On 11th June 2024, the following conversation was held with two student members of the Sussex Liberation Encampment at the University of Sussex. The encampment is an autonomous student collective fighting to end the University of Sussex’s complicity in genocide and apartheid. At the time of publishing, the camp has currently suspended and intends to return in some form in the new academic term.
In a recent statement they describe themselves as follows:
Sussex Liberation Encampment has been set up by an autonomous and growing group of students, to pressure our university to end their complicity in genocide, apartheid and settler colonialism.
We believe we have a responsibility to the people of Palestine to mobilise ourselves into collective action and student solidarity, here in Brighton, and across the world.
The conversation took place in the recently renamed Liberation Square, roughly one month after the encampment was established. You can find out more about the encampment on their Instagram.
Sussex Red: I thought a good place to start would be to ask you to describe the encampment, it’s origin, it’s purpose, and how you each became involved in it.
Student B: I started out at forums about Palestine, and having been involved in various student activism on campus. It became increasingly known that the university was refusing to denounce it’s active participation. I got speaking to other activists and I naturally became involved in it. We focused on finding information about the university’s complicity, and finding out about its investments and ties to other institutions. It spiraled out from that, and here we are!
Student A: I think also with the national trend in universities was going towards setting up encampments. Sussex was actually a bit late to the game. It felt like the most effective form of protest. Groups of activists came to the decision that we need to set up an encampment as it was the best thing we can do for our aims.
Student A: On day one there was a rally and we can quickly jumped in tents in the square. We established it as our own zone, and we changed the name from Library Square to Liberation Square, and also after a martyr named Aysar Mohammad Al-Safi. From there it just kind of grew and grew and grew because it is right in the middle of the university during the exam season. Everyone walks past here. We have some people who were already involved in lots of campaigns; Pal Soc ran demos every week. Then also a lot of people who were like “what’s going on” who came to talk to us and didn’t realise how bad it was. It was really surprising just how many people came and were shocked at how bad the university’s complicity is. A lot of people were shocked to find out just how much money the university has in military industry.
Student B: It came at a really pivotal point where we had just had all the violence in the US against the protestors and the encampments. It was happening in Europe as well. We were seeing universities across the UK, like Trinity College successfully had an encampment. It felt like at that point, this was the way to reach our demands.
Sussex Red: You were talking there about the information on how complict the university is. From what I understand there was an open letter that preceded the camp. So this was that a progression from the open letter to the May 13th demonstration and setting up the encampment?
Student B: May 13th was when we launched [the encampment]. But before that there had been campaigns with the anti-racist group to disclose and divest. We took that and added them to our seven formal demands.
Student A: It came at the point where the student’s union (SU) held a referendum. Every year the SU hold referendums on what they should lobby the university for. The campaign leading up to that referedum immediately came before the camp launched: on whether the SU should lobby the university to divest. A few days in the camp the referendum passed. The UCU also held a vote where 95% of its members voted to have the UCU formally take a position against the genocide. It felt like it followed on from a massive flood of support from all these bodies, staff and student both. It was the right time to use that momentum, and really hammer it home to the universtiy that this is wrong and we won’t let it slide.
Student B: It has continued to snowball in the most incredible way. Today we are over 500 signatures on our letter. And we’ve had Jews Against the Occupation, the Kehillah, and so many different groups just pouring support which has been amazing.
Student A: The support from staff and students has been absolutely incredible. Every day it’s people coming and asking “what can we do for you?” People who can’t camp are always offering all the support they can. We have such a diverse community here as well. We have lecturers from across the university, people who have nothing to do with politics. There’s astronomy lecturers who are like “let me cook for you please”. It’s brilliant. It’s so steady. Our worry was that it would die off quickly, and it’s not. It’s grown and grown and grown.
Sussex Red: That’s great! You were talking about about the information you gathered about the university. I saw a figure [of the universities investments in israel] that was in the millions. Can you talk a bit more about that?
