Science for the People “Canada”: statement of solidarity with international students and migrant workers on the December 18th Day Without Migrants

December 18, 2024December 18, 2024

Science for the People “Canada”: statement of solidarity with international students and migrant workers on the December 18th Day Without Migrants

English / Français

Since the formation of our collective in 2022, Science for the People “Canada” has been built by scientific knowledge workers from many different regions of the world. We are deeply affected by the new wave of attacks on migrant workers and international students, including a total freeze on two major permanent residency streams in Québec. We support the call by the Immigrant Workers Centre-Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants (IWC-CTI) for international students and workers to get organized and fight back.

In addition to endorsing the key demands of the IWC-CTI on the December 18th day of action, we recognize the following:

1. International students from the Global South are increasingly “migrant workers” first and “students” second, with university tuition merely serving as the extortionary price of admission for selling one’s labour in the Global North. In many cases, these labour and migration dynamics are the consequence of a global system of imperialism which, in Canada, serves first and foremost the capitalist class.

2. International students, who comprise 34.6% of temporary immigrants to Canada, serve to prop up Canada’s underfunded education sector. As a result of massive reductions to the proportion of public funding for post-secondary institutions (47% of university operating costs in 2018 compared to 80% in 1990), universities are increasingly dependent on corporate donors and exorbitant tuition fees shouldered by international students, many of whom are seeking a pathway to permanent residency. While tuition for domestic students has remained nearly constant, international student fees have increased by 97.7% from 2006/7 to 2023/24, after adjustment for inflation. International students provide more funding for Ontario post-secondary education than the government does.

3. International students are a growing source of invisible and informal on-campus labour, particularly in labour-intensive STEM fields. International students comprise 50% of doctoral students in the faculty of sciences at UQAM, and 46% of faculty of science graduate students at McGill.

4. A system of stipend-based labour compensation falsely classifies many STEM post-graduate workers as “students” or “trainees” rather than “workers” – despite the fact that, in practice, these “trainees” serve as full-time employees and are responsible for the vast majority of scientific labour within Canadian universities and research institutions.

5. In addition to preventing scientist-workers from unionizing or even understanding themselves as “workers,” the deliberate sleight of hand that classifies students and post-graduates as “trainees” makes the migration status of international students dependent on their continued “good standing” with a particular institution. This helps to guarantee the steady supply of cheap and precarious student-workers with little to no legal recourse against exploitative and unsafe working conditions.

6. International students are also a significant and growing source of precarized labour off of campus. For international STEM doctorates lucky enough to receive a research stipend at all, Québec’s FRQNT stipends are currently a meagre $25,000/year, with many annual stipends set even lower. A growing proportion of international students working full-time in the laboratory or in the field are therefore forced to take second jobs in order to make rent, with 56.7% of international graduate students and 36.3% of international bachelors students reporting a T4 income in 2018*.

7. As of November 15, 2024, international students in Canada are officially permitted to work a maximum of 24 hours a week off-campus on a student visa. However, these limits are often inadequate to the cost of living, incentivizing under-the-table employment, unofficial overtime, and informal job contracts.

8. In addition to exploitative working conditions, international students are vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse. For example, 41.6% of international students from Francophone universities in Québec have experienced at least one incident of sexual violence on campus. The academic sector is characterized by high rates of sexual harassment, which are particularly egregious within STEM.

9. International students are often hesitant to seek support against harassment, attend protests, or join a union or political organization because they fear that conflict with university administrators or law enforcement could impact their immigration status. Exploitative working conditions are exacerbated by language barriers and manufactured uncertainty surrounding one’s political rights and legal protections as an immigrant.**

10. While STEM degree-holders continue to enjoy significant privileges compared to other workers, post-graduate education is rapidly expanding while the post-graduate job market is shrinking, reflecting significant changes to the nature and purpose of the graduate degree over the last 30 years. While a postgraduate STEM degree was once a signifier of class privilege, or a mechanism of so-called “upward mobility” as a ticket to a professional-managerial job, a growing proportion of post-graduate students in Canada are now better understood as precarized, temporary workers, who are expected to perform an ever-growing number of years of informal labour as “trainees” in order to gain access to the formal job market at all. Graduating with an average debt of $41,100 CAD, this new “academic precariat” faces increasingly slim odds of obtaining a job related to their years of specialized “training,” and/or of remaining in the country in the case of international post-graduates.

