The General Union of Palestine Students Stands with SFSU Ethnic Studies
First and foremost, we would like to acknowledge that we are currently standing and becoming educated on Indigenous Ohlone Land. As Palestinians, we are experiencing the vast and violent nature of the West through systemic forces of imperialism and Zionist colonization of Indigenous Arab Lands. We understand the struggle of land, sea and air; and that standing for one Liberation movement is also inherent to our own.
The General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) at San Francisco State University (SFSU) stands against the systematic demolition of The College of Ethnic Studies. This college has encouraged, educated, and liberated the young minds of intellectuals from those who carry their ancestors on their backs, the present and will continue to do so in the future. We have a duty to uphold that legacy, it can’t be erased from our histories. We will defend Ethnic Studies. We will advance Ethnic Studies, and we will win.
The CSU system has been increasingly underfunded and there is no denying this. However, the specific targeting and isolation of the College of Ethnic Studies is not only a direct assault on students of color, and the college itself; it is a direct statement by the University, telling us that our communities, history and people do not hold value to the narrative of SFSU. We, the General Union of Palestine Students, do not and will not believe that the cuts are unintentional. They affect the entire student body, as much as they have affected our college. It’s quite disconcerting that the only college in the world dedicated to Ethnic Studies, located in one of the most “Progressive” and one of the only “Sanctuary” cities in the United States, is being directly targeted, along with our student organization, by our administration and the nation state itself.
GUPS has been on this campus since the 1980s and every step of the way the university has not missed out on any and every opportunity to sanction and penalize GUPS. Why is it that whenever we speak about Palestine or even bring up the illegal workings of the colonial, settler state of Israel, we at GUPS find ourselves continuously targeted and marginalized? Not only by ASI/CCSC staff, but also by third party groups that have attacked and worked with the institution to systematically silence our voices and presence. When the voices are constructed for justice and equity and to challenge the Zionist settler colonial state of Israel. It is fact that the university consistently places both uniformed and undercover campus police at every GUPS teach — in, cultural events, demonstrations, rallies, community actions and civil movements. We are constantly faced with artificial roadblocks directed at and intentionally targeting social justice organizing. The rules are even changed to limit, contain and stop our activities.
We, the General Union of Palestine Students, are the last standing GUPS chapter in the United States. We are integral to the SFSU community. We are part of the student body of 5,000+ that stand in solidarity with The College Of Ethnic Studies, that demand a transparency of President Wong’s proposed budget cuts to the college. We have witnessed and experienced the role of Ethnic Studies within the student of color community, which would not have been possible had it not been for the role of the College of Ethnic Studies in our lives and communities. The college, not only has guided us in our history and the narrative of our people, but it has tied us back to the strength that we carry on our backs, bones and bodies from our ancestors.
AMED: the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies program has been a direct outcome of community demands for educational programming that we need as students. It comes out of the spirit of ’68 and the struggle for Ethnic Studies. Without the AMED minor, we would not have an understanding of the repercussions that our people face in times of war, colonization and imperial hegemony that often propagates the narrative of Arab terrorism and spreads the logic of Islamophobia. Without any university funding and the constant attacks that our professors and education endure, how will we as young people be able to succeed in our futures and create tangible change that we want to see reflected in our world? We need a real operating budget for AMED and we need support for professor’s office staff, and student TAs. This is long over due. Professor Rabab Abdulhadi came into the university in 2007 under the premises that she should be building a new program with a team of people and that this one of a kind program that was proposed would be supported. Since her arrival, she remains the only full faculty for the program and has faced significant backlash from off-campus Zionist groups. The university responded to those attacks agreeing with the ridiculous and unfounded lies as well as accusations of anti-Semitism. We have suffered as a result of these attacks and there have even been several unnecessary university audits and investigations that prove again and again that this smear campaign was “unfounded” in the words of President Wong. And on top of that, it took a whole year for the administration to announce these results publicly. The smear campaign remains on SFSU’s PR website. We want protection by the university from all attacks and smear campaigns that are being conducted by external as well as internal forces.
If SFSU is a hospitable space for our communities, which was fostered as a result of the 1968 strikes; then we want to see real and not cosmetic changes. We want an end to the targeting of all Palestinian activity and pro-Palestinian students on this campus. We want all offices for the student organizations within Cesar Chaves Student Center including LFS/PACE, GUPS, MEchA, La Raza, SKINS, BSU, MSA and PIC to be fully equipped with new technology and furnishings so that our young people can engage with each other and our communities. We also demand that ASI gives us a tangible budget that is allocated to student organizations and is more inclusive.
“We can not fight for our rights and our history as well as future until we are armed with weapons of criticism and dedicated consciousness.”
Edward W. Said