Student B: It’s £60,000,000 in Barclays, and £20,000,000 in Blackrock. Those are the two largest. But there’s is millions outside of that in so many other companies. There’s also indirect investment in Boeing, Caterpillar and survillence companies. There are careers links with the arms trade. It’s been a real maze to put it all together and we aren’t the only encampment to experience this. It’s such a web of investment.
Student A: This is also only the investments that we currently know about as the university has refused to disclose its investments. It’s likely worse than this. Aside from the direct investments, there is also links with israeli universities and research links. For example, the psychology department is doing research that is used to inform interregation methods. So that’s another one of our demands: to cut ties with israeli institutions as part of the academic boycott.
Student B: There’s a lot of stuff to be unveiled about companies that maybe you wouldn’t even think are involved. The Barclays campaign has been going on at Sussex for decades. There used to be a Barclays branch on campus and that has gone now. But the university continues to invest in them. It’s a real shame that they don’t continue to listen to students.
Student A: The university has a long history of partnering with awful institutions and companies. The most recent on housing development on campus, East Slope, was built by Balfour Beatty. They were blacklisted from the government’s procurement list for human right’s abuses. But the university has given them a £200,000,000 contract to demolish the cheapest accomodation on campus and build West Slope. They also outsource all of their estates to Mitie who run a lot of the border detention centres in the UK, and they’re just quite a repugnent company. So the university has a long history of partnering with these kind of institutions and companies. What we’ve learned just reconfirms that.
Sussex Red: One of your demands is about disclosing all of the investments, because at the moment you might have a slice of it but there could be a much bigger picture. Would you be able to go through your other demands?
Student B: We have seven formal demands. They came around as we were discussed whether we wanted to do camp and how we wanted to approach it. One of our demands is to fly the flag of Palestine over Sussex House as we’ve noticed that there is a real double standard as they flew the Ukrainian flag. It’s easy. We would provide the university with a flag to do it. They choose not to. Another one of our demands is to denounce israel’s colonial genocide. Again, if they can denounce Russia, and they can denounce South African apartheid, then it feels like a natural step that they would denounce israel but they’ve failed at that. Then, disclosure and divestment work: these were two initial demands of a lot of previous campaigns on campus. We have access to some information about investments because we can do freedom of information requests and we can see a lot of things in there, like financial statements. But that’s only direct things, we can’t see full details. The university is not actively recognising that they think it’s wrong. With divestment, they active use our fees to fund these. We don’t want that in our name.
Student A:
- Disclose all investments.
- Divest from complicity in genocide.
- Invest in Palestinian student’s academic institutions. (The universtiy has categorically failed at protecting its vulnerable communities.)
- Protect the freedom of expression and end repression of pro-Palestinian voices. Tthis has been a problem on campus for a really long time. There is a racist double standard that the university maintains.)
- Denounce israel’s colonial genocide of Palestinians. (The university has been peddling an inaccurate line that they can’t take a side on “complex international issues”, but the did that when Russia invaded Ukraine. They quite often retrospectively take a side, whilst actively at the time shutting down student movements.)
- Uphold the academic boycott and cut ties with israeli higher education institutions.
- Fly the flag of Palestine of Sussex House as was done for Ukraine.
Sussex Red: You mentioned there about the university’s stance of remaining neutral on “complex topics”. Is that the only response you’ve had from the Vice Chancellor Roseneil? I saw there was the open letter and the Vice Chancellor responded to the open letter. Is this neutrality stance all you’ve had?
Student A: Publicly that is all they are willing to say so far.
Student B: We’ve had more internal communication with the Vice Chancellor than she’d let on to publicly. It’s very limited. There is no movement on any demands. Not even simple ones like flying the flag. The public stance is that they respect the right to peaceful protest and that they respect the right to be here as a camp, but at the moment they don’t seem prepared to act on our demands. However we saw a bit of a public turn of the tide the other week when we did a picket outside an academic freedom of speech forum on campus. The Vice Chancellor was there talking about academic freedom of speech, and Sussex’s goals for the future. We felt that it was natural that we would be there, as we are exercising our right to free speech and academic freedom. We engaged in an entirely legal, peaceful protest outside of the forum and we were accused of harrassment and abuse by the Vice Chancellor, which feels like a contradiction of her messaging since she’s talking about free speech on campus.
