©mørland/the timesI live on campus at Carleton University. It's a nice place to live...most of the year.
Next week however will surely bring the annual ritual showdown between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students in the Atrium. Each side will be handing out pamphlets featuring the exact same map: one labeled 'Israel' and the other 'Palestine.' (Not much room for compromise when each claims the right to 100% of the other's land, eh?) It's extremely annoying that people intentionally attempt to disrupt the social harmony of the university community by arguing over a pointless conflict on the other side of the world. To use a nice piece of modern vernacular: STFU!
Make no mistake: the activists who will be mobilizing for both sides next week are much more radical than the average person in the countries that they claim to represent. They have a glorified image of one side and a demonized image of the other. Many of them will be actually non-students and strangers to campus, but they will feel that it's their moral imperative to impede on our space in order to (mis)inform us about a stupid fight we don't give a damn about. It's basically the PFLP versus the Kahanists; the moderates on both sides stay far, far away.
...and now we have the Citizen adding fuel to the fire by giving the event free sensationalist publicity, just in time. Gee, thanks.
As undignified as the next week will be for all involved, to call it a "hate-fest" is rather hyperbolic. The tension will certainly reflect a major division between the radical left and the radical right in the campus political culture, but religion and ethnicity have little if anything to do with it. The leader of 'Students Against Israeli Apartheid' (SAIA) is Jewish himself, just as there are Muslims and Christians on the pro-Israel side. While I certainly agree that comparing Israel to apartheid-era South Africa (or the PLO to Al Qaeda) is totally beyond the pale, I nevertheless take some offence to the suggestion that my community is a hotbed of racism, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.
SAIA is a certainly a radical political group, but they're essentially communists, not Nazis. Likewise, the pro-Israel people are passionate Zionists but this doesn't make them racist against Arabs. Campuses are among the most diverse communities in all of Canada, and by and large we manage this complex relationship much better than you idiots out there in the real world. It's annoying when outsiders who don't understand our culture accuse our whole community of racism based on the statements of a few people who sent them an e-mail outlining their own agenda. My current roommates are an Israeli and an Iranian who get along just fine—off campus that seems strange, but here it's normal. Don't let a spat between two tiny groups of radicals serve as your description for our entire campus. To repeat: 99% of us don't give a damn.
Hopefully there will be some humour to lighten things up a bit. Last year the "no-man's-land" between the Israeli and Palestinian groups was delineated by a feminist club selling tickets to a stage show called 'the Vagina Monologues.' Imagine two groups of angry activists converging around a 10-foot sign that says "VAGINA!" in bold letters. I remember the Ottawa Citizen photographer complaining to his colleague that he couldn't get a decent shot of both groups facing off without including the vagina sign. They left disappointed that no scuffles broke out like at York the week before. Douchebags!
So to all you pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups out there: play nice and tell your 40-year-old non-student buzz-kill friends to stay home. If you don't, I'll smother you all with my meaty beef curtains.
