A general meeting is a meeting open to all University of Manchester students who have a right to take part in the politics of our Student Union. For a regular general meeting, there must be at least 300 students (to reach quorum) before the meeting can continue. For an emergency meeting, however, there must be 500 students.
Action Palestine spent ages publicizing this meeting and urging people to come, leafletting, postering, standing at stalls, and Facebooking. On the day, we all made our way into the Academy, sitting in the first 500 seats set out to make it easier to see if we have reached quorum or not. The meeting started at 1pm meaning that we needed to have reached quorum by 1.30. At this time, the chair of the meeting stood up and said that this meeting could not continue as we had not reached the necessary 500 students, we only had about 470+. What we then noticed, however, is that several Zionists had actually physically blocked the entrance into the Academy about 10 minutes before, leaving a large crowd of people standing outside, trying to get in. The chair didn't care; the meeting didn't continue.
Instead, one of the proposers of the motion stood up and called for the debates over the motion anyways. The first proposer went up and talked about why we need to pass this motion for such a humanitarian crisis. A staunchly Zionist student then retaliated saying he could not endorse such a biased motion that did not acknowledge the horror of Hamas and their actions and principles. While we agreed for the most part that we do not support any terrorist or violent actions, we did not agree firstly, to condemn Hamas for their attacks since it was not Hamas who broke the ceasefire and secondly, this was not the point of the motion. Political stances were meant to be put aside in light of the humanitarian crisis at hand -- this was an appeal to aid the people of Gaza directly, not their government. Then the seconder of the motion went up and gave her response to the opposition. At the end of her very impassioned speech, someone slipped her a note to call for a march on the BBC, who is refusing to air the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal to aid Gaza for fear of it (the BBC) coming under fire as a biased organisation.
We all began to slowly trickle onto Oxford Road, chanting 'Free Free Palestine!' at the top of our lungs and through megaphones. Just as we passed the main administrative building, however, someone decided to turn the march towards that building instead. We all rushed into the building, which turned out to be the main office of our Vice Chancellor, the president of the University.
And we sat down in the corridor and refused to move.
So began the occupation in solidarity with Gaza. About 150 of us crowded the corridor, sitting with our Palestinian flags and backpacks crammed where we could. Someone pulled up a whiteboard and we began to turn the motion's policies into our demands. At some point, we were all asked to call up as many friends as possible to come join the protest so Aamna, Amina, Kat and Becca came along. We stayed until about 6pm when the Vice Chancellor came out to speak to us and said No Way to pretty much all of our demands. After that people started dispersing to plan for staying overnight and we weren't intending to stay overnight, so we walked away thinking we'll just come back tomorrow for the day when we have time.
The next day, Becca and I had lectures together so inbetween class, we went into the occupation and painted some banners and just hung around. The whole day had been planned as a day of alternative learning with speakers about Palestine and academic boycotts, etc. Then we went to another class which ended at 4 and calmly strolled back to the occupation afterwards. Right when we got in, there was a flurry of activity and one guy who I recognized but really didn't know rushed up to us and handed us a letter saying the VC had just issued a statement telling us to leave by 5pm, when the building is meant to close.
Becca and I didn't really know what to do so we kind of just stood there, looking lost. Due to this, I am sure, random people would just come up and start talking to us. And then we became friends, just like that. We were all sat around together, counting down to 5 o'clock, trying to keep the alternative day of learning agenda despite the itches of panic some might have been having (Me? Panic? Psshhh). When 5pm hit, while we weren't kicked out, the building was still locked up. Meaning we could get out but no one outside could get in. So we couldn't bring in food, water, life necessities. Basically, they'd just stopped us from having free access to the building. In frustration, a group of people started a protest outside the entrance, chanting for six hours straight to get inside the building and in support of those already inside.
When the protest first started and we realized they weren't being let in, all of us inside the corridor started chanting out the window to let them in. This turned into quite a ruckus of course and went on for some time, the security guards just sitting back and enjoying our enthusiasm.
The details are fuzzy but about half an hour later, there seemed to be a buzz with everyone crowding together in the corridor ... as the cops walked in. I am not joking when I say that everyone started yelling to lock arms. And discussing ways to obstruct the cops from dragging us out. It was so completely unreal I didn't even know what to say. Becca and I just kept exchanging half-horrified looks as we squeezed ourselves into a corner. Everyone began to sing and chant "We Shall Not Be Moved" which Aamna had been hoping would happen ages ago so we recorded it for her. After many more chants and singing and whatnot, everyone settled down a bit for the nice police man to talk to us. Some discussion was had and the message was sent to our VC that we'd like free access to the building, thanks. He was unmoved.
We sat as a huddle group in the corridor for ages. One of my friends from Action Palestine came by laughing at our frightened faces and said, "Don't worry, you're not gonna die." Which was comforting. Another random guy just started talking to me over his shoulder like he knew me. So continued the meeting of new random people who just came up to us and started talking.
Eventually, the VC himself came to talk to us around 9.30pm (or later) and basically gave us a big "NO WAYYY ps im not gunna b ur friend till u get out, kthxbai." That was pretty much verbatim, seriously.
As he huffily walked away, everyone quickly began to chant the ever necessary "We're students, united, we'll never be defeated!" which hinted to the policemen (who were outside at this point) that we weren't too happy with the VC's response.
After hearing this news, some people on the outside, who had previously been inside, decided to find a way inside. They ran around the side of the building attempting to get in through a side door but were chased by the cops and, to save themselves, leapt into the closest door. There were 14 of them. And they were inside the University's central postal room. After much deliberation -- they said they would only leave if everyone outside was allowed in -- the Postal 14 (yep, they have a name now) decided it was best to stay where they were for they were in a strong position. One awesomely radical Irishman even said, "If the people of Gaza can survive three weeks of bombings of their homes, schools, families then we can survive three weeks in occupation for them."
We up in the corridor, while proud and inspired by this little speech, became slightly worried as to how we could get food and water to them. One awesomely radical Colombian quipped, "We should post it to them!" and then proceeded to laugh hysterically at his own joke. It made my life.
Eventually, everything and everyone calmed down a bit more -- the cops (who, by the way, were not even called by the University but rather by some concerned residents) left, the VC probably went home, and we were left in the hands of some security guards on overtime. Who turned out to be our best friends. I'm sure they loved the fact that we were giving them pay, stirring up things to make their lives more interesting. Apparently, they let the Postal 14 order pizza and go to the bathroom by leaving through the window.
Back up in the corridor, Becca and I were getting slightly antsy about how late it was, thinking we should go home. Only to be bombarded with about 5 people asking why we were going home, don't you know that all those people out there would absolutely love to have your spot inside?, c'mon it'll be fun! We just kept giving the same excuses that we had the day before -- we'd love to stay but we have lectures in the morning, we just can't really. Everyone else had lectures. They were staying. Sigh. Becca in fact had no excuse because she didn't have any lectures the next day but she wouldn't stay on her own, which is understandable. Somehow, in the end, I got roped into staying too. Overnight. In a grand, tiled administrative building corridor. wtf, mate.
Once this was decided, we all sat down to play a game of cards. Since there were a lot of us, I suggested we play Tongues, which is Spoons without the spoons. We started rounding people up, calling out to all those randomers who just started talking to us for no reason other than that we were obviously emanating cool. We played cards for a while, just chillaxin' all cool, meeting new people and whatnot. Slowly, people started going to bed, grabbing sleeping bags from the conference room we had taken over and pulling them into quiet, semi-comfortable spots. Becca and I stayed up chatting with a group of people who were still awake at the end of the corridor. Some of these people are now our best friends. Who'da thunk? We were just a group of young folk, staying up late to chat in the middle of an occupation, meeting for the first time, joking around in delirium. It was awesome. That's how I met the guy who ran up to me to give me updates and the girl who was enthusiastically screaming her head off with chants and became better acquainted with the radical Colombian (who I already knew) and properly met the guy who started talking to me in the middle of the police riot.
The whole time, Becca and I kept looking at each other thinking, what the hell are we doing? But it was a good what the hell, as in our lives are so awesome right now how did we get this lucky? It was just incredible. We were having the most fun in ages with people we had just met, just by sitting around.
Around half 3 in the morning, someone decided to order pizza for the security guards so we all gathered to have some pizza. I can't even explain how awesome it was to just be sat there having a good time. I don't know how to put it into words, seriously. It was just amazing.
Eventually, we all decided to go to sleep too. Becca and I shared a bed -- aka fully dressed on two open sleeping bags on a hard tiled floor with a blinding light overhead -- with Maryam, who we had just met. I hope you're all getting the craziness of the situation, because we were definitely weirded out by it all. And we were nearby Charlie (who is made of awesome), Castro (the Colombian), and Mohammed who were, get this, all sleeping together under the same cover in the same direction. Jokes abound.
It must have been at least 4am when we had all stopped laughing enough to actually fall asleep. At 6, Becca, Maryam and I all got up to leave since we had class. In our hazy semi-awake delirium, we stumbled out of "bed," crawled around to collect our stuff and walked out, saying 'morning' to the security. The sun hadn't risen yet and here we were walking down Oxford Road having just woken up from an occupation sleepover with people we barely knew.
All our friends back at Gabs were frantic, telling us to text them when we got in, asking how we'd survived, hearing us tell our story over and over, spreading it around to other people. Everyone just kept coming up to us asking if it was true, checking to see if we were alive, calling us rebels and hippies. I love our friends.
The next day, after we'd finished lectures, we went by the building to see if we could get back in. Turns out they'd padlocked all the gate entrances so we couldn't even get into the quad. Obviously, they'd heard about the mini-demo someone had planned that afternoon. No one was being let in at all. After a little waiting, I found out that there were still a handful of people inside, including the Postal 14, but that they'd been issued a statement indicating they must be out by 3pm or else would be threatened with expulsion. Not too many students were comfortable with that one, of course, so those who wanted to leave at 3 did so.
While all this was going down, a big gathering of people was growing near the Student Union, coming around campus towards the administrative buildings, stopping at the fence nearest the postal room. We stood outside chanting for ages, we happy people of the megaphone. Someone then tried to get food into the postal room by -- get this -- tying a grocery bag of food to the end of a very long bamboo stick and reaching it over the gate. It pretty much made my life. Some stuff got through; some bags burst all over the floor. The ones that burst were then kindly handed over by the security guards standing outside.
As the demo escalated and everyone realized this occupation wasn't holding up, someone decided to lead us all across the road, causing a roadblock in the process, to Simon Building across the way. It's the "engineering" building but is mainly used for offices for the Faculty of Life Sciences and such. Everyone rushed upstairs to a lecture room on the first floor ... and began another occupation.
Becca and I had to depart at this point as she had a train to catch but we came back soon enough.
The occupation in Simon became our home for the next four weeks. Yep, FOUR WEEKS. It took over our lives, in a superly awesomely fantastic way. Every spare moment we had was spent in there, between lectures, over weekends, some overnights, some groggy mornings. Every waking minute was spent sitting around playing Mafia or cards or having an organising meeting or telling your mum jokes or hacking each other's facebooks. Or listening to music or eating falafel or painting banners and discussing how strange we all were and how much we loved each other. It was so weird some of the things which you can get so easily used to. (Hush, grammar conscience.) We have inside jokes that absolutely only we would ever understand. We do things in daily conversation that confuse non-occupationers to no end. We hung out when we were passing out flyers, manning the stalls, walking around, being awesome, etc etc. We were the longest running occupation in the UK, becoming a beacon of inspiration to our unis across the nation, quite literally.
During the first week, we decided, on a whim, to organise another Emergency Meeting, making sure we reached quorum this time. The uprising was unbelievable. We mobilised over 1,300 students to come to this meeting to pass, overwhelmingly, the Gaza Motion that hadn't had the chance to stand before. It was the most unbelievable success we could have imagined.
That occupation became our family. You popped in to have tea and a chat and mess around. You stayed because you met the most amazing people in the world in that room. It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life being there. I keep saying it but feeling like I'm taking part in something so much bigger than myself is one of the best feelings in the world. I met around 50+ people through the occupation and some of them have become my closest friends. If I tried to list them all here, I'd probably go on for ages (not that I haven't already). Living together in a lecture room for 31 days kind of does that to you.
The occupation ended yesterday afternoon in favour of going into negotiations with the VC over our demands. Although we're all pretty devastated to have to end the occupation since it's become such a massive part of all of our lives, we still plan on seeing each other quite frequently. It'll just be too weird not seeing each other every day.
This occupation is probably the reason I began to enjoy university. I began to meet more people, branch out, explore, have fun without planning it beforehand. It was such an expansion to my small world -- I actually left my room. I got out of the stupid four walls I spent every hour in, wasting away. I wasn't homesick once. When I asked, why am I here? I had an answer. Every day confirmed this for me. To be able to take part in all this was a blessing that has just .. gah. Left me speechless, apparently. Walking around the streets of Manchester, I'm bound to run into someone I know and that simple fact absolutely thrills me. It pushes me further into the direction that I could feel at home here. Not many first years walking around campus will randomly see someone they know from somewhere other than halls or their course. Getting involved in something that actually mattered was pretty much the best decision that I ever made.
I absolutely love the occupation, my new family, and everything to come for the next couple years because I know they have the potential to be awesome written all over them.
I'm sure I've left out moments of fabulousness that the occupation brought to me but I could just spend years talking about how amazing it was. It was all too much to remember each detail but I'm not too bothered really because all that matters is that it happened, to be honest. Every moment, every memory, every person happened to me and it has made me pretty euphoric and that's all I really need.
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