Student A: She routinely peddles this line of saying the university supports the right of students to protest but that they don’t want anything remotely disruptive… but we are protesting!! And really if we did cause disruption it’s quite minor. We read speeches, we chalked facts, numbers and investments on the floor outside the forum, and we leafletted her colleagues. It was a really disgusting response to peaceful protest. It served to enflame already existing tensions, and painted us, as much of the media does, as these crazy, aggressive protestors, when we are actually a nice friendly bunch!
Student B: We have not engaged in anything illegal and we’re not violent. It feels like it’s an attempt to paint us in a negative light. They say they support our right to be here, but then they call us harassers. The university has asked us multiple times to reframe from mask wearing because it’s “intimidating”. We have highlighted that this is ableism and Islamiphobia, and they failed to recognise and responsed to that.
Student A: They’ve really taken a quite awful line there. They fail to recognise that we are an intersectional camp. We are standing up for all people at the same time. We have a lot of people here who are immunocompromised and suffer from various disablities. To say that wearing a mask is intimidating is so plainly ridiculous. This university, for all the right reasons, mandated mask wearing for years, I don’t think that was considered intimidating. But apparently when you hold a Palestinian flag and wear a mask that’s intimidating. It’s just cold, hard racism and ableism.
Sussex Red: So on the one hand they say they respect your right to protest, but on they other hand they would like you not be doing this at all, and are ready to throw the kitchen sink at you to find reasons why you shouldn’t be doing it?
Student B: It feels like on paper they are in support, and then it’s an attempt to constantly undermine us. It is something that can always be expected when dealing with institutions that are so tied up with the arms trades and investments in genocide. It’s a shame that this is the line they choose to take when we’ve seen that they’re actively profiting off of past moments like anti-apartheid South African protests and Vietnam war protests. We’ve seen the university continue to profit off of this, so it’s a shame that this is a line they continue to take.
Student A: For a very long time the university has tried to paint themselves as a progressive institution. They use it on a lot of the marketing materials. They bring up the Mandela scholarship which was a scholarship for South African students. The only reason that scholarship was ever created was because students fought tooth and nail to secure funding for it. The university was so reluctant that they said they’d only do it if students fundraised half of it themselves. Now, after apartheid South Africa, we have the Vice Chancellor flying to South Africa to talk about how progressive Sussex is, and how strong the anti-aparthid movement was. They actively tried to shut it down when it was around. The university has a pretty long history of treating protests awfully. About ten years ago there were big anti-privitisation protests. [The student gestures to a nearby pole with a spherical camera attached to it.] That’s why this camera was put in place in order to track protestors with facial recognition technology. The previous Vice Chancellor, Adam Tickell, who is now Vice Chancellor at Birmingham University, has actively tracked the political activities of the alumni who were involved in on-campus activism. This is just another event in a series of awful ways of treating activists on campus who aren’t doing anything wrong. We aren’t breaking any university rules, we are being polite and respectful, and we’re trying to engage with the university, but they’re not giving us that back. It’s really disrespectful. It shows where their interests are. They won’t put their money where their mouth is.
Sussex Red: For my reference, that camera you mentioned - is that called the Sussex Eye?
Student B: Yes. It’s a constant survillence measure against all activity on campus. It has very strategically watched us for the last month. It’s been used to look at protests before. It’s a shame it’s come to that.
Sussex Red: In regard to the Sussex Eye, and the response from the university and the campus: I saw on your Instagram a few weeks ago that you had put a sign up and campus security came and tore it down. What’s that relationship with campus security been like?
Student B: It feels like that was an outlier incident, however not one that we take lightly. We displayed a poster on a sign outside our encampment with the name of a martyred child. Six “estates and facilities” people came and agressively tore it down, and verbally abused a student. They put the sign in the bin. It’s feels like a real low, no matter your political affiliation, to tear down the name of a dead child.
