The worst thing that happens when you demonstrate peacefully on Høyden is that a flagpole is dismantled. Finally, the students take advantage of it.
The last time there have been several demonstrations on Høyden. Two weeks ago, Stopp oljeletinga organized several protests against the University of Bergen’s agreement with Equinor. Now the group Students for Palestine is camped outside rector Margareth Hagen’s office.
Thursday 2 May started what is planned to be a two-week-long demonstration at the Muséplassen, with several demands for the university management. Since then, the days at Høyden have been characterized by Palestinian flags and continuous megaphone calls.
It is not only in Bergen they demonstrate. At the country’s largest universities, students are now living in tents.
The demonstrations have so that is to say allowed to stand undisturbed, as is right and proper, and which is also in line with freedom of assembly.
The only reaction the protesters in Bergen have faced is the dismantling of a flagpole outside the principal’s office. It happened because the demonstrators raised the Palestinian flag, which is contrary to UiB’s internal flag instructions.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in “the land of the free”, the situation is completely different.
The student revolt for Palestine, which has inspired Norwegian students, started in the USA. There, the students face much greater resistance.
Sunday 5 May NBC News could report that over 2,300 students have been arrested at around 70 different campuses in recent weeks.
At the University of Arizona police have used tear gas against the protesters.
At Columbia University in New York there has been so much fuss that they have decided to have digital teaching for the rest of the semester, and are dropping this year’s diploma ceremony.
Although the situation is different on the around 70 campuses, and the riots in some places have escalated in clashes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students, it is clear that there is a lower threshold for demonstrating on campus in Norway than in the USA. Here we encounter less resistance from both the university management, the police and dissenters.
One can discuss up and down and in your opinion whether a boycott is the right way to go. But the protests may seem to have got through. Had the Faculty of Law at UiB, for example, terminated its exchange agreement without the students’ involvement?
Historically, it has the student uprisings had a great impact on public opinion. Then we should be happy that a dismantled flagpole is the only reaction that meets student demonstrators here at home.
Finally, the students in Bergen are getting involved!
Tags: dismantled flagpole victory
