Common Dreams Editor's Note: This is a transcript of remarks made by Professor Rashid Khalidi just outside the gates of Columbia University on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, just hours after NYPD officers raided Hamilton Hall to remove demonstrators who had occupied the building in protest of Israel's ongoing military assault on the people of Gaza.
My name is
Rashid Khalidi. I am the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia
University. I've been teaching here for a
total of 22
years.
When I was a student back in the
60s, we were told we were "led by a bunch
of outside agitators" by politicians
nobody remembers the name of
today. We were the conscience of this
nation when we opposed the Vietnam War
and racism back in 1968 and 1969 and
1970. The Vietnam War stopped because the
people opposed it, and the people who led
that were students, and the students who
led that were here at Columbia and at
Berkeley and a few other campuses on
this fair Turtle
Island.
This is not about Columbia or CCNY or Berkeley or UCLA or any other place where the students have risen up. This is the conscience of a nation speaking through your kids—through young people who are risking their futures, who are risking suspension, expulsion, and criminal arrest in order to wake people up in this country.
Students have been on the right
side of history at Columbia and at other
universities ever since the
1960s. We today honor the students who in
1968 opposed a
genocidal, illegal,
shameful war. Columbia University honors
them. They're on the Columbia website; you
can check it out yourself—1968 is
commemorated. And one day what our students
did here will be commemorated in the
same way.
They are—and they were—on the right
side of
history, and that will go down in history,
that when the change finally came and
finally the American people who have
already opposed this war—who've already
opposed this genocide—are able to force
their craven politicians to stop it,
which we can do.
The United States is
part of this war. Every plane bombing
Gaza is an American plane: F-16s, F-15s, F-35s. Every Apache helicopter is
American. Every bomb dropped is American. Those are our taxes. Those are our representatives. Shame on them and
shame on the administration of this university. They will go down in infamy
for having done what they did the other
night.
Columbia Prof’s Fiery Speech—Students opposed Vietnam War in '68, fighting against Gaza genocide nowwww.youtube.com
Today, nobody remembers the names
of the administrators and the trustees
who ordered the police onto the Columbia
campus in 1968. They have gone down in
ignominy and so will these leaders, President [Minouche] Shafik and the Board of Trustees.
And the
students will be remembered one day on a
Columbia website as the people who
helped change the course of this country,
together with the brave students up at CCNY. We should shout out to
them—together with the students at NYU, FIT, and all over this country.
What we are witnessing in terms
of police repression is a tiny fraction
of what people under occupation in
Palestine have been experiencing for 56
years: the kettling, the checkpoints, the
blockades, the police dragging students
out (many of them were injured last night),
the lies [about] outside agitators. Wait until
the numbers come out from One Police Plaza. They were all students. They were
our students. And we are ashamed of
our university for instead of continuing
the negotiations—that many faculty were
happy to be part of—decided to bring in
the
NYPD.
This administration has brought
disgrace on Columbia University. Shame on
them. Shame on them.
This is not and
was not about safety and comfort, which
is what they claimed. Do we feel safer
today now that 100 of our students have been
processed down at One Police Plaza? Do we
feel safer today that faculty and
students cannot get onto their own campus? Of course not.
Public opinion is already with us. It's just the politicians, the media, and the trustees and administration of this university who are blind, death, and dumb to the demand of a moral imperative coming from our students.
This was a craven
capitulation to external pressure. The
students didn't want it. The faculty
didn't want it. Outside forces wanted it: the politicians; the media—which has
shamefully failed to report so much of
what's actually happening here and
which has exaggerated incidents instead
of looking at the whole picture.
I don't
want to talk more about the media. This is not
about safety and
comfort. This is about a genocide being carried out with American money and with American
weapons against a people that has been
living under occupation for generation
after generation after generation. That's
what it's really about. That's what the
students were about and that's what Faculty and Staff for justice in
Palestine
are about.
What we are witnessing in terms of police repression is a tiny fraction of what people under occupation in Palestine have been experiencing for 56 years.
We are faculty and staff who
believe that our students should be safe—all of our students should be safe. But
the right to protest, the right to free
speech, and academic freedom—which is
being infringed as we speak. University
protocols, the arrangements
that this university made since 1968 to
deal with these things, have been swept
aside in an arbitrary fashion by this administration in response to external
pressure. Shame on this administration.
I repeat one
more time: This is not about Columbia or CCNY or Berkeley or UCLA or any other
place where the students have risen up. This is the conscience of a nation
speaking through your kids—through young
people who are risking their futures,
who are risking suspension, expulsion, and criminal arrest in order to
wake people up in this country. It's
absolutely essential.
Public opinion is
already with us. It's just the
politicians, the media, and the trustees and
administration of this university who
are blind, death, and dumb to the
demand of a moral imperative coming from
our students. Thank you very much.
