Photos available of the action here
Cambridge University students, in collaboration with the international group ‘Palestine Action’, have sprayed one of the university’s centres of complicity: the institute for manufacturing
Today, the 2nd of November, marks 107 years since the Balfour declaration was signed. Cambridge educated Balfour and, until direct action destroyed it, his portrait was hung in Trinity College. Our university’s complicity in the genocide of the Palestinians runs deep; the criminology department at