AMC’s Response to HUB Sit-In Shows Indifference to Genocide
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By: The Nightly Crew
It’s mind-blowing that someone with a doctorate could be incapable of comprehending the difference between legality and morality. (And yes, there is a difference; otherwise child marriage would be deemed moral in 80% of US states.) In a post to the Presidential Blog, Ana Mari Cauce calls the recent HUB protest a “crime,” which is technically true– graffiti is against the ‘law’– but she reasons that since it’s a crime, it must be immoral, and therefore not a valid form of protest.
This crude logic is Cauce’s only defense against doing “something, almost anything, to try to bring an end to this very real humanitarian crisis,” as she describes. She acknowledges the “mounting deaths, injuries and hunger among civilians, many of them children, in Gaza,” but refuses to use the power she holds to take any action to stop it. Who does she think is blockading Gaza; preventing food and water from getting in? The same government whose officials she pays to host guest lectures. Who does she think is selling the tools this genocide, profiting off its continuation? Weapons manufacturers like Boeing, of which Cauce said, in response to a February email campaign: “Boeing’s support for the UW in time, talent, and funding cannot be replaced by other endowment sources, nor would we choose to sever our relationship if they could be.” Boeing funnels gobs of money into UW, and in return, UW churns out students specifically primed to enter the Boeing workforce. This is more important to Cauce than alleviating suffering in Gaza.
Cauce says it’s her hope that a UW education will help students make their voices heard “in an effective manner.” What does “effective” mean to her? She never gives any sign that student voices have been heard until they do something she feels the need to speak up and condemn. At an institution that does its best to ignore protests, calling for changes that might affect funding “effective” means “disruptive.” All a UW education can offer is indoctrination into the ideology of those in power: the same people, institutions, and governments perpetuating the genocide Cauce claims to be against.
Because of the Daily's monopoly over UW news, their claims of harassment and Cauce's vague allusions to “violent, threatening slogans" are the only information most people have about the event. The action is framed in the worst light possible because it threatens the profits of those who control the media.
HUB front desk reads: "The War Machine Is Oiled in Palestinian Blood."
“The closest thing to ‘violent, threatening slogans’ was stuff like ‘Zionists not welcome’,” a source on the inside told The Nightly. “People were hostile to Daily reporters, but that’s because The Daily receives funding from the University, so all the stuff they put out is super boot-licking and anti-radical. They weren’t there to accurately report on our messaging, they were there to get their big break by writing an outrage piece.”
Cauce ends with a call to continue the “brave and necessary work of engaging in reasoned, civil debate.” Debate over what? Whether genocide is wrong? Whether a ceasefire is necessary? All the conversations students try to start, she shuts down. She refuses to call this “humanitarian crisis” what it is: an ethnic cleansing and a genocide.
Cauce refuses to divest from Israel or even recognize it for the imperialist apartheid state it is. When you say you’re against bloodshed, but you’ve made up your mind not to hold the perpetrators accountable, you’ve already smothered all productive ‘debate.’ It is not “brave and necessary” to restrict all acceptable forms of protest to conversation; it’s cowardly and impotent. Those with the power to create propaganda will always have a monopoly over the narrative, which is why debate alone has never made progress toward liberation. If Cauce wants to condemn all illegal forms of protest, she’ll have to condemn the Civil Rights movement, Stonewall, and the independence of every formerly occupied country (including Cuba, oh wait…). She’ll have to claim that those movements were also “unacceptable and wrong,” “criminal and counterproductive.” She will have to acknowledge that she’s no different than all other counterrevolutionaries throughout history: a coward whose only goal is to protect her own interests, clinging to the flimsy excuse of “respecting the law” or “just following orders.”
Published 4-7-24
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