SSMU hosted a municipal election debate, an effort to educate our membership on their mayoral candidates and to encourage informed and responsible voting. But the debate never happened, because a campaign to disrupt the event silenced the questioning. They chose not to direct their grievances towards political leaders with the potential to make real progress, but targeted the moderator, Interim Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning), a women not responsible for the investment decisions, curriculum choices, or the outcomes of student disciplinary proceedings of the University.

Perhaps the disruptors were attempting to spark conversation by “teaching” administration a sort of lesson, using Angela as their instrument. And there is a conversation I have been meaning to have for a while, so i’ll entertain it.

Here’s their lesson: when speaking before political leaders with genuine influence to make the change you want to see, the Palestinian solidarity movement was reduced to uninformed and entirely performative. When you were given the opportunity to submit questions, you didn’t, and when you were given the opportunity to inquire about candidate’s position on Palestine, you didn’t. You demonstrated that allies are uninterested in real change.

Protest that is disruption and meant to prevent discussion is only useful when the topic of concern is excluded from that conversation. What you have done is ensure a candidate’s position on Palestine is not part of the conversation, because there is none, only the sound of your own voice.

You reveal that the true interest of the “ally” is attention, and not for Palestinians.

Sure, protests are often disruptive because they have to be, but this event gave you an opportunity to engage constructively. You were given a seat at the table. Your refusal to engage in constructive dialogue in favour of voicing your grievance against the moderator is not protest.

Incase it wasn’t clear, there was zero meaningful change that resulted from that performance. We did not learn anything new about the candidates, but they left with an impression about the nature of activism at McGill. That it is disorganized, unfocused, and void of any purposeful outcome.

I share my brutally honest comments because these actions reaffirms administrators attitude that disruptive protests are merely unproductive, and I want to push ourselves to think more intentionally about our action. Otherwise, the outcomea of our efforts remain stagnant. As for the Palestinian cause, until we engage more purposefully, we enable ridicule over reform.