As scientists and friends of science, these facts compel us to stand in solidarity with all international students and workers, temporary foreign workers, and refugees on December 18th to demand status for all, and working and living conditions that are stable, secure, and dignified. As we suffer the consequences of a nation-wide housing crisis, stipends and salaries that are deeply inadequate to meet the rising costs of living, and a general deterioration of social and economic conditions, we reject the federal and provincial governments’ attempts to scapegoat migrant workers and international students for these problems. We know very well that these economic hardships do not result from immigration, but rather from the systematic underfunding, deliberate neglect, and privatization of public services – carried out by the same political class now attempting to blame immigrants for their own failures. Further, as anticapitalists and anti-imperialists, we recognize that the solution to these injustices, on both the local and global scale, requires organizing for systemic political change by building collective power where we are — in our laboratories, in our workplaces, in our unions, and on the picket line.

Science for the People « Canada »: solidarité avec les étudiant·es internationaux·ales et les travailleur·euses migrant·es pour la Journée sans Migrant·es du 18 décembre

English / Français

Depuis la création de notre collectif en 2022, Science for the People « Canada » a été construit par des travailleur·euses scientifiques venant de différentes régions du monde. Nous sommes profondément touché·es par la nouvelle vague d’attaques contre les travailleur·es immigré·es et les étudiant·es internationaux·ales, incluant un gel total de deux programmes menant à la résidence permanente au Québec. Nous répondons à l’appel lancé par le CTI aux groupes communautaires à nous organiser et à riposter contre ces attaques.

Nous soutenons les revendications du CTI et reconnaissons les faits suivants :

1. De plus en plus, les étudiant·es internationaux·ales du Sud global sont principalement des « travailleur·euses migrant·es » et secondairement des « étudiant·es », les frais d’inscription exorbitants servant de coûts d’admission au pays, donnant aux migrant·es le privilège de vendre leur main-d’œuvre dans le Nord global. Ces dynamiques de migration sont souvent le résultat d’un système global impérialiste dont, au sein du Canada, la classe capitaliste est le bénéficiaire principal.

2. Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales, qui représentent 34,6 % des immigrant·es temporaires au Canada, servent à soutenir le secteur de l’éducation sous-financé du pays. En raison de réductions massives dans la proportion de financement public des institutions postsecondaires (47 % des coûts de fonctionnement des universités en 2018 contre 80 % en 1990), les universités dépendent de plus en plus des dons provenant des entreprises et des frais de scolarité exorbitants payés par les étudiant·es internationaux·ales, dont beaucoup cherchent à obtenir une résidence permanente. Alors que les frais de scolarité pour les étudiant·es domestiques sont restés à peu près constants, les frais pour les étudiant·es internationaux·ales ont augmenté de 97,7 % entre 2006/07 et 2023/24, une fois ajustés pour l’inflation. En Ontario, les étudiant·es internationaux·ales financent davantage l’éducation postsecondaire que ne le fait le gouvernement.

3. Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales constituent une source croissante de travail invisible et informel sur leur campus, particulièrement dans les domaines à forte intensité de main-d’œuvre, dont les STIM (sciences, technologie, ingénierie et mathématiques). Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales représentent 50 % des doctorant·es en sciences à l’UQAM et 46 % des étudiant·es des cycles supérieurs en sciences à McGill.

4. Un système de rémunération basé sur des bourses fait en sorte que de nombreux·ses travailleur·euses des domaines STIM sont faussement classé·es comme des « étudiant·es » ou des « stagiaires » plutôt que comme des « travailleur·euses » — alors qu’en pratique, ces « stagiaires » remplissent les fonctions d’employé·es à temps plein et assurent la majorité du travail scientifique dans les universités et centres de recherche.

