Skip to comments.

Posted on 10/03/2001 7:02:32 AM PDT by SJackson

A student agenda booklet that glorifies the intifada, urges the burning of the Canadian flag and calls for a Steal Something Day has plunged the executive of the Concordia Student Union into a storm of controversy.

It has also added fuel to a campaign among Concordia's commerce and engineering students who are circulating a petition to recall the student executive and force a new election.

The agenda, titled Uprising, has angered the university administration, upset students and parents and led B'nai Brith Canada to call for a police investigation of those who "promote violence, hatred and civil disobedience."

One poem, by agenda editor Mia Brooks, urges readers to "smash the state, pound at the golden gates of patriarchy, burn the fires of racism, crush capitalism, throw them in the rivers to wash into the oceans."

Frank Dimant, executive director of B'nai Brith Canada, said: "This is a call to arms, a call to intifada, to anarchy and revolution.

"Is this a blueprint for Osama bin Laden's youth program in North America?" Dimant asked at a press conference yesterday.

He was not suggesting the handbook was, but he was concerned about its promotion of revolutionary goals and violence.

Dimant was also outraged by advice to those "carrying out an illegal action, do not leave a paper trail that could lead the police to suspect you."

The 312-page booklet, distributed free to students and paid for out of their compulsory dues to the Concordia Student Union, has a page with jets crashing into a room full of men in suits. The heading says it's "an agenda for uprising."

Though the material was produced before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Dimant said, "the very fact that such material is included suggests that violent events are being contemplated at some level."

It has an article on Arabophobia by Laith Marouf, who was barred from campus after a clash with security guards on July 20, drawing attention to the fact that Concordia rector Frederick Lowy and provost Jack Lightstone are Jewish.

It says most Canadian media are controlled by "two Zionists."

It identifies them as Israel Asper, founder and executive chairman of CanWest Global Communications Corp., which owns The Gazette, and Conrad Black, a former owner of the Southam newspaper chain.

Lowy, who said the booklet contains "outrageous" material, accused student union leaders of abusing their power to advance their ideology.

He blamed the student executive for adopting a strategy that is "confrontational, in your face, try to achieve power, even if you're a minority, then advance your objective."

"At Concordia, they were successful in becoming elected because of the apathy of most of the students," Lowy said. "Fewer than 10 per cent of the students eligible to vote voted."

He attributed the student executive's success to an alliance between "the group that wants to change the world and the group that wants to advance the Palestinian cause in the Middle East."

Lowy also expressed concern that controversy on campus might jeopardize support from the private sector, which has been increasing over the past few years and has helped to finance Concordia's ambitious building plans.

"I don't think it is helpful to the university if donors feel that this university is hotbed of conflict and revolution, which it isn't. This is the kind of impression this document gives," Lowy said.

Billy Mandelos - who helped organize business and engineering students to defeat a motion last week to bar such firms as BCE Enterprises and Nortel Networks from recruiting on campus - was also angry.

"The idea that the Concordia Student Union would use the handbook for political propaganda and hate literature is completely outrageous.

"It's unbelievable. They're just feeding fuel to the fire."

Vic Patapas, a Concordia graduate and parent of two current students, called The Gazette to say he was canceling his Concordia Visa card because "I do not want to be associated with an organization of students that supports this kind of garbage."

CSU president Sabrina Stea refused to speak to reporters. A CSU statement said students should read the booklet and make up their own minds.

Samer Elatrash, a CSU councillor and activist member of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, rejected Dimant's criticism as "ludicrous."

Elatrash conceded the handbook is "definitely one-sided," reflecting the fact that the CSU executive was elected on "an explicitly pro-human-rights, pro-queer and pro-feminist platform."

"We advertised for several months for students to hand in articles for the handbook, and we only refused those that were sexist, racist, libelous or homophobic," Elatrash said.

As for the agenda's reference to May 15 as Al Nakba - the Palestinian Catastrophe, rather than Israeli independence day in 1948 - Elatrash said the birth of Israel "was a major human-rights catastrophe that displaced 800,000 people from their homes only because they were Palestinian."

CSU researcher David Bernans said the CSU's position on the Middle East derives from a student referendum demanding that Israel obey United Nations Resolution 242 and withdraw from territories occupied since 1967.

As for flag burning, Bernans said it shows opposition to Ottawa's policy on biotechnology and free trade.

Lillian Robinson, principal of Concordia's Simone de Beauvoir Institute, who wrote one of the articles blasted by B'nai Brith as one-sided, said:

"We can hardly say that the media present both sides in the Middle East. We have come to a very sorry state when a Jewish organization suggests banning books.We are the people of the book and I say, keep an open mind."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.