Shout silently

Focus on protestation camps, in England.

Protest camps remain a peaceful way to speak out, to be closer to people who are curious to know more and there is the idea of the long term stay by recreating a space to live in and most of the time, by choosing a place in relation to the protest. There is also an idea of unity and hope in the fact that these camps are proliferating all over a country and have remained for months. But unfortunately, institutions and government don’t see it that way.

I’ve been in England: Cambridge, Leicester, Sheffield, London, Bristol, Liverpool, New Castle, and wonder why students use camps for express their thoughts and constat how a camps can still continue to exist after students are gone.

Context : Since October 7, many university students from around the world (United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, etc.) have organized protest camps against universities and their leaders. They accuse universities of being complicit with Israel in the war in Gaza, by carrying out and assisting in technical research on new weapons. Students are asking their universities to break with Israel through demands (see document and photo). They use the camps to protest these demands:
"It's a way of being here in front of them, every day, every night and in a very visible way to many, we have signs, graphs, documents, we are here, we can discuss, everyone can understand more easily the reason for our presence.”, “It is also a constant visual reminder for the university, it has also helped at university open days, educational awards and graduations” , “Basically, it makes the university look bad that we're here to tell everyone how evil and complicit she is." Also, teachers have been questioned in classes (for some they "don't show up at the camps”, ) and some at camps about their positions, they “don’t want to lose their jobs by sharing their thoughts."

Today, leaders of some units defend the insecurities and rights of other students to benefit from an ideal exam environment. "In theory, we thought that because they wanted us gone, they would listen to our requests... but they haven't done that yet". We can see the paradoxical construction between the solid knowledge that we believed we had and the reality that manifested itself, through an ephemeral installation.

Many of the camps are closed now, and we can still see the way the spaces live, patches of dry grass, rabbits going about their lives, new grasses. Some universities put up barriers to “protect” the spaces, giving them time to erase the places where students come.

Manifestations is necessary but those installations can show how calmly but deeply protest could be to. And annoying the government and institutions more by showing, lighting by taking the time to tell some trues stories

#sit-in #bed-in #peace