5. En plus d’empêcher les travailleur·euses scientifiques de se syndiquer ou même de se reconnaître comme des « travailleur·euses », le tour de passe-passe délibéré qui classe les étudiant·es des cycles supérieurs comme des « stagiaires » engendre une dépendance de leur statut migratoire sur leur statut d’étudiant·es « en règle » au sein de leurs établissements. Cela garantit un approvisionnement régulier de main-d’œuvre bon marché constituée de travailleurs·euses précaires peu enclins à contester des abusives conditions de travail.

6. Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales sont également une source importante et croissante de travail précaire hors campus. Pour les doctorant·es internationaux·ales en STIM qui ont la chance de recevoir une bourse de recherche, les bourses du FRQNT au Québec s’élèvent actuellement à un maigre 25 000 $/an, avec de nombreuses bourses annuelles fixées encore plus bas. Une proportion croissante d’étudiant·es internationaux·ales travaillant à temps plein en laboratoire ou sur le terrain sont donc obligé·es de prendre un deuxième emploi pour payer leur loyer : 56,7 % des étudiant·es internationaux·ales des cycles supérieurs et 36,3 % des étudiant·es internationaux·ales en premier cycle ont déclaré un revenu T4 en 2018*.

7. Depuis le 15 novembre 2024, les détenteur·ices de visas étudiants au Canada sont officiellement autorisés à travailler un maximum de 24 heures par semaine hors campus. Cependant, ces seuils sont souvent insuffisants face au coût de la vie, ce qui leur mène à travailler au noir, à faire des heures supplémentaires non officielles, et à accepter des contrats informels.

8. En plus de ces conditions abusives de travail, les étudiant·es internationaux·ales sont vulnérables au harcèlement et aux abus sexuels. Par exemple, 41,6 % des étudiant·es internationaux·ales des universités francophones du Québec ont subi au moins un incident de violence sexuelle sur leur campus. Le secteur académique est marqué par son haut niveau de harcèlement sexuel, surtout dans les domaines STIM.

9. Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales hésitent souvent à demander de l’aide, à participer à des manifestations ou à rejoindre un syndicat ou une organisation politique, craignant que des conflits avec l’administration universitaire ou la police n’affectent leur statut migratoire. Ces conditions de travail sont aggravées par les barrières linguistiques et par le fait que les patrons cultivent l’incertitude par rapport aux droits et aux protections légales en vigueur.**

10. Bien que les détenteur·ices de diplômes STIM bénéficient encore de privilèges importants par rapport à d’autres travailleur·euses, le nombre d’étudiant·es en cycles supérieures augmente rapidement tandis que l’offre d’emploi se raréfie, un signe que des changements majeurs par rapport à la nature et au but des cycles supérieurs sont survenus au cours des 30 dernières années. Alors qu’un diplôme supérieur en STIM représentait autrefois un signe de privilège de classe ou un mécanisme de « ascension sociale » vers un poste professionnel, beaucoup d’étudiant·es en cycles supérieures au Canada sont maintenant classé·es comme des travailleur·euses précaires et temporaires, qui doivent s’attendre à ce qu’iels aient à travailler de plus en plus longtemps de manière informelle comme « stagiaires » afin d’accéder au marché de l’emploi formel. Avec une dette moyenne de 41 100 $ CAD, les membres du nouveau « précariat académique » font face à des chances de plus en plus minces d’obtenir un emploi en lien avec leurs années de « formation spécialisée » ou de rester dans le pays.

