Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest!
On the 14th June the Shut BAE Down campaign led a walking tour of 3 of the student encampments in North London. The brave students have been leading the charge against the British establishment’s complicity with the racist genocidal Israeli state’s ongoing assault on Gaza and we at the Shut BAE Down campaign spent the day showing our support and solidarity as well as highlighting BAE Systems’ infiltration of the UK’s universities.
The day started off on a sombre note at the LSE encampment. The students had just left court with the news that the encampment was going to be evicted by the university. Instead of conceding to the students very simple demands the LSE establishment instead chose to use legal force to deal with the encampment that it deems a problem showing their true, shameful colours. Despite this bad news we went ahead with our plans and kicked off with the speaker from our campaign, Jamil, who pointed out LSE has £89 million of complicit investments with £877,282 million specifically in BAE Systems, reminding us all exactly what type of education establishment LSE is.
After that the tour moved to the SOAS encampment where Alex from the Shut BAE Down campaign spoke. We learnt that despite divesting from all arms companies in 2005 SOAS is not bereft of complicity in genocide. It is partnered with Haifa University, built on stolen land, and has £1.8 million invested in other companies. We learnt that the SOAS encampment was also being threatened by the University establishment, but they were determined to stay put, with many students continuing to build and strategize while they listened to the speeches.
Finally we finished at UCL where Shut BAE Down speaker Mimi told us how BAE systems currently sponsors the UCL Centre for Ethics and Law, a fact that almost sounds too ridiculous to be true. In the past UCL has also run a unique degree course for students – an MSc in systems engineering management – which was “a joint development” with BAE and BAE currently supports PhD studentships at UCL’s Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. This is proof that it is not just through investment that arms companies can worm their way into our schools.
Other speakers at the stops on our tour included various student protestors, Nina from the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninists) and Pam from Jewish Voice for Labour who provided informative political and historical information to further our understanding of divestment and how we can make it come about. The day was a reminder about the power of the students and the specific reason the encampments are there, to make sure these places of learning are no longer invested in companies like BAE Systems. Please continue to support the students in any way you can in this endeavour. Long live the encampments! Long live the student Intifada!