McGill encampment supporters reflect on the ups and downs of a week in protest

The sun was shining and the leaves were coming out of their buds Friday afternoon as a relative calm reigned over an encampment set up by pro-Palestinian student protesters on the front lawn of McGill University's downtown campus. 

The day before had been misty and grey, and filled with relentless noise from opposing protests led on one side by the students and pro-Israel groups on the other. Chants on loudspeakers flooded the campus grounds, while upbeat music in Hebrew filled Sherbrooke Street. 

"The calm today is reassuring, but it also highlights a lot of contrast from yesterday's protests," said Ghayas Osseiran, 24, who had studied politics, philosophy and economics at the university.

Osseiran, sitting on a blanket underneath a tree near the encampment on Friday, said he was a supporter of the student protesters. He was among many on campus trying to process the events of the past week. 

"Morale is good. It's nice to have a calmer day," said Ari Nahman by text, a Concordia University religions and cultures student and Independent Jewish Voices member, who was among the first protesters to set up camp at McGill on Saturday.

Days earlier, Nahman had pointed out the dark circles around their eyes when asked by a CBC News reporter about the intermittent rain, lighting and thunder that punctuated several of the camp's days and nights. 

The bad weather seemed to accompany other pressures the pro-Palestinian student protesters faced to leave: the university administration's staunch opposition to their presence from the start and an injunction request filed in Quebec Superior Court Tuesday on behalf of two McGill students accusing the group of antisemitism and asking a judge to prevent them from protesting near McGill buildings.

Several university encampments and occupations in the United States faced aggressive police intervention and mass arrests this week, including UCLA in Los Angeles, the University of Texas in Austin and Columbia University in New York, adding to apprehensions on the Montreal campus. 

By Friday, some of the American education institutions had begun to show openness to encampment demands. Brown University, Northwestern University and the University of Minnesota all made commitments to discuss their investment policies in exchange for protesters to take down their camps. 

Wednesday, McGill president Deep Saini offered to hold a forum to discuss students' demands, but was met with skepticism from protesters, who said they wouldn't budge until the university pulls investments in companies such as Lockheed Martin, a weapons manufacturer with direct ties to the Israel Defence Forces and Safran, a French air defence company.

But Mayada Elsabbagh, a McGill professor at the school's medical faculty who has been supporting the students' encampment, said she felt hopeful McGill would do more than it has in the past in response to similar demands — "especially after the success of the rejection of the injunction that happened in courts a few days ago, which demonstrated without doubt that this form of protest is both democratic, legal and should be welcomed in our institutions."

An event with performances and talks by academics and artists took place near the encampment around noon. Later, a workshop was held by the Kanien'kehá:ka Kahnistensera, also known as the Mohawk Mothers, a group who has been calling on McGill to let them search for possible unmarked graves at a former Montreal hospital site the university now owns.

"I'm really touched and impressed by the students' ability to organize things on the fly," Elsabbagh said. "We, as activists, were not as well informed and eloquent, as what I'm seeing in this advocacy movement today."

Elsabbagh said this year's movement was linked to other global struggles, including climate change.