Le 18 décembre, en tant que scientifiques et allié·es de la science, nous nous tenons solidaires de tou·s·tes les étudiant·es internationaux·ales, des travailleur·euses étranger·ères temporaires et des réfugié·es, et exigeons un statut pour tou·s·tes ainsi que des conditions de travail et de vie stables, sécurisées et dignes. Alors que nous subissons une crise du logement, des bourses et des salaires profondément insuffisants face à l’augmentation du coût de la vie et une détérioration générale des conditions sociales et économiques, nous rejetons les tentatives des gouvernements fédéral et provinciaux de faire des travailleur·euses migrant·es et des étudiant·es internationaux·ales des boucs émissaires pour ces problèmes. Nous savons très bien que ces difficultés économiques ne résultent pas de l’immigration, mais plutôt du sous-financement systématique, de la négligence délibérée et de la privatisation des services publics — orchestrés par la même classe politique qui tente aujourd’hui de blâmer les migrant·es pour ses propres échecs. De plus, en tant qu’anticapitalistes et anti-impérialistes, nous reconnaissons que nous ne pourrions contrer ces injustices qu’en luttant pour un changement du système politique et en construisant une puissance collective là où nous sommes — dans nos laboratoires, nos lieux de travail, nos syndicats et sur les piquets de grève.

Pour en lire plus :

Rapport du Sénat sur les conditions des étudiant·e·s internationaux·ales (Senate Report on International Student Conditions)

L’état de l’éducation postsecondaire au Canada 2024 (The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada 2024)

Références :

* Un revenu T4 correspond à toute rémunération versée par un employeur à un employé au cours d’une année civile, à l’exclusion des bourses et des subventions. Le pourcentage d’étudiant·e·s internationaux·ales de niveau postsecondaire recevant des feuillets T4 est passé de 17,6 % en 2000 à 46,6 % en 2018.

**Pour plus d’informations :
Les dessous obscurs de l’éducation internationale (The Shadowy Business of International Education)

Les étudiantes internationales : le rapport sur une main-d’œuvre invisible.(Women International Students: The Invisible Workforce Project Report)

November 18, 2024November 18, 2024

Statement on the Results of the 2024 Presidential Election

The New Haven chapter of Science for the People invites all scientists, tech and academic workers in Connecticut and beyond to join us in the struggle against capitalism, the reactionary politics that undergird it, and the false promise of liberalism as a political alternative. The only real alternative is to establish vibrant anti-capitalist mass organizations.

Trump returning to the White House signals a serious decline in the ability of liberalism to justify itself as a progressive political alternative to reactionary conservatism. For decades, liberalism and conservatism have operated as two faces of the same coin: hand-in-hand they propel capitalism forward by inertia, if nothing else.

As such, we see that liberalism fails again and again to secure even the most basic protections for abortion access, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community, a weakness that will now be exploited by Trump and his neo-fascist cronies.

What does this mean for scientists, for whom liberalism is often the political partner to the perceived progress of science?

First we should ask: what has liberalism offered to science as a human endeavor?

Our view is that liberalism has duped scientists again and again. While budgets for vital basic research recede and scientific activity is further cordoned off into private firms with no accountability to the public, liberals have turned a blind eye to the impending climate catastrophe and placed science in deeper subservience to the military industrial complex. This makes scientists the stooges of capitalism, imperialism, and ecological exploitation against their will, the consequences of which have become devastatingly apparent as the genocide in Gaza proceeds uninhibited with the full support of the Democratic Party.

Moreover, as science continues to become a more diverse profession, the oppression of people with marginalized identities will not only hurt our friends and colleagues, but undermine scientific work by making the discipline even more precarious for many people.

How can scientists resist this depravity and build a better alternative?

We compel scientists to realize their role as agents in class struggle, rather than elite, individual, and politically disaffected actors.

Science is a social endeavor, driven by the combined efforts of vast numbers of people working diligently across the globe. The products of science form the basis of the modern world: technological advancements most often start in publicly-funded laboratories. But most scientists have no control over how the products of their research are used. Our disciplines are driven by university administrators, venture capitalists, and the boards of tech companies. Scientists are thereby made more and more into proletarians: cogs trained in the academic machine to which we must submit in return for a paltry wage, insufficient benefits, and no social safety net.

We do not have to accept this fate.

We should accept that the conditions of science are deteriorating under the stewardship of liberalism, and with them the conditions of life on Earth. We believe this ought to compel scientists to recognize that their fate is intertwined with that of all proletarianized working people, in the so-called US and around the world. If this is true, it’s about time we start acting like it!