Student A: They didn’t talk to anyone. They just showed up and did it. When we got in contact with senior management we were told that they did not have permission to do it. No one told them to do it. A ticket had been put in by someone to get rid of it. They just went down as a gang of six of them and did it. They tried to paint us as aggressive and they tried to claim that there was a gang of us talking to them although there was only one person there asking what they were doing. Apart from that, the security have taken quite a hands-off approach. We’ve had a few run-ins with them. They didn’t like that we chalked the library. [The library wall reads “FREE PALESTINE”]. As you can see, it looks absolutely beautiful with the chalk on it. They have come in every now and then to say stuff. They have taken a very hands-off approach, which is the university’s approach generally, to try and wait us out.
Sussex Red: So where we are at the moment in regard to Palestine: we are a few days after the massacre in Nuseirat and two weeks out from the tents massacre as well. America and Britain continue to enable and support this, and, as you are rightfully pointing out, so do British institutions. I’m interested to hear from your perspective how you understand the encampment’s role in that very big picture. It’s much bigger than any of us three.
Student A: The focus of the encampment is really situating our role on the university campus. Our focus is primarily on getting the university to divest, rather than taking an overtly political stance. We don’t endorse any parties, we don’t endorse any candidates. Our sole aim is to cut the chain where we can reach it, which is university’s pumping our money, our tution fees into morely repugnant companies, investments and research link. I see the encampment place in this bigger picture as really focussing our attention where its most useful. Ultimately we are student’s on campus and our university is complicit. I think our role is to reach that chain, to grab it, and to cut it where we can.
Student B: I think it’s so important to hold space at a university. We keep the university going. We fund it. We put ourselves into debt for this. It feels important to hold physical and emotional space for recognising that. I think that we can’t allow senior management, staff and students to not think about it. They need to think about it all the time because some people don’t have a choice. I feel that we are so accountable as a movement. Depsite our very personalised demands to the university, we are accountable to the people of Palestine. It’s important to hold a fully intersectional space for joy and culture sharing, but also for grief and for rememberance. It’s not all easy. We have really fun workshops, but its not always like that. It’s important to hold that space.
Student A: This space is really important as a collective community, where people can come together regardless of who they are. Not just to learn together, which has been a big part of this, I have learned so much being here. But also a place where we can mourn together and grieve together. Emotions are high here. It’s very difficult not to feel hopeless. Part of our place in this broader movement is to have this place where people can come to together in solidarity with people facing a genocide. Not just to show their support but to mourn for them and grieve for them. That’s why it’s such an important space, especially for our Palestinian community at Sussex. The university have treated them absolutely reprehensively, and have sought to dismiss them at every corner. This space is just so, so important.
Student B: The university has been intentionally divisive and has tried to pitch this as an issue that’s “so far away” that we don’t need to be involved, and that therefore they can’t take a stance. They’ve also tried to pitch it as a Jewish and Muslim issue, which is just objectively false. The university repressing Palestinian voices in the name of protecting Jewish voices is incorrect. We make a space for all voices, and the university can not continue to divide people like that.
Student A: This is a space for everyone. We are an open group. We want to have the difficult discussions, but the university makes that very difficult when the paint us as harassers and intimidators, despite having never spoken to us. They don’t know who we are. They want to paint us in a very divise way. We are here not just for one type of person, we are here for everyone. That include people who disagree with us, we want to have difficult conversations. We want to have an open dialogue.
Sussex Red: Am I right to say that the encampment has been around for month now?
Student A: Four weeks yesterday.
Student B: 13th June will be a month.
Sussex Red: Congratulations on that! What’s the progression been like from day one? You had the demonstration and ran out with the tents. How has it changed in that month since then?
