All Posts Tagged With: "Boycott"
To whom is your allegiance, professors?
STU profs who plan to boycott convocation should be wary of the message they are sending their students
A group of professors at St. Thomas University are protesting the decision to award an honorary degree to Fredericton Mayor Brad Woodside, and some have now threatened to boycott the graduation ceremonies.
In an open letter to the Daily Gleaner, the professors at the liberal arts university objected to the decision to award the degree to a “sitting politician,” as well as because of Woodside’s “record on the environment and by his unwillingness to recognize gay and lesbian citizens.”
Back in the 1990’s, Woodside refused to declare a Gay Pride weekend in Fredericton until he was ordered to do so by the Human Rights Commission. However, since taking office again in 2004, Woodside has declared Pride Week and even participated in some of the events.
But for other professors, their decision to boycott the ceremonies has more to do with the ethics of awarding an honorary degree to a politician who is still in office. “There’s a general sense of unease about the kind of vulgarity and the crassness of that,” Ian Nicholson, an STU professor who signed the letter of objection told Global Saskatoon. “Of sorta paying up to power, of trying to buy favours from politicians by giving them one of these impressive sounding degrees.”
For these reasons, a group of STU professors may be absent at the convocation ceremonies of their students this weekend. And while I don’t agree with their position, it is understandable why they would choose to be so. The ethics of awarding an honorary degree to a sitting politician is undeniably complicated, and that decision is made even thornier when the recipient has held controversial opinions in the past, despite recent reforms.
But by boycotting the ceremonies, these professors are putting their own politics over their students. Which is fine, of course. But small liberal arts universities, unlike large, research-driven institutions, are driven by the reputation of having intimate classrooms and personal connections between students and professors. You go to the University of Toronto if you want to be lectured by a world-renowned theorist who probably doesn’t know your name, but you enroll in St. Thomas University if you want to develop a relationship with faculty and engage personally with your instructors. If these professors don’t show up to their students’ graduations, they will be inadvertently forfeiting one of the great merits of their institution.
UToronto and York students launch BDS campaign
Demand universities divest from companies “involved in violations of Palestinian human rights”
On Monday March 7, the first day of Israeli Apartheid Week in Toronto, Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at the University of Toronto announced the official launch of its joint Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] campaign with SAIA at York University.
Making brief reference to a similar campaign going on at Carleton University, SAIA U of T announced the new campaign, demanding that the university divest from four companies, claiming that “current investments in these four companies suggests it is complacent in war crimes.”
BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Hewlett Packard and Lockheed Martin were identified as contributors to “violations of international law by the Israeli state,” and named as the target of the York/U of T campaign.
According to SAIA’s research, the University of Toronto holds $1,746,000 and $1,157,000 worth of shares in BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman respectively. (Figures for Hewlett Packard and Lockheed Martin were unknown.)
Students are demanding that the universities divest from the four companies and refrain from investing in other companies that are “involved in violations of international law.”
The petition demands are posted below.
We, the undersigned, demand that:
(1) The University of Toronto and York University divest from and refuse to reinvest in BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Hewlett Packard and Lockheed Martin;
(2) The University of Toronto and York University refrain from investing in all companies involved in violations of international law. With respect to Palestine, this entails following the guidelines put forth by Students for Justice in Palestine in the historic divestment by Hampshire College:
The University of Toronto and York University should refrain from investing in companies that:
a) Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance of the Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights;
b) Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories;
c) Establish facilities or operations in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories;
d) Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance and construction of the Wall;
e) Provide products or services that contribute to violent acts that target either Israeli or Palestinian civilians.
UTSU elections have already gone amiss
Opposition candidates boycott UTSU elections, alleging challengers were unfairly disqualified
Members of an opposition slate have decided to boycott the University of Toronto student union elections after four of its members were disqualified right out of the gate.
The inexcusable offense? Well, some say the challengers failed to buff their “DEMOCRACY NOW!” pins before the all-candidates meeting, and others allege they were caught with Facebook profile pictures other than the obligatory “shouting into a megaphone” photo required for all UTSU executives. Of course, I also heard something about an envelope being lick-sealed as opposed to tape-shut and murmurs about those students who “hate freedom.”
The official reason, though, and according to The Varsity, is that incorrect student numbers were listed on the nomination forms of the candidates, who are part of the StudentsFirst slate. That is, of the 200 names, student numbers, and signatures required for a successful nomination, there is an error in there somewhere, or so it seems. The UTSU-appointed Chief Returning Officer (no conflict there, right?) has apparently refused to show documents to the disqualified candidates, according to the release posted on their website.
So one of your supporters wrote an extra “2” in her student number by accident while signing your nomination form? Well, sucks for you, stupid! All that money you spent on posters and other promotional material going down the tubes. A pity. Here, cry into this “Working for Students” t-shirt.
