What sets the encampments apart from the many other demonstrations for a free Palestine following October 7th, is an explicit prefigurative politic – the spirit of the world we are fighting for had begun to manifest in these demonstrations, and a unity of theory and practice seemed imminent. Discussion in many encampments began with the pursuit of Palestinian freedom – the incomprehensible brutality displayed by Isreal in the explicit genocide of the Palestinean people and the anti-colonial nature of Palestinian struggle already encompassed a radical critique of capital and imperialism. Still, it became quickly evident that the struggle in Palestine was a burden shared by all, that none could be free so long as another was chained. Various student organizations and youth movements connected their particular struggles to Palestine; shared experiences of colonial exploitation in the Philippines, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Kenya, and many others across the world, transforming particular experiences into the universal.

The inclusion of myriad struggles did not dilute the movement for Palestinian freedom, rather, the student’s revolutionary fervor rose to a fever pitch. In the fight for a free Palestine, protests realized the connection between capitalism and imperialism. Students at prestigious institutions who had only a vague notion of a world beyond capitalism had become completely disillusioned with the future they were promised – instead many would loudly and clearly support the encampments despite a campaign to paint anti-zionist demonstrations as inherently anti-Semitic. A smear campaign known as the Canary Mission attempted to demonize protestors and jeopardize the careers of students, revealing personal details of protestors to the public and painting them as violent antisemites, but once the first encampment at Columbia had been established, fear of the smear campaign had all but disappeared. The student’s futures that the canary mission threatened were all but forgotten, a wave of radical activity had catalyzed a change – a new world seemed to appear on the path toward a free Palestine.

Escalating Repression and Resistance

Hope for a new future emerged in the encampments stemming from the radical goal of Palestinian Freedom  – but this hope did not only remain in the minds of student organizers, it burst forth into concrete activity at the founding of the encampments. The American University is brimming with contradiction – espousing values ultimately opposed to itself and the state. It is no wonder that students sufficiently fed up with the complicity of the University and state in the Palestinian genocide would dispel the alienation that contains and directs all possible rebellion within avenues defined by the powerful. The administration was not consulted when the encampments were organized, instead, students took space the University suggested was for the students and truly made it ours. There could be no administrative oversight for the form of the encampments – it was entirely determined by its participants. To an extent, the creative capacities of the students in shaping the world around them had been liberated – and this taste of freedom was invigorating. Artistic creativity flourished at many encampments, each a collage of various mediums thematically connected by the negation of the status quo and a demand for Palestinian freedom. Many encampments established libraries and held informal lectures and classes, providing food and shelter as needed – all without financial barriers. Critical thought thrived in the new university; the air was heavy with chatter breaching all varieties of studies, searching desperately for a better way to leverage knowledge commandeered from the university, for the good of the people.

Though the encampments didn’t have the power and scale to seize production or expand significantly outside of campuses, nor were they able to function without the immense support of many who brought supplies and helped fund the demonstrations – they were powerful enough to shift the social paradigm for its participants. Many, myself included, had despaired at the horrific and brutal footage reported by the many brave Palestinian journalists documenting the genocide in Palestine and felt anger and frustration at our helplessness. Every day seemed to herald new horrors from Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza. As death tolls climbed, new footage revealed the depths of the IDF’s depravity. The so-called “most moral army in the world” was consistently responsible for the slaughter of civilians offering little discretion or restraint in their bombardments of hospitals, schools, and refugee camps.  Despite the rapidly dwindling popularity of American support for Israel’s war effort, all our protests from within the belly of the beast seemed to hardly register dismissive pause from the powers that be. Until suddenly, mere student protest seemed to merit extreme contempt from the state – where we had so desperately sought to make any difference at all we suddenly faced the full force of the state’s righteous violence. Despite the sudden danger of protest, the constant heckling, and many slanderous attempts to dissuade students from participating, in the encampments a congregation of radicals tirelessly working towards change offered some reprieve from the inhumanity of daily life. The insanity and cruelty of the world were finally affirmed, and it felt as though we had begun to reject it and threatened to go as far as building an alternative.