Scientists need to organize within the working class, and we offer Science for the People as a home for all scientific workers to begin to organize in opposition to capitalism, the false hope of liberalism, and the depravity of conservatism and neo-fascism.

This means that scientific workers need to rebuild the infrastructure of working class institutions in their workplaces, their apartment buildings, and in their communities. Whether we are fighting for better wages, reduced rents, or against imperialism, we should be cohereing these struggles into a unified political movement against capitalism and for socialism.

Join us … You have nothing to lose but your chains!

May 17, 2024

SftP Canada in solidarity with campus encampments

Science for the People (SftP) Canada stands with student-led encampments for Gaza that have arisen across Turtle Island (North America) and around the world. We condemn the militarization of campuses and the accompanying police violence against protesters, the defamation of student organizers by university administrators and politicians, and the violent attacks on students by Zionist vigilante groups.

Students with a passion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are refusing to work in the service of occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Futures of AI are experimentally tested in occupied Palestine; legacies of racial science live on in eugenicist anti-Palestinian slurs; technological research assumes the inevitability of capitalist domination of the globe. But a generation of students dreams of an anti-imperialist science. We owe them the work of dismantling the histories that link militarism, scientific progress, racial science, and settler colonialism. We must reimagine STEM for liberation.

Our universities all express their commitment to “reconciliation” with the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. Yet, these same universities not only suppress their role in the genocide of the Indigenous inhabitants of the lands upon which they are built, but, through their financial and academic support of the Zionist occupation, are also actively complicit in the ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous Palestinian people. The struggle for Palestine is entwined with the struggle for the liberation of the Indigenous nations of Turtle Island.

Universities in North America have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with their peers in Gaza and cut their ties to illegal occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Since 2004, a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups and unions, including the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, has been calling for a cultural and academic boycott of Israel, and it is long past time for higher education institutions in North America to heed that call.

We unite in support of students’ demands on universities:

to disclose investments in Israel’s ongoing violations of international law
to divest from companies and institutions complicit in the occupation, apartheid, and genocide of Palestinians
to remove police from university campuses
to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation and genocide in Palestine
to endorse academic boycotts of Israeli universities, including study abroad programs, fellowships, seminars, and research collaborations.

Most importantly, SftP Canada unites with the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation and genocide in Palestine.

October 28, 2023

La lucha palestina es nuestra lucha: Declaración de SftP

Mientras lamentamos las vidas perdidas debido al recrudecimiento de la violencia contra Palestina y sus gentes nos preguntamos en profundidad, ¿por qué está pasando lo que está pasando en Gaza?

El Ministro de Seguridad Nacional de Israel, un ultranacionalista instigador de la violencia condenado ocho veces, incluso por cargos de disturbios y apoyo a una organización terrorista, a quien en su día se prohibió servir en el ejército israelí, está al mando de su aparato de seguridad.

El Ministro de Finanzas de Israel declaró su intención de “ser cruel”, habló de los palestinos como “animales humanos” y estableció el plan para privar a Gaza de alimentos, combustible y agua.

Gaza, hogar de dos millones de personas, la mitad de ellas niñas y niños, y que desde 2007 es una prisión al aire libre sitiada por el Estado israelí de extrema derecha, está ahora mismo bajo bombardeos aéreos incesantes que exponen a la gente y al medio ambiente a sustancias químicas tóxicas como el fósforo blanco.

El Primer Ministro de Israel dejó claro el objetivo de su gobierno de evacuar a 1,1 millones de palestinos en el norte de Gaza, lo que, según él, es “sólo el comienzo”. Se trata de una masacre y limpieza étnica premeditadas.

Los gobiernos de Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, Francia, Italia y Alemania rápidamente prometieron su “apoyo firme y unido” a Israel, cuyos líderes ahora están ayudando y apoyando este genocidio.

