here for a good intention, and not here to cause any harm, they slowly started to act in good faith from their end.
You mentioned that the university was using fear tactics at first but then later started negotiating in good faith – what made them change their approach?
I mean, tactics wise, we just had a lot of support, aside from the community and students themselves, there was a huge body of faculty who were in support. Faculty members would even come in and sit and hang out with us throughout the day. And obviously, the faculty was applying their pressure in their own way that they know how to, so I think that had a good part to play.
Social media as well, knowing that the university’s PR (public relations) is on the line – we were applying pressure from there.
And one part of it that I think also opened up the minds of some people in the administration, and I have to give them props for this, is when they came down, to talk to me and a couple of the lead organizers on the ground, they also got to know other people. Whether they wanted to or not, we wanted to show them that we’re not just a couple of brown people here, or a couple of Muslims as some unfortunate racist individuals see it as. We are actually a big, wide, diverse set of students here.
Some of the senior administrators had the privilege to meet some of the Jewish students supporting us and some of the Indigenous students supporting us. So when they see that diversity, they’re kind of left with no conclusion other than that these guys are actually serious. And this is not a silly movement. These guys are moving in a pack and I think that helped them open their minds a little bit as to what’s really going on when it’s diverse people from different backgrounds and cultures and religions.
What are some best lessons from experience you can share to all the students who are still holding the fort down on their campuses?
A message I would say to anyone who’s listening, who is at an encampment, I would say, first and foremost, stay strong. I would say, do not get distracted with internal issues, and do not get distracted with things. Their objective is to prove to the rest of the world why this is dangerous, although we are already peaceful. We truly do have to go above and beyond in making sure that everything is clear and safe because, unfortunately, some of the tactics we saw firsthand is that the university tries to nitpick some things and say why you’re not safe. Focus on the main goal and do not blow it.
I think with a lot of universities, their food is bigger than they can bite. So we want to push as hard as we can. It’s better to grab as much as you can, other than getting raided. I don’t say that to scare anyone off, but we also have to be realistic in some circumstances. Because either some students get everything they want, which unfortunately doesn’t happen much, or they get removed violently. It’s not good, but remember that you’re doing the right thing. You’re standing on the right side of history. And as difficult and tough, draining it may be, don’t stop pushing and don’t stop moving forward.
This interview was shortened for print purposes. For the full interview, watch out for Spring Radio’s next episode on student encampments for Palestine.
Photo courtesy of @otu4palestine.
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