The encampments held within them, however small, potential for a new future – and this posed a potential threat to capital. In response to the student demonstrations, massive state repression was unleashed – a cartoonishly disproportionate violent response was mounted against the students, first at Columbia, then at USC, and all across the United States. Mass arrests and police violence exploded across campuses almost as quickly as the encampments themselves, accompanied by unsubstantiated justifications for state involvement – allegations of “outsider involvement” becoming as ridiculous as “Hamas-controlled” campuses. The impressively organized media campaign within the encampments made clear their demands; students would refuse to disperse until their particular universities would disclose and divest from military investments in Israel, and further urge the federal government to pause weapon shipments to Israel. These plainly articulated demands were wholly ignored in favor of the narrative painting students as outsiders, Hamas operatives, and a litany of other slanderous and othering names. In response to unabashed violent escalation by the state, the encampments prepared accordingly – barricades were erected in an attempt to protect students from police raids, and they managed to be incredibly effective as well – students across multiple encampments had managed to de-arrest comrades and weather attempts to dismantle their demonstrations. Some encampments had grown increasingly militant as well – but for all their organizing efforts the bombing of Palestine had not ceased and arms continued to flow steadily from the United States to Israel. At the very least, the narrative had begun to shift – no longer could the IDF deny the catastrophic scale of their assault on Gaza – their intentional targeting of infrastructure and their attempts to block aid and starve the remaining Palestineans, this further energized students to protest. As weeks passed camps eventually were swept – but at first, they did not stay down for long, organizers had managed to regroup consistently, and in some instances, escalate resistance. Buildings were taken and renamed after Palestinian martyrs and the encampment at Cal Poly Humboldt had managed to entirely physically stop classes – taking over the entire campus and refusing to leave until a police raid swept the encampment on May 1st. The tenacity and determination of student organizers were admirable, but as the encampment movement was continually surveilled, heckled, and battered by state violence; reckless media coverage and capital coordinated a critical attack on the UCLA encampment.

On April 30th, UCLA released a statement asserting that the encampments were unlawful. After the campus administration had tacitly approved the violent removal of the encampment, at 11 pm that evening, a mob of right-wing counter-protestors and fascists numbering between 100 and 200 would assault the camp – bashing against barricades, dragging students out of the encampment to beat them, and launching fireworks at those they could not pull out from within. All while campus police stood by, frozen by cowardice or signaling silent approval of the violence. LAPD was mobilized 3 hours after the extralegal attack began, finally arriving at 3 am, welcomed by the cheers of fascists whose hands were still bloodied from brutalizing students. Though the fascist mob would begin to disperse shortly after the LAPD arrived – no arrests were made. Instead, the very next night, LAPD raided the encampment clad in riot gear and armed with rubber bullets, resulting in the arrest of 200 students and professors charged with unlawful assembly. Between the pitiful inaction of campus police, whose supposed purpose is to protect students, and the refusal by the LAPD to arrest or reprimand the criminals responsible for putting the lives of students at risk – it is clear that the zionist fascist response to student demonstrations had received implicit support from the state.

However, the collaborative attempt to dismantle the UCLA encampment by fascist counter-protestors and the state would provide an opportunity to reify/connect labor and Palestinian freedom. UAW 4811, representing 48,000 academic workers, would strike. This strike made clear its focus – the workers charged the University of California administration with the crimes of creating an unsafe work environment and limiting free speech. It is telling that the New York Times reported

University of California officials say that the strike is unlawful because it’s not related to labor issues and that the union is trying to pressure the system to concede to a political agenda.

The union had struck a nerve – workers, and students connecting labor and anti-colonial struggle was evidently a problem the empire could not ignore, especially after the same union had made massive strides for academic workers in the last year. Thus, the legal status of the strike was pummeled by myriad lawsuits focused on dismantling protections for striking workers. Unfortunately, the state would manage to legally delegitimize the strike – though some workers within the union attempted to call for a wildcat strike, energy and turnout remained low, ultimately defeating the strike. However, just as previous victories for labor had laid the groundwork to connect labor and international struggle, the aborted strike had expanded the potential of union action for even conservative organizers. Demands greater and more ambitious than higher wages began to faintly appear within the grasp of labor. The state had brutalized students at the encampments, stood by as fascist violence was unleashed upon the youth, and broke apart the UAW strike for Palestine – but even as it asserted its dominance, its grip over labor had begun to loosen.

After the Encampments

The encampments and the state’s response elucidate the withering status of capitalism. Movements for social issues are connecting seemingly disparate issues of race, gender, and national self-determination to both class and each other. Increasingly militarized police forces respond sooner to the progressively better-organized and more experienced masses. Just as the state has attempted to stamp out resistance simultaneously the consciousness of the masses appears clearer. Within some encampments participants proactively trained for police raids, practicing tactics that would make the arrest of students and removal of demonstrations more difficult. The state and fascists are failing to obfuscate their shared goals, as time and time again various protest movements are subject to crackdowns and uncharitable media coverage, while the violent fascists consistently evade legal retaliation. Instead, their action is used as further justification that the encampments “make campuses unsafe”, providing police the opportunity to perpetuate further violence in the name of restoring peace and safety to the campus. The unwillingness of the state to allow the masses to voice their disapproval reveals the truly undemocratic nature of capital, casting aside the illusion that we ever had any real input.

The already present yearning of the masses for a new future is boiling over – spilling out from our minds into reality, in great contrast to an alienating electoral politic which once again thrusts upon voters the choice between the greatest and most comical representation of a dying system and a fascist whos incomprehensible politic had already facilitated mass death during the Covid 19 Pandemic. Those who had escaped for even a brief moment; the daily trudge through life alienated from the activity of production, what is produced, from our species-being, and each other, will no longer be satisfied by the limited freedoms allowed by capital. The taste of greater freedom, even if only in our imagination, will transform into a hunger that will only be sated once the last chains are broken and all have become truly free.