Esta injusticia histórica no ha ocurrido de forma aislada. Es la culminación de un proyecto sionista de un siglo de duración facilitado por la clase capitalista en todo el Norte Global a través de la máquina de guerra militar-industrial que se beneficia de la desposesión y destrucción de la tierra palestina. A través de los principales medios de comunicación que se alimentan de la deshumanización del pueblo palestino, borrando su historia y convirtiendo los sentimientos de humanidad en pretextos para la barbarie. A través del desarrollo tecnocientífico (del que todo el aparato científico-tecnológico es cómplice y nosotros y nosotras como trabajadores del mismo, también), financiado y canalizado para reforzar el aparato de apartheid de Israel. Y a través de la hipocresía del mundo académico occidental, que, a pesar de todos sus valores profesados de “antirracismo” y “descolonización”, continúa aceptando y legitimando la colonización.

Por lo tanto, es nuestro deber como miembros de Ciencia para el Pueblo –una organización nacida de la lucha contra las atrocidades estadounidenses en Vietnam, con predecesores que lucharon contra el apartheid en Sudáfrica, contra los regímenes fascistas en toda América Latina y, sobre todo, contra el imperialismo estadounidense– tomar medidas concretas en este terrible momento y plantar las semillas del cambio revolucionario.

1) Como científicos y científicas, debemos educarnos con análisis profundos y exhaustivos de la historia, las circunstancias y las estructuras. La lucha contra la colonización siempre ha sido librada por personas de todas las etnias y religiones, y al sionismo históricamente se han opuesto líderes, científicos y activistas judíos de izquierda. Nos solidarizamos inequívocamente con el pueblo palestino y condenamos los más de setenta y cinco años de crímenes sionistas que han desembocado en este genocidio.

2) Como trabajadores y trabajadoras dentro del complejo académico-industrial, los productos de nuestro trabajo son subsumidos por fuerzas sistémicas y utilizados para la guerra, lo que nos impulsa a reflexionar sobre nosotros mismos y las instituciones para las que trabajamos. ¿Cuánta financiación ha recibido nuestra institución de fundaciones con objetivos explícitamente sionistas? ¿Se relaciona esto con la insensibilidad hacia estudiantes palestinos que recientemente se han manifestado en sus instituciones universitarias sobre los acontecimientos que se desarrollan en Gaza? ¿Qué técnicas, ideología o ambas simultáneamente (como en el intento de biologización de la raza judía) se han desarrollado en cualquier campo de estudio, bajo las limitaciones impuestas por nuestro propio sistema colonial, para mantener el status quo? ¿Cómo han sostenido el Estado israelí y sus aliados occidentales la noción de “progreso” en nombre de la ciencia para enmascarar el retroceso de su colonialidad? Este momento revela la urgente necesidad y oportunidad de lograr un mayor nivel de conciencia política entre científicas y científicos. Debemos acelerar este proceso.

3) Como activistas y promotores de actividades sociales, la reflexión sobre nuestra complicidad apenas alcanza el mínimo requerido. ¿Qué podemos hacer como organización para apoyar materialmente la causa palestina? ¿Qué podemos aportar a los y las compañeras en primera línea que están resistiendo los abusos racistas y orientalistas? ¿Cómo podemos resistir la apropiación de la ciencia y la tecnología por parte de los colonizadores? Dentro del mundo académico, somos testigos de cómo se ahogan las voces pro Palestina y de que aquellas personas que se atreven a hablar contra el genocidio son procesadas, despedidas o silenciadas en beneficio de los intereses políticos y económicos del Estado de apartheid israelí y de las corporaciones transnacionales que se benefician de la ocupación. ¿Cómo conectamos nuestra propia lucha de clases contra el complejo académico-industrial con la defensa local de los derechos palestinos y los movimientos de liberación global? Existe una necesidad urgente y una oportunidad de educar, movilizar, organizar y proteger a quienes dicen la verdad, de luchar contra el sionismo y de desarrollar la militancia sindical e internacionalista entre las clases oprimidas.

La lucha palestina es nuestra lucha. La ciencia insurgente exige de sus practicantes claridad de pensamiento y coraje para actuar. SftP hace un llamamiento a todos los miembros y simpatizantes a buscar colectivamente estrategias concretas hacia la liberación de Palestina.

