Introduction

I’m a member of the Students and Faculty for Democratizing Arizona State University and a former member of the Revolutionary Communists of America. This article analyzes the 2024 ASU encampment in support of Palestine. Although I’m pro-Palestine, this is not a moral condemnation of the cops and ASU bureaucracy which crushed the encampment.

I was involved in the encampment last spring. I wasn’t arrested, but I know people who were. It failed to achieve all of its stated goals. This critique is meant both to analyze what went wrong last spring and what can be done to develop a more robust structure and strategy for the future.

I interviewed several students involved in the encampment. To conclude, I propose possible methods of organizing for the future and ask research questions to study the movement more generally.

Interviews

First, I interviewed Michael Clancy, a protester arrested at the encampment and suspended for a semester from ASU. He became aware of it through friend groups rather than formal organizations. I asked him how most students viewed the encampment. “If the average person went to the encampment and just hung out, that would give them a good view. My best friend is…kind of a centrist. He showed up after I was arrested and spoke very highly of it, just because the vibes were good. For the day, it was an area of community we don't experience very much.” Though ASU claims to support free speech, students and professors alike feel that the university has created an environment of repression. “I know of professors, tenured professors, that have alluded to me that they are afraid to talk about even academically related topics about Palestine out of fear of reprisal.“ Next I asked about the encampment’s goals. “The long term goal, for many people, was end the genocide, and for some, decolonize Palestine. In the short term, it was direct action. We should cultivate a culture of resistance and support of oppressed people.”

I explained my former org’s view of the encampment and its goals such as the formation of committees and spreading the movement to the workers. “‘Committees’ are up to interpretation…some people would be skeptical of who's populating these committees. If the main people advocating for these committees are certain organizations, then its probably going to be more representative of the leaders of these organizations, instead of the encampment as a whole.” I mentioned the 1968 protests which caused a general strike in France. “Once you have this area you've claimed, you gotta keep going. Of course, other encampments chose to occupy buildings. You could also go around to other businesses, and the people working at those businesses are students. There is an opportunity there for a wildcat action.” Finally, I asked where the movement was headed. “Slavoj Zizek once said that in desperate times, you shouldn't act, you should think. When I first heard that, I was very resistant to that. Like, you're just going to sit on your ass and do nothing? But…how should we orient ourselves, knowing that [the protest is not over], learning lessons and learning to organize better… I've become more comfortable with [the Zizek quote]. The way I got arrested, is that I felt like it's finally happening. After 6 months of genocide, it's finally happening!...I got wrapped up more in the emotion of it than the actual point.”

I elaborated on the questions of structure and strategy. “In the morning, we didn't have plans, we just setup and hoped the cops would only show up after we built the encampment. I think we really underestimated how combative the police would be right off the bat…we didn't really prepare for the worst.” He was critical of the organizers. “The best thing that an organizer can do is remind [students] that, as a matter of fact, you are responsible for yourself. No one will or should bark marching orders at you that will tell you exactly what to, and we can talk about what the role of the quote-unquote ‘organizers’ or ‘leaders’ are, but they were not prepared.”

Next, I talked to Viktor Rogers, another protester unorganized at the time of the encampment. I asked him about its goals. He said that “it was to divest from Israel and also just to protest the government to stop supporting it. The other thing was to get the attention of [Michael Crow].” I asked about the RCA’s proposal for committees. “It's very optimistic. I might be very pessimistic about a lot of movements because I had a lot of optimism about BLM. It was only able to get minute change…little changed at the national level.” I asked if the movement achieved its goals. “It definitely sent a message to the university, although I think they took the wrong message…it was a moment of hope for me.” I asked him which organizations had the best strategy. He was unsure. I concluded by asking about the future of the movement. “People are more focused on issues in America than overseas…There are the seeds for change, but movements like these take years to change things.”

Finally, I interviewed an anonymous member of the Democratic Socialists of America and YDSA at ASU who was also arrested and suspended a semester. He aligned with the left of the DSA which was highly critical of the Democratic party. He found out about the encampment through YDSA, days before and followed news about other encampments. I thought it was the Phoenix PD which crushed the encampment, but he clarified, “there were 3 different police groups: the Tempe PD, the ASU PD, and the Department of Safety.” I asked which organization was the most effective. “I gotta give it up to Mass Lib for helping me get out of jail.”

I asked about the RCA demands. He thought the demand for mass assemblies was realistic but felt pessimistic about the other demand. “I’d love [spreading the movement to the workers] to happen, but in Arizona?...we couldn’t even get [the right to work campaign] through because it was organized by the DSA.” I told him I didn’t think the IMT had enough trust to achieve either demand. He agreed, “I remember hearing about abuse allegations in Canada.” He criticized Trotskyism for being sectarian and compared the DSA to the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party from which the Bolsheviks eventually split.

He thought the encampment should’ve done more to center Palestinian American voices but acknowledged they also faced risks due to discrimination and citizenship status. I told him I recently went to a protest against the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a protester in the Columbia encampment, by ICE. I believe this may reignite the movement.

We agreed that mutual aid played an essential role in the encampment’s social reproduction, and he thought this would play an important role as the movement retreats. However, this would be hard. “The way the valley is, we’re all spread out…people say it’s easier for socialism to take root in an area that’s densely populated.” He grew up in the middle class suburbs of East Mesa and talked about poverty in West Mesa. Currently, he works for the Center for Work and Democracy, which researches groups like the Service Employees Industrial Union.

My experience

I had a mixed experience with the encampment. It inspired me to have hope but didn’t deliver on its promises. I detailed my experiences with the RCA as it related to the encampment in another article$^1$, but I’ll summarize the key takeaways.

In the RCA, I was tasked with leafleting throughout the encampment. One leaflet was the RCA’s program for the encampment. The other advertised its Nakba day event, which was mostly planned by the RCA. Ultimately, I barely explained the leaflets while passing them out, and I doubt many protesters actually understood the RCA’s position.

The program made many good points. I tried to explain it in my interviews, but it wasn’t actually implemented at the encampment. Protesters didn’t trust the RCA enough for it to work. The RCA didn’t do much to materially help the encampment.

The second leaflet was an ad for the RCA’s protest. It was large but overhyped. It took place after the encampment was crushed, after many were demoralized. Worst of all, it took place in the hot Arizona summer. Passing out leaflets took away time from more immediate questions relating to the encampment.