Divestment from companies doing business with those who are committing injustices has been used in many ways over centuries. It is especially effective in capitalist economic systems, where profits drive corporate policies.

Divest Now! A Revolutionary Demand

Why have student encampments for Palestine ignited such an uproar of brutal repression, vicious police attacks, mass arrests, overwhelming condemnation in the corporate media and a new level of reactionary legislation in Congress?

The demand to divest, raised at almost every encampment, exposes the insidious inroads of the military-industrial complex into the heart of almost all higher education institutions in the U.S. today.

This demand to “divest” has revolutionary implications. Divestment is not just a threat to university boards, administrators and their alumni funders. It is a threat to the established capitalist order. It is a demand to break with the corporations engaged in looting the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars — perhaps trillions — are at stake.

The demand to divest is universally embraced by Palestine supporters, especially in U.S. campus actions. It flows naturally from months of horror, watching massive levels of destruction on densely populated civilian centers in Palestine and learning that institutions — where student, staff, community and union funds are directly involved — are funding these massive war crimes.

Groups of students gathered around small camping tents on campus lawns and school plazas hardly appear threatening. If the gatherings were for music or sports, they would go largely unnoticed. However, the Gaza Solidarity Encampments have raised the level of confrontation a step beyond mass demonstrations. The demands to divest and disclose the investments are a direct challenge to the capitalist system.

The entire established political order acts like it is under attack. It is. Students are ripping off the sinister corporate mask.

Divest Now! A Revolutionary Demand by Sara Flounders, Workers’ World, May 15, 2024

https://afsc.org/divest?ms=web24HG