But it gets better. Not only were the disqualified candidates barred from the all-candidates meeting (and so, even their nomination forms are later found to be valid, their absence from the meeting would be grounds for immediate disqualification) but so too was the media, according The Varsity. Varsity staffers Andrew Rusk and Tom Cardoso were told to exit the room by a deputy returning officer with a conspicuously absent last name. Then, according to inside sources, The Varsity begrudgingly went to consult with the Glavlit as participants finished up the meeting and staged a public book burning on the University College quad.
Fourteen opposition candidates have since decided to boycott the elections, according to StudentsFirst. “It’s clear that the democratic principle, which the UTSU claims to respect, is not being honoured,” Matthew Gray, (once) presidential candidate for StudentsFirst told The Varsity. “They’re basically working to stifle opposition.”
Good luck, Matthew. And watch out for unmarked white vans.
Political boycotts continue with hummus
You can’t solve Israel-Palestine crisis by watching what you eat
There’s a scene in the movie Brüno where Sacha Baron Cohen’s character shares a table with former Mossad chief Yossi Alpher and former Palestinian minister Ghassan Khatib. Cohen turns to Alpher and asks, “Why are you so anti-Hamas? I mean, isn’t pita bread the real enemy?” Bewildered, Alpher replies, “You’re confusing Hamas with hummus, I believe.” Khatib pipes in: “You think there’s a relation between Hamas and hummus?”
Unmoved, Cohen continues to probe. “Was the founder of Hamas a chef?” he asks.
“Hummus has nothing to do with Hamas,” Alpher explains. “It’s a food, OK? We eat it. They eat it.” “It’s vegetarian,” adds Khatib. “It’s healthy.”
Despite these merits, some students at Princeton University in New Jersey (who probably didn’t make it to the end of this scene in the movie) have decided to wage a political war on the chickpea dip. The Princeton Committee on Palestine (PCP) has created a Facebook event called “Boycott Sabra Hummus” and held a referendum Monday calling for alternatives to the Israeli brand of hummus being sold around campus. Yoel Bitran, the group’s creator, wrote that the PCP objects to the fact that “students who wish to eat this traditional Arab food are forced to buy a product that is connected to human rights abuses against Arab civilians.”
Sabra indeed provides care packages of dips and sports equipment to Israeli soldiers, but unless we consider these packages “weapons of ultimate deliciousness,” the connection between Sabra and human rights abuses is a weak one. Further undermining PCP’s position is the fact that there are other hummus alternatives available on campus, as pointed out by the Daily Princetonian staff.
So why is there so much fuss over food? Well hummus is just the latest target in a long line of commercial and ideological boycotts targeted at the Israeli government. Not simply an American movement, Canadian students have also actively supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) campaign, which was initiated in 2005 with the intention of pressuring the Israeli government to “end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” and “[recognize] the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel.”
Heather Kere was a vocal campaigner for the BDS movement when she was vice-president of education for Ryerson’s student union back in 2008, for example. Kere moved to rid Ryerson of Starbucks coffee, alleging that “The CEO and chairman of Starbucks (Howard Schultz) is a financial supporter of the state of Israel, an oppressive state that violates many UN resolutions, and so by supporting Starbucks, we’re supporting the apartheid system in Israel.” Starbucks has flatly denied the claim.
Then there was the more sensational attempt by the Canadian Union of Public Employees in 2009, which passed a motion calling for an academic boycott of Israeli lecturers. “We are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general,” Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario said in a release. After someone slipped CUPE a note saying, “Hey, umm . . . that’s a little reminiscent of totalitarian demands of subservience and thought control . . .” CUPE revised its position to focus on Israeli academic institutions, not individuals. In any case, I’m still waiting for CUPE to demand all visiting Russian lecturers explicitly condemn Putin’s targeting of Chechnyan separatists.
Either way, these boycott attempts have been largely unsuccessful, especially considering the umbrella objective of persuading the Israeli government to change its tactics. For one, the campaigns to boycott products often backfire, as was the case in April 2009, when a protest and boycott of Israeli wine at a Toronto LCBO resulted in the entire stock being bought out by supporters of Israel. Secondly, these boycotts often focus on non-essential, “superficial” products of Israel, such as face cream or hummus, and ignore products such as the Given Imaging swallowable camera pill used to diagnose gastrointestinal disorders worldwide, a device which was developed in Israel. Why are we not boycotting hospitals that use the “Zionist” device?
Thirdly, and perhaps most fundamentally, I would argue that the Middle East crisis at its most raw boils down to a clash of ideology; ideology that is impervious to external pressure. Economics, borders, government, allies aside–Israelis and Palestinians disagree on fundamental values rooted in faith. Not buying fruit juice from one side or the other is not going to throw off anyone’s religious claim to land.
Nevertheless, I have no doubt that impassioned students will continue to try to dry up the Starbucks wells on campus or demand only clear-conscious chickpeas be available at universities. In any case, can’t we just agree that pita bread is the real enemy?
