80+ students set up a Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Brown

"The risk that we're putting ourselves in is nothing compared to the risk that the people of Gaza go through simply to live."

Brown University students with the Brown Divest Coalition have set up a Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the university green demanding that the school divest its endowment from “all companies enabling and profiting from the genocide in Gaza and the broader Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.” Students are also demanding that Brown drop all charges against the 41 student activists arrested on December 11 for sitting in at University Hall, and end the university's use of the criminal justice system and university disciplinary processes to penalize student protest.

I spoke to two students who are part of the encampment, Arman Deendar, a junior at Brown studying computer science and history, and Raffi Ash, a sophomore newly elected member to the Undergraduate Council of Students. Deendar is Muslim, and Ash is Jewish. [Owen Dahlkamp and Ryan Doherty at The Brown Daily Herald are doing excellent work on this story.]

Steve Ahlquist: What's going on?

Arman Deendar: A lot of things. What brings me out here is seeing the arrests that happened at Columbia and subsequent encampments across the nation. This is a concerted youth movement against the genocide in Palestine. We've been doing a lot on campus internally, trying to organize and put our bodies on the line. I've seen so many of my friends get arrested and 19 of my closest friends starve themselves. I've seen that bravery and commitment to fighting for liberation, to saying no to our institution's complicity and genocide.

As a Brown University student and a student at an elite Ivy League institution, I have the utmost solidarity and concern that I get to have this education while there are no universities left in Gaza. So a lot of things brought me out today. It's the wave of the national movement and my deep personal religious connections to Palestinian liberation.

Steve Ahlquist: Can I ask about your religious convictions?

Arman Deendar: I'm Muslim. My parents are from the nation-state of India.

Steve Ahlquist: Things aren't going well there...

Arman Deendar: India has been colonized since 1948, the same year as the Nakba with the colonization of Kashmir. India and colonization are synonymous.

Raffi Ash: We've been on so many calls with students on other campuses that have energized this as something that we're doing together. Every day we see the launch of new encampments. We're excited to be joining this and to be standing in solidarity with Gaza.

Brown University Security

Steve Ahlquist: Can you talk about the interactions with security?

Raffi Ash: The administration is threatening us. They sent us an email yesterday before the encampment was launched, preemptively outlining their encampment policy as a threat. They sent it to the entire student body. This morning, as we were setting up, around 7 am, we had an encounter with the administration and they're threatening disciplinary action and collecting IDs. They've continued to do that throughout the day.

Steve Ahlquist: Do you have a sense of what they want the IDs for? What they're doing with them?

Raffi Ash: They're photographing our student ID numbers so that we can be logged into the disciplinary system.

Steve Ahlquist: What do you think discipline might look like?

Raffi Ash: We don't know. We're preparing for all sorts of possibilities, but we hope that our numbers can keep us safe and keep each other together to work through this collectively. We have 40 seniors in our group who are hoping to graduate but are willing to risk that.

Steve Ahlquist: How many people are you expecting to camp here tonight?

Raffi Ash: We started today with 80 people prepared to camp, but it's growing beyond that. So we don't know how many people will be ready when the sun sets.

Arman Deendar: We're at the discretion of the University. They're taking harsh, pretty stern control of this - different from other campuses. We don't know what the university is doing.

Steve Ahlquist: Anything else I should know?

Arman Deendar: We're here for Gaza. We're here because we've been on campus fighting for divestment - calling for an end to our institution's complicity in the genocide. The encampment is a reiteration of that, but also an expression of solidarity across the campuses, across students of the world, who've been mobilizing for Palestine. I truly believe that this is the movement of our generation. It's such an important historical juncture that feels so important.

Raffi Ash: When thinking about students around the world, we keep coming back to thinking about the students of Gaza and that there are no universities left standing in Gaza. They've been reduced to rubble by the Israeli military. The risk that we're putting ourselves in is nothing compared to the risk that the people of Gaza go through simply to live.

We're thinking about the 13,000 children who have died already over the past six months and the so many more who are still at risk. It is our obligation and also the least we can do from an elite Ivy League institution.

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“Encampment on Brown University’s historic and residential greens is a violation of University policy, and all of the students participating have been informed they will face conduct proceedings,” said the University in a statement, while maintaining that Brown has an “unwavering commitment to supporting academic freedom and freedom of expression within an open and respectful learning community.”