October 16, 2023October 28, 2023

Palestine is Our Struggle: SftP Statement

En Español | يمكنك قرائة هذا البيان بالعربية هنا

As all of us mourn the lives lost to the latest upsurge of violence, how do we appropriately understand what has been happening in the past few days in Gaza?

Israel’s National Security Minister, an ultra-nationalist instigator of violence convicted eight times including on charges of rioting and supporting a terrorist organization, once prohibited from serving in the Israeli military, is now in command of its security apparatus.

Israel’s Finance Minister declared the intent “to be cruel,” spoke of Palestinians as “human animals,” and enunciated the plan to deprive Gaza of food, fuel, and water.

Gaza, an open-air prison under siege by the extreme-right Israeli state since 2007, home to two million people, half of them children, is now under nonstop aerial bombardment that exposes the people and environment to toxic chemicals like white phosphorus.

Israel’s Prime Minister made clear its government’s aim of emptying out 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza, which he claims is “only the beginning.”

This is a premeditated massacre and cleansing of an Indigenous population.

The governments of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany all quickly pledged their “steadfast and united support” of Israel, whose leaders are now stepping up their implementation of genocide.

Such historic injustice has not occurred in isolation. It is the culmination of a century-long Zionist project facilitated by the capitalist class across the Global North: through the military-industrial war machine that profits from dispossession and destruction of Palestinian land; through the mainstream media that feed off dehumanizing the Palestinian people, erasing their history, and turning sentiments of humanity into pretexts for barbarity; through technoscientific development—which we as scientists and engineers are complicit in—funded by and funneled into bolstering the apartheid apparatus of Israel; as well as through the hypocrisy of Western academia, which, for all its professed values of “anti-racism” and “decolonization,” continues to acquiesce to settler-colonialism.

It is therefore our duty as members of Science for the People—an organization born out of the struggle against US atrocities in Vietnam, with predecessors who fought against apartheid South Africa, fascist regimes across Latin America, and above all, US imperialism—to take concrete steps in this dark moment and plant the seeds of revolutionary change.

1) As scientists, we must inform our politics through deep and thorough analyses of history, circumstances, and structures. The struggle against colonization has always been fought by people of all ethnicities and religions, and Zionism has historically been opposed by left-wing Jewish leaders, scientists, and activists. We stand unequivocally in solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemn the seventy-five plus years of Zionist crimes that led to this genocide.

2) As workers within the academic-industrial complex, the products of our labor are subsumed by systemic forces and co-opted for war, which prompts us to reflect on ourselves and the institutions we work for. How much funding has an institution received from foundations with explicitly Zionist aims, and does this correlate with the callousness toward Palestinian students in recent university statements on the events unfolding in Gaza? What techniques, ideology, or both concurrently (as in the attempted biologization of the Jewish race) have been developed in any given field of study, under constraints set by our own settler-colonial system, to uphold the status quo? How has the notion of “progress” in the name of science been propped up by the Israeli state and its Western allies to mask the retrogression of their coloniality? This moment reveals the urgent need and opportunity to achieve a higher level of political consciousness among scientists. We must accelerate this process.

3) As activists and organizers, reflection on our complicity barely reaches the minimum of what’s required. What can we do as an organization to materially support the Palestinian cause? What can we contribute to our coalition partners at the frontline that are weathering racist and Orientalist abuses? How to resist the appropriation of science and technology by the colonizers? Within academia, we witness pro-Palestine voices being drowned out and those that dare speak out against genocide being prosecuted, fired, or silenced at the behest of political and economic interests of the Israeli apartheid state and transnational corporations that profit from the Occupation. How do we connect our own class struggle against the academic-industrial complex with local advocacy for Palestinian rights and the global liberation movements? There is an urgent need and opportunity to educate, agitate, organize, protect those who speak the truth, push back against Zionism, build labor militancy and internationalism among oppressed classes.

The Palestinian struggle is our struggle. Radical science demands of its practitioners clarity of thought and courage for action. SftP calls on all members and supporters to collectively pursue concrete strategies toward the liberation of Palestine.

Category: official statement