Preparing for the next movement

The task of the IMHO is to keep our finger on the pulse of the masses, to be present and immersed in the spontaneous outbursts that might finally break from the monotonous and impersonal social relations of the present. The situation at hand is incredibly dire, the threat of a second Trump term is not an isolated American issue – across the globe, the far-right is making a terrifying resurgence. Like vultures, the fascist threat inevitably appears where capitalism is in decay. Not only this, but the long-expected consequences of relentless growth and resource extraction are finally affecting even humans. By 2030 1.2 billion people are expected to be forced from their homes by extreme weather conditions and failing agriculture, driven away by climate change. The future appears bleak and uncertain, our only escape from barbarism is a truly liberatory mass movement. The theories and ideas discussed between IMHO members contain incredible revolutionary potential, and many of our writings resonate deeply with those who read them, but despite our best efforts we remain a relatively small organization and seem unable to grow significantly. Our presence within contemporary movements must be improved.

A retrospective look at the encampments for Palestinian freedom should inform our methods of outreach going forward. Evidently, campuses are overflowing with radical potential. However, campus movements that are sufficiently disruptive enough to threaten the state often lock down access to the institution. Between campus demonstrations and actions, the IMHO must work to engage with students and build rapport with student organizations. Our goal should not solely be to recruit new members, but also to proliferate radical knowledge. Starting reading groups at campuses where members are present will no doubt increase attendance at public meetings and lead to greater membership, but more importantly – connections to campuses and especially building relationships with student organizations will be critical in being involved when student movements arise.

Discussion from inside the encampments demonstrates the youth’s thirst for radical philosophy, but between students’ commitment to their studies and future financial stability – few seem to commit to regular engagement with radical politics. There’s absolutely a rising potential in the masses as shown by their willingness to demonstrate for just causes, but this potential normally remains beneath the surface, only in moments that rip us away from social convention does this potential manifest. The IMHO must be ready to encourage the philosophical development of the masses in these moments. Our emphasis on the radical elements within Hegel which greatly influenced Marx, particularly the assertion that truth can only be understood as both substance and also as subject, is a foundational tenet of a framework capable of achieving absolute liberation. Hegel’s legacy in Marx is the dialectical method, the importance of which is best captured by Georg Lukacs’s definition of orthodox Marxism:

Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx’s investigations. It is not the ‘belief’ in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a ‘sacred’ book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method. It is the scientific conviction that dialectical materialism is the road to truth and that its methods can be developed, expanded, and deepened only along the lines laid down by its founders. It is the conviction, moreover, that all attempts to surpass or ‘improve’ it have led and must lead to over-simplification, triviality, and eclecticism.

The IMHO’s commitment to Marx’s method is absolutely a strength, but the complexity of the dialectic might present a barrier to entry when the revolutionary spirit of the masses is at rest. We cannot simplify or water down the dialectical method, but we can dedicate more resources to those willing to work toward understanding it. While we have held reading groups and public meetings that aspire to cultivate curiosity in dialectics and our organization, new members arise infrequently. More often, interested people will occasionally make time to come to a meeting every once and a while, but hardly engage further. If we can manage to better capture the masses yearning for a better world and prove again; the importance and versatility of the dialectical method as a vehicle of revolution, then we will grow. Many texts of the Marxist-humanist tradition fulfill this task spectacularly, but they are especially unfriendly to those unfamiliar with Marxist philosophy. While our reading groups do provide a great opportunity to tackle difficult concepts as a group – the unfamiliar vocabulary and writing might be paralyzing for some, and if participants become disengaged during the reading groups and feel out of their depth, they are unlikely to return. To remedy the difficult initiation of new members it might be helpful to create study material and elaborate further on specific concepts after the reading group. To nurture the dialectical method in reading group participants it may be helpful to set aside time in-between reading groups to meet with participants individually to answer questions and facilitate understanding in a different environment than the reading group, this also provides another opportunity for curious readers to engage with the reading and IMHO.

Further, the dialectical method remains incomplete unless theory and activity are united. The encampments have proved the momentum which this marriage can foster – when theory becomes action it is so captivating that it has engrossed even those who might otherwise be politically apathetic. This is no simple task and to accomplish it, the IMHO must be involved in as many movements as possible. The future we seek cannot be commanded by a vanguard party, rather, the IMHO has a duty to offer our voices and knowledge to the masses, to remind the people of their strength and creative capability. Once critical thought has blossomed in the masses like a rose from concrete, the dawn of free association between all will appear on the horizon. The experience of the encampments has reaffirmed my faith in the IMHO, time in the encampments was spent surrounded by others working to concretize revolutionary thought, to take matters into their own hands, and to not stand idly by in the face of cruelty purported as normal. The present contains within it the seed of the future, it is buried in the heart of every worker across the world. As an organization we have the tools to uncover revolution within all people, however, we must stay vigilant and constantly develop the paths that others might take to join the revolution.