University of Victoria Walks Out for Palestine

About 440 activists, students and staff members alike, walked out of class at the University of Victoria, to denounce the institution’s tacit endorsement of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and to demand divestment from weapon manufacturers fuelling the conflict in the region.

The attendance gathered outdoors at the centre of the campus, in an area known as the Quad. A small group of counterprotesters showed up early, draped with Israel flags; their own numbers never exceeded ten. While hostile exchanges occurred between factions in spite of the wardens’ vigilance, no outright scuffles ensued.

Speakers who climbed the steps today denounced the university’s stance contrasting with academic values. A former History teacher in particular pointed out that targeting academic institutions and pilfering cultural artefacts, which Israel is accused of, runs counter to any conscionable university mission—starting with UVic’s own commitment to support the rights of indigenous people worldwide.

A dormant group of students called Divest UVic, originally opposing investments in fossil fuel companies, took the megaphone to announce its resurrection, with a new mission to end the UVic Foundation‘s investments in corporations profiting from the genocide, chiefly BlackRock, a notorious multinational investment company holding shares in weapon manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

Roughly half of participants then marched across the campus. Counterprotesters taunted them but nobody took the bait and instead left them behind. Their destination was Starbucks, also a boycott target for retaliating against a union for posting in support of Palestine on social media. There about seventy draped themselves in sheets stained with mock blood, in a repeat of die-in protests across town in the past few months.

While nobody outright blocked the main entrance, prospective customers were strongly discouraged from passing its threshold; of the two who attempted, one was amiably dissuaded with a couple handshakes, while the other was instead shamed away. Some others nevertheless made it into the café via the adjacent library’s entrance indoors, to the dismay of protesters.

While whether boycotting Starbucks significantly hurts the corporation’s bottom line remains debatable, there can be no question that the impact can be felt on the ground. The Starbucks location on Douglas and Yates, targeted weekly by the marchers from the Legislature, has been closed for the afternoon for the past several iterations of downtown protests. As for the UVic location, it certainly sold a few less coffee cups today, and probably will tomorrow.