Latest / Kvetch & Release / What’s going on at University of Toronto anti-Israel pro-Palestine encampments

Transcript

What’s going on at University of Toronto anti-Israel pro-Palestine encampments · Kvetch & Release

• 0:03
  Hey everyone, we're back. John Lecky here on AM eight hundred CKLW University
• 0:10
  of Toronto says that they're going to be letting an encampment set up early yesterday
• 0:15
  morning by pro Palestinian and anti Israeli protesters to stay for now as long as
• 0:20
  activities remain peaceful. Protesters did breach a fenced off area they moved in around
• 0:26
  four am. They set up a few dozen tenths on the lawn at the
• 0:30
  King's College Circle, and they vow to remain there until their demands are met.
• 0:36
  Those fences were set up to prevent an encampment, however, they were
• 0:40
  pretty easy to get through them. Joining me right now to discuss is a
• 0:45
  reporter and lawyer who has been spending some time down at the encampments as well
• 0:50
  as covering the ongoing protest movement across the province. Karema Sad joins me right
• 0:57
  now. Hey, Kareema, how are you? Thanks for having me?
• 1:00
  Thanks so much for joining me. I want to just play a clip right
• 1:03
  now that you had posted yesterday of the encampment. It is a protester who
• 1:11
  is setting the rules for people to be able to get into the encampment.
• 1:17
  Let's take a listen some of the ground rules and things you stand for.
• 1:23
  You're free to walk around, you're free to chat to people. Design as
• 1:26
  you don't break any of our rules, you're fine. You're free to leave.
• 1:30
  So we're listening there at rules that have been set up by these protesters
• 1:36
  for people to be able to access the encampment, which is on the University
• 1:41
  of Toronto site. Kareem a very interesting video that you recorded. What's the
• 1:46
  environment like down there? So, as you described, there is a sense
• 1:52
  in area a giant lawn basically, and that's where the tents are set up
• 2:00
  and the one area where fencing has been removed in its place, there are
• 2:07
  protesters who essentially are acting as gatekeepers, allowing people in and out of the
• 2:15
  encampment. And then outside of that you have other people who are there in
• 2:22
  support regular passers by. And yesterday there was a brief counter protest. So
• 2:30
  we've been watching this movement spread across the United States. It's now here in
• 2:32
  Canada. We've got it in Toronto, there's one in BC in Montreal at
• 2:38
  McGill. Is anything that you saw at this University of Toronto protest anything like
• 2:43
  the ones that we're seeing on television in the United States, where there is
• 2:47
  more conflict that's going on, more inflammatory language, posters, things like that.
• 2:54
  I think what we are seeing in the States, those are encampments set
• 2:59
  up, are a later stage of their development. I suppose I wouldn't say
• 3:06
  it's comparable at this point. Everything I observed yesterday was people sort of milling
• 3:14
  around. You know, there were students. There were also a lot of
• 3:19
  familiar faces from the protest circuits more generally, who I don't think have any
• 3:25
  connection to the university, but were there for support or in solidarity. As
• 3:31
  far as inflammatory, I think it depends on one's advantage what rises to that
• 3:38
  threshold. But from my perspective, I didn't see anything that even remotely crossed
• 3:46
  over into boundaries of hate speech or anything like that, at least from the
• 3:52
  time I spent Well, that's good to hear. Nobody wants to see that.
• 3:55
  I find it really interesting that you say that there were familiar faces there
• 3:59
  for you. Again, for people who don't know you, you cover protests.
• 4:02
  This is like almost a full time thing for you going throughout the province.
• 4:06
  You We've spoken before about the sense of camaraderie and how it's almost a
• 4:12
  social experience for some of these people. So you're saying that you saw people
• 4:15
  at this protest who have been at other protests for other causes, at other
• 4:18
  places in the province. That's exactly right. Many who are specific to the
• 4:26
  Palestinian protest circuit, if we frame it that way, but also people who
• 4:30
  have shown up on both sides of the debate on gender ideology, parental consent,
• 4:41
  freedom, convoy related you know, so it's not limited to a particular
• 4:46
  issue, Indigenous issues, environmental issues, and it's you know, protests becomes
• 4:53
  a way of life, I think, a way to express and a way
• 4:57
  to yes find camaraderie and friendship and community based on a shared vision. Although
• 5:06
  how how closely how that vision is and how it applies, I think it
• 5:14
  varies. So we are I'm looking here at a letter that was written to
• 5:18
  these protesters from the Vice Provost of Students for the University of Toronto that you
• 5:24
  had shared with me. It goes it says that you know the property is
• 5:27
  private, you don't have permission to be here after ten pm, but if
• 5:30
  you remain peaceful, we don't intend to remove you from the encampment. This
• 5:33
  evening. This is dated from yesterday. One thing that we were talking about,
• 5:39
  though, Kareema, before we set this up, was that at this
• 5:42
  point there is yet to be a University of Toronto student liaison, correct,
• 5:47
  which I think is significance because this is obviously happening on uf T property.
• 5:56
  There are there's an Instagram group U of T Occupy that it purports to be
• 6:02
  the students who are organizing this, and yet it seems that the main point
• 6:09
  of contact between university administration and the protesters is someone from the outside. So
• 6:15
  I think that that's noteworthy, and the extent to which it's noteworthy that will
• 6:23
  emerge and develop as time goes on. I do understand that the encampment represents
• 6:30
  an escalation from students having attempted to occupy offices within the university and felt that
• 6:42
  their demands, their concerns weren't being heard or discussed in a satisfactory way,
• 6:47
  and so now they are on the lawn. Indeed they are, they're out
• 6:51
  there. I find the protest movement to be so interesting right now, Kareema.
• 6:56
  Everybody. Obviously, during COVID, we saw a huge emergence of protests
• 7:00
  across the country, whether they were blockades or the convoy itself. Before that,
• 7:04
  there was the yellow vest protests, as you had mentioned. You know,
• 7:08
  there's there's ideological protests regarding gender identity, regarding LGBT issues, regarding so
• 7:14
  many different things. Right now, could you discuss I mean, when you're
• 7:17
  out looking at these protests, are there any through lines between all of them?
• 7:21
  Besides the fact that you see some of the same faces here, Like,
• 7:26
  is what is it about protest that seems to be so intoxicating for some
• 7:30
  of these people? Oh? Such a good question and probably the subject of
• 7:33
  a thesis. But I do think there are some through lines, and they're
• 7:41
  also they can be a bit jagged, so different individuals will have different trajectories.
• 7:49
  I like to think of people as patchworks of opinions, where you know,
• 7:55
  there's not necessarily consistency throughout. It is my object that people who are
• 8:03
  engaging in black block tactics do tend to move in similar circles and hold a
• 8:11
  pretty strong orthodoxy on the issues that they choose to embrace, and that if
• 8:18
  we circle back to the clip you played at the outset, you know you're
• 8:22
  allowed in, but you have to follow our rules, and if you don't
• 8:24
  follow our rules. You know, there's you didn't specify what would happen,
• 8:31
  but certainly you're not welcome. And I think that that I think that there
• 8:37
  is comfort in having people believe what you believe at some level, in abdicating
• 8:46
  one's responsibility to think critically or develop your own opinions if you are just following
• 8:54
  what the group is moving with. And I think that there is some of
• 9:00
  that present on either side of any given issue, so that it's not you
• 9:07
  know, specific to one side or the other. This idea of groupthink is
• 9:13
  pretty pervasive, and to me, that's that's something I think about a lot
• 9:20
  in these protest circuits, and the need for really just more critical sort of
• 9:26
  individual level analysis rather than following along, because I think that when big topics
• 9:35
  are reduced to catchy slogans, a lot of nuance gets lost, undoubtedly,
• 9:39
  And I wonder if the protesters think they're going to actually achieve their aims,
• 9:46
  or whether or not their you know, intention is to achieve their aims.
• 9:50
  We look back to the protests in nineteen sixty eight against the Vietnam War,
• 9:54
  and those inevitably ended up getting Richard Nixon elected and extending the Vietnam War for
• 9:58
  another five years. I wonder if there is maybe a disconnect between thinking that
• 10:05
  this will guaranteed achieve the outcome that you desire versus societal backlash can be pretty
• 10:11
  strong against these types of movements. It can, and I don't know sort
• 10:16
  of at the strategic level precisely who is making what tactical decisions and why.
• 10:24
  There are a lot of people at this encampment who I previously come across at
• 10:31
  protests against police, looking to defund police, and there's an irony that certain
• 10:39
  types of action inevitably result in more police resources being sent and increased budget.
• 10:48
  So I think that's part of the disconnects that you're referring to. And if
• 10:52
  there's not sufficient attention paid to sort of the public interest, people are fueled
• 11:00
  only by their righteous anger. I think that can lead to unintended or counter
• 11:05
  productive results. And none of this is meant to take away from the underlying
• 11:11
  cause or humanitarian crisis, which is a motivation for people to get out,
• 11:18
  But it's, you know, how top of mind or what is the connection
• 11:28
  between actions and results here? They have a pretty specific list of demands right
• 11:35
  disclose university assets, investments, financial holding, divest and terminate relationships with certain
• 11:43
  institutions. But how realistic is that Where the university operates in part like a
• 11:52
  pension and investments are spread pretty far, you know, there may need to
• 11:58
  be some compromise. Well, it's something that we're going to keep an eye
• 12:01
  on and I'm sure we'll get to speak again about this. Karema. It's
• 12:03
  always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having
• 12:07
  me. Cheers. Kareema Sad is a reporter and a lawyer who covers the
• 12:11
  protest movement across the province, and she's been spending time at the University of
• 12:16
  Toronto filming some video and photos and speaking with some of the protesters who are
• 12:20
  there in support of the pro Palestine, anti Israel encampment. We're going to
• 12:24
  take a break right now. We will keep the show going right afterwards,
• 12:28
  So don't go anywhere. John Lidkey here on AMA