Student B: I think we really went into it with no idea. We launched Monday 13th May. It was almost the feeling of: if we get to Friday that will be crazy. We got to Friday and we were like: we’re here. And then it was another week. It’s obviously not been without challenges, but it’s been so encouraging that we’ve lasted a month. There was a peace camp in town, and we’ve spoken to people from that. We had no idea or expectation of timeframes, and I don’t think they did either. I think you never can with things like this. We didn’t know how the university was going to react. As far as we’re aware we’re the first tent encampment at the university. So it’s not like we’ve got a gauge to go off. But everyday that we remain, it feels like a victory. I now I feel that there is more people than ever, more morale than ever, the sun’s out, and it’s lovely. We get overwhelmed with donations. It’s been incredible to see the constant expansion to see and the real diversity of people.
Student A: At the start, a big step for a lot people, including me, was actually coming here. But we’ve built such an amazing community with people from all walks of life. It’s amazing to see people come together. We’ve built such an open and friendly community with some of the most amazing people. It’s something the encampment should be so proud of because it wasn’t easy to get to this point. We’ve had a few setbacks, like when the wind destroyed two of our gazebos, or when the rain destroyed all our tents. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve built something that’s here to stay. Even when the camp’s no longer here. The friendships, the solidarity, and the people power we’ve built here. And how many people now know about the university’s complicity. When people walk through here they’re just like “Wow, this is going on?”. Everytime that happens we’ve gained a comrade, and someone else has learned just how awful this situation is. I think that’s something that’s really amazing to see.
Sussex Red: You mentioned about the peace camp in town, which was the Brighton Peace Camp against L3Harris’ extension. The council recently backed down from the that, so there was a victory there against the extension at least. Was there any continuity between the two camps? When I saw about the camps, I wondered if there were students involved that decided to move to campus.
Student B: We exist as separate entities. They are a peace camp with a specific set of demands, and we exist as a liberation zone for our specific university demands. But I think that the solidarity there is important. We fully support their demands, and, having heard from them, they back us. Any movement that is fighting for the Palestinian cause is one that we will back and support.
Student A: We’ve had a lot of people who were involved in the peace camp come and share their solidarity. And their advice, because we need it.
Sussex Red: It’s like you were saying before, even the encampment’s existence in general is building something for everyone involved in it. You are all building those bonds of solidarity, and learning from eachother. There’s something there that will exist beyond the encampment for sure.
Sussex Red: You have the support of the Sussex UCU branch, could you speak a little more to staff’s involvement in the camp, and the response from students and staff?
Student B: I think there’s a long tradition of staff solidarity on this campus, with staff being so supportive of student movements. That’s just been echoed. We’ve had the teach outs, with an outpouring of people who want to do them. People just want to provide for us so much. It’s been really amazing. Every morning we had the same staff walk past to wish us luck and charge our things. It’s little things like that. I’m sure someone doesn’t think a lot of taking a power bank to their office and charging it, but it means so much in the bigger picture.
Student A: It’s really what keeps us going. It was the staff who cooked our meal today. The staff have just been absolutely fantastic. Most of our teachouts have been from staff. The UCU have been absolutely incredible in throwing their weight behind us. As well as the student’s union who have endorsed the camp officially.
Sussex Red: Yeah, I see on your Instagram every day there’s a schedule of things going on. And in terms of the day-to-day organisation of the camp, I get the sense that there is a committee that is organising that. What does that look like?
Student B: We exist on a flat level. Once someone is inducted into the camp, they have as much power as anyone else. We have people based on past specialties or engagement with things that organise specific things, but anyone can be involved in the day-to-day running of the camp. We encourage that everyone is involved.
Student A: We run sub-groups. We have a meals group, and anyone who wants to help getting meals sorted, can be like “Hey I know someone who can cook a big bowl of pasta on Tuesday”, and then they can come and help with that.
Sussex Red: A couple of weeks ago, I saw the encampment realeased a joint statement with students from Essex about the arrested students in Oxford. Could you talk to what your relationship has been like with other encampments?
Student A: On Saturday, some of us from Sussex Encampment went to the national march for Palestine organised by PSC. We joined the student bloc, and we linked arms with others from about ten other encampments. We’ve been in contact with a lot of the other encampments to share knowledge and advice. Through other Palestinian solidarity organisations we’ve been trying to get as many links as we can with other encampments so that we can learn from eachother and share our experiences. It been really good to see how all the encampments have supported eachother. Not just with messages of solidarity, but also at the protest standing arm in arm together. Because ultimately we are all fighting for the same thing. Until every university has had their demands met, it’s not finished.
