Sticks and stones haven’t made an appearance yet, but this week, U of T has been an object lesson in the power of words.
Israeli Apartheid Week, a series of lectures and exhibits organized by U of T’s Arab Students’ Collective, has this week re-ignited the Israeli-Palestinian debate on campus. The week-long event has now caught the attention of news outlets across Canada and around the world, and provoked both fiery denunciations and equally fierce defences.
And it all boils down to the use of one bombshell of a word: “apartheid.”
“I’m really ashamed that a university in Canada would allow such an event to occur under such a label of Apartheid,” said Ilan Nachim, who was in the audience at the second lecture of the week on Tuesday evening, about Palestinian prisoners. “Especially since, being a university, they know exactly what Apartheid means. Anyone who’s been to Israel knows for sure that Israel’s not an Apartheid state.”
“A lot of people are trying to portray our use of the world Apartheid as some sort of PR campaign, or provocation,” Hazem Jamjoum, a member of the Arab Students’ Collective, said on Wednesday. “What we’re actually trying to do is put forward an analysis, and it’s an analysis that’s been initiated both by Israeli anti-apartheid activists and South African anti-apartheid activists. All of our literature and all of our talks are basically just providing the evidence and the facts about how this is an apartheid system.”
Kole Kilibarda, who gave a lecture at the Tuesday session about his experiences traveling in the West Bank and parts of Israel, said the choice of “Apartheid” was clear to him.
“If people were familiar with the situation in the occupied territories, they wouldn’t hesitate to call it apartheid,” Kilibarda said in a subsequent interview with The Varsity. “If you spend time in the occupied territories…you’ll understand that the situation there is one of Apartheid for the Palestinians. They are treated as second-class citizens, and are denied even the most basic fundamental human rights.”
Canadian Jewish group B’Nai Brith was strongly critical of the event, and called it a “hate fest.”
“It was words that started the road to Auschwitz and we’re hearing the same kind of horrific words again,” B’Nai Brith vice president Frank Dimant said in January. “Israeli Apartheid is a lie, it’s hate, and it’s a continuation of the demonization of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.” Dimant also urged U of T to cancel the events.
U of T Deputy Provost and Vice-Provost of Students David Farrar issued a statement on January 19 confirming that Israeli Apartheid Week would proceed.
“Those opposed to the content of these events have urged the university to force the Arab Students’ Collective to cancel its activities,” Farrar wrote in the memo to department chairs. “We will not. To do so would violate the university’s commitment to freedom of speech. The Arab Students’ Collective is an independent campus group…. As an academic community, we have a fundamental commitment to the principles of freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech and freedom of association….[T]he university has no reason to believe that the activities will exceed the boundaries for free speech….”
Kilibarda said that despite the controversy, he felt the organizers’ intended message was getting through.
“The intention of Israeli Apartheid Week was to raise consciousness of the issues surrounding Israeli Apartheid,” Kilibarda said. “The fact that it’s controversial speaks more to the racism and prejudice that are prevalent on campuses than to the actual reality of the situation on the ground.
“I hope that the events of this week will raise people’s awareness about the issues, because it’s really important that people become engaged in global politics.”
Nachim said that Israeli Apartheid Week was not about raising awareness, but about plain intolerance.
“I think it’s one of the most racist presentations I’ve ever seen,” Nachim said of the lectures on Tuesday. “I was not allowed to express myself at any point during this evening, from beginning to end. We had our hands up, we did not open our mouths. We were not allowed to express ourselves. This is what the university calls free speech?”
Susan Addario of U of T Student Affairs, who had observed several of the lectures, said that she was proud that even though there was such controversy over the content and intent of Israeli Apartheid Week, events were proceeding without the violence that has marred such exchanges at other Canadian universities.
“One of the central functions of the university is to permit debate on any subject,” Addario said in a phone interview. “I am very proud that our students can plan and hold these activities, which are on topics which are highly controversial, and draw forth very passionate and emotional responses. On other campuses, such events have resulted in physical violence directed at members of each others’ groups, and have sometimes created situations where university administrators felt the need to shut down the activity. We haven’t had that situation here. I think we need to try and create an atmosphere in which really difficult issues, including issues about global conflict, can be discussed and resolved without violence. That’s what universities ought to be for.”
