On June 5th, some graduating students at Trent University crossed the convocation stage wearing keffiyehs and holding banners to raise awareness of the ongoing genocide and scholasticide in the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The demonstrations follow a series of student-led actions in Peterborough including the recent renaming of the Faryon bridge to the Alareer Bridgein honour of Refaat Alareer—a Palestinian academic killed on December 6th, 2023 by an Israeli airstrike.

The United Nations (UN) defines scholasticide as the “systemic obliteration of education through arrest, detention or killing of teachers, students, and staff and the destruction of educational infrastructure.” According to a UN News report dated April 18th, over 5,800 students and teachers have been killed by Israeli military attacks since October 7th, with at least 625,000 students experiencing educational displacement following Israeli attacks on educational institutions.

In an interview with Arthur, Chanel Bowen, one of the students who banner dropped during convocation, reflected on her decision to raise awareness for Palestine during convocation, stating that “it felt very fitting.”

“I studied International Development, so part of my degree was to study the occupation of Palestine…and I said to some of my profs, ‘what if I hadn’t taken the moment to raise awareness, what was my degree for?’” Bowen said.

Bowen was one of several students who held banners and wore keffiyehs during the June 5th convocation—an eventthat she shared is not only a celebration for Trent students, but also of the fact that the raising awareness of injustices in the world is being broadcast as “a duty when given a platform—literally.”

When asked to speak about the comments online around using convocation as a platform for social justice, Bowen said that it was her moment and she didn’t take it from anyone else. Additionally, she shared that for the most part, students were “pretty receptive” to the Palestine pins she handed out in the convocation lineup.

However, she said that there was one instance of students heckling her, remarking that a student sighed when asked if they wanted a pin, asking “really, at our convocation?”

To that, Bowen replied that there is no graduating class of 2024 in Gaza, and that to graduate is an immense privilege—one that requires stability among all else.

“I’ve had stability for five years,” Bowen said. “I’m grateful for that, and a lot of that was hard work, but a lot of it is privilege. All of the universities in Gaza have been reduced to rubble…it just feels kind of ignorant and self-centred to only think of yourself during convocation because you didn’t get there alone.”

She argues that convocations have always been political, citing Nelson Mandela being awarded an honorary degree from Trent University in 1986 despite serving a life-sentence at the time.

“Convocation, not only can it be a site for political protest and speaking up against apartheid—which Israel is an apartheid state—but it has been, and I think it should [continue to] be,” she elaborated.

Bowen reflected on Trent’s role as an academic institution during the occupation of Palestine, citing an open letter from Students 4 Palestine Trent and the recent meeting with the group and Trent administration, but on a personal level, she recognizes that Trent “isn’t as bad as a lot of universities right now.”

She remarked that thought Trent has not deployed police on students and “for the most part, they’ve been willing to let us speak,” they are still deploying a “dangerous” neutral liberal stance on the genocide, calling it a “conflict” rather than what it really is.

On Trent’s neutral liberal stance, Bowen quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s speech about the most dangerous white person being the “neutral liberal who maintains the status quo,” continuing to state that she hopes Trent will divest from Israel in addition to fossil fuels.

“Everything is interconnected. Palestine is a climate issue and a race issue and a justice issue,” she said.

Bowen concluded by sharing that she feels “prouder than I would have if I had just walked across the stage with no scene,” and urged students afraid of speaking out in support of Palestine at convocation to “do it scared”.

“If not now, when?,” she said. “I had a poster and I needed people to see it, and that was my moment.”

Students for Palestine Trent also released a statement on Instagram regarding convocation, urging students to “make a statement, and to stand in solidarity with fellow students and professors across the world.”

Trent University Peterborough Convocations end on June 11th, and in Durham on June 14th. They can be live streamed here.