Student B: To echo that, we’re fighting the same fight of educational complicity. Even if Sussex obeys all our demands, there’s still so many other universities that haven’t. An action against one person or one encampment, is an action against us all. We fully stand with people who been arrested and encampments that have been taken to court because we recognise that these are risks. They are risks that, from the start, we have been willing to take because we believe in the cause.
Sussex Red: Moving on to some final questions: in the month you’ve been here, is there one specific event or moment that stands out to each of you that was the most inspiring? Or one memory you have so far that stands out to you as something really positive from the camp?
Student B: Honestly for me the most inspiring thing is just seeing the way that someone can just show up with no real knowledge of what is going on, and then to share dinner with us and have a conversation. Just being that space for that. They can be educated on it. The day-to-day passing conversation has been the most inspiring thing. And people bringing there family and friends down has been the best thing for me.
Student A: I agree with that. Everyday feels so profound here. So much goes into just having people here, and people taking time of their busy lives to come and show support. One thing that really stood out to me, a day after one of the massarces at the tent camps, we did an impromptu vigil. Afterwards we all grabbed one of the benches, and chucked them in the middle of the square. We shared a meal together. We all sat down together and shared how we were feeling about what was going on. It’s something we felt grateful for. That was a really powerful moment for me. It showed how strong the power of community was by coming together, being able to grieve together and share a meal together, and really open up to eachother about how we felt about what’s going on.
Sussex Red: It’s like you were saying before, even just the encampment existing and you all being here is a massive thing in of itself. In regard to the local community, if someone is hearing about this for the first time, how can people help out?
Student B: Time is the biggest thing that people can offer. Just coming to the camp is such a powerful thing. Even if someone is here for ten minutes and they have a cup of tea, it’s another body on camp which is powerful. People coming to camp and having those conversations is such a powerful way to engage.
Student A: Come down and say hello. Talk with us. It means so much, even the small things mean so much.
Sussex Red: This is a broad question that may not have any answer to it. You’ve got your seven demands, and there’s an amount of fluidity you have to have in order to get them. What’s your vision for winning your demands? Are you envisioning the camp as it is sticking it out as long as it takes, or do you have plans for escalation?
Student B: I think we recognise that some of the things that we’re fighting for have been decades in the making. Like divestment and ending repression, these things are not new. The people who currently exist on the camp have no intention of giving up on our demands. Our strategies might change over time. And they have, you know. We went from having meetings and putting letters out, to a camp. That felt like a turn. If something else happens, then we’ll make another turn. For the forseeable future the camp is here, we have no intention, no matter if the camp ceases or not, to give up on the demands.
Student A: Each of those demands is equally important. They are all deeply interlinked. As it stands right now, we are fighting for all seven of our demands. As long as it seems like its appropriate we’re going to stick with the plan.
Sussex Red: So just a final question, again it’s very broad one. I’m really keen to contextualise all this in Palestinian liberation. From the perspective of the encampment here, what would your message to Palestinians be?
Student B: We’re fighting this fight because we believe in the value of Palestinian lives in a way that we recognise institutions and governments don’t. We are willing to sacrifice things for it, and proudly do so. As a camp we recognise that we are so accountable to Palestinians, it’s an honour, a real honour to be able to. We do talk about the ending freedom of expression, but we are aware that we exist in a context in which our freedom of expression is so much greater than many others. A message is: this is for you, and we’re not just going to give up on it and back down.
Sussex Red: That was the end of my questions. Is there anything either of you want to say in closing, or anything you’d like to cover that the encampment would really like to get out there?
Student A: Come and say hello!
Student B: Honestly just come along, even if just for five minutes. If you can’t come say hello, drop a message on Instagram. Anything is appreciated. It would be nice to meet more people.
Student A: We’re waiting with open arms.