An Appeal To The Implicit
May 9th, 2024 | Anonymous
In the past week, UC Merced’s Palestine liberation movement has ramped up activities in preparation for next week’s UC Regents meeting. As part of these demonstrations, students have circulated the following pamphlet, whose author has chosen to remain anonymous. The Prestige was granted exclusive rights from the author to publish the pamphlet.
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A sign in Gaza that reads, “Thank you, students in solidarity wtih Gaza your message has reached. Thank you students for Columbia” pictured on 28 April. In the past week hundreds of protesters from Columbia and other American universities have been arrested or detained in connection with the pro-Palestine movement. AFP via Getty Images.
This pamphlet was written by a student of UC Merced with the intention of overcoming the disconnect between the pro-Palestine movement and the greater UCM campus. In the following pages we provide a brief summary of the genocide taking place in Gaza and its inherent and deep-rooted connection to the struggles of the everyday UC student. In other words, this is addressed to you.
The UC’s Role In the Gazan Genocide
In 2008, IDF Colonel Gabi Siboni described Israel’s strategy in the Second Lebanon War of 2006 as a policy of deploying “force that is disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses,” tactics that “aim at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes.” This ideology stems from the Dahiya Doctrine of asymmetric warfare, which is explicitly engineered to target civilian infrastructure rather than enemy combatants, deterring future attacks by tying up the economy and civilian population in costly reconstruction efforts. The IDF now wages this strategy on Gaza, a region whose population consists of children over 50%. The United Nation has leveled the accusation of genocide against Israel, indicating the precise severity of the crimes against humanity taking place against Palestine.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) trains alongside American cops using American-engineered tactics built to target civilians and civilian infrastructure. In Atlanta, the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) fosters the exchanging of lethal repression tactics between American and Israeli law enforcement. The US government is the largest single donor to the IDF, and the weapons used to commit genocide against the people of Palestine are manufactured by American companies. The economic juggernaut that is the UC system has invested $40 million in the IDF, much of that funding the aforementioned weapons of war. This is how your tuition is spent.
The IDF is known to attack Gazan population centers with white phosphorus, a deeply condemned weapon widely considered inhumane in the international community. Israel’s systematic brutality against the Palestinian people frequently draws condemnation from organizations such as the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Through all of this the UC system (including its chancellors and regents) has resisted impassioned student calls to divest from the Israeli government and the IDF.
The UCM Student’s Role In the Gazan Genocide
Once upon a time the universities were respected; the student persists in the belief that he is lucky to be there. But he arrived too late. [...] A mechanically produced specialist is now the goal of the “educational system.” A modern economic system demands mass production of students who are not educated and have been rendered incapable of thinking.”
The American capitalist system that allows for mass starvation in some parts of the US and gross overconsumption in others is the very same that feeds the war machine presently marching on Gaza. It’s also this system that tells you, the student, that your way upwards in this world is to obey the Powers That Be. In short, your cooperation allows the institutional machine to continually fund crimes against humanity in Gaza.
This is no hostile condemnation of the individual student. The American machine relies on subtly subjugating and indoctrinating the neophyte intellectual (that’s us!) through the education system. UC Merced is an arm of the institution built specifically to enable upward social mobility for those of us least served by the system.
Because of this, our student body has proven perhaps one of the most resistant to the idea of rebellion for Gaza. Don’t bite the hand that feeds, we’re told. The promise of meritocracy and a better future through hard work pacifies our student body more than any other UC campus. In order to overcome this way of thought, it’s necessary to recognize that UC Merced, as a UC, is just another arm of the same system that put the barriers in place against its campus demographic to begin with. The people to whom your tuition goes are the same people who make it harder for you to move up in the world and charge you to even try. And they’re all profiteering from the genocide in Gaza.
The American capitalist machine (what people often mean when they say “the system”) is the root of racial tension, income inequality, economic overconsumption, and environmental destruction, among countless other sociopolitical issues we grapple with today, including the genocide in Gaza. The influence of this system touches every aspect of our lives, and is beyond the scope of what we can cover in this pamphlet. The interconnected nature of the resulting issues means we can’t yet reform the root system, but we can pave the path by impeding offshoot operations like the Palestinian genocide. As students, we hold an immense amount of collective power in influencing massive players on the political field, like the UC system.
Those aware of the system’s shortcomings frequently fall victim to a defeatist attitude when faced with the sheer scale of the issue at hand. It’s easy to think “I’m just one person, what can I do?”, but it’s important to remember that the UC system’s history has been driven by political action by students. Historic UC student protests (Such as the 1984-86 demonstrations to divest from apartheid South Africa) played a significant role helping end apartheid, forcing the UC system to divest $4.6 billion dollars from their government. The University employed police violence against demonstrators then as well, but in hindsight grew to praise the students’ bravery in the demonstrations. Today’s demonstrations against the genocide of Palestinians continue the university’s legacy as a catalyst for change. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.
Parting Thoughts
“Revolution is not about suicide, it’s about life. With your fingers probe the holiness of your body and see that it was meant to live. Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines, and in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them. A revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power.”
Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book (1971)
We write to you as students of the University of California. Free yourself of the indifference that the institutions encourage and profit from. There can be liberation for all through the liberation of Gaza. The protest movement is born of compassion not just for the people of Palestine but for all of us that live under an unjust system.
We extend this plea to our fellow students: Build robust systems of mutual aid that take your reliance off of corporations. Remember the power of the individual student and engage with the protest movements on campus. Call for divestment from the UC and make your voice heard. Finally, love one another fiercely and settle for nothing less than what you deserve. The herd is no place for the brave and the strong.
With love,
Free Palestine
More Reading
A good protester is a well-informed one. Protest culture is steeped in history that modern movements continually pay homage and seek guidance from. Below are some of the historical works that this pamphlet draws reference from, alongside short descriptions of each text.
Mustafa Khayati, “On The Poverty of Student Life” (1966)
This was a pamphlet distributed at the University of Strasbourg dissecting the origins of student apathy towards social justice protest movements and critiquing the strategies of student activists. Though now slightly old, it has become a core text of the modern protest community and is still deeply relevant to today.
Steffano Harvey and Fred Moten, “The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study” (2013)
A more recent spiritual successor to Khayati’s “On The Poverty of Student Life”. Focuses specifically on the black liberation movement and its underlying strategies and philosophies.
Anonymous, “The Mythology of Work” (2024)
A great introductory deconstruction of the beliefs that keep the gears of capitalism turning. A crucial piece to understanding that the system does not favor you. Increasingly relevant as our generation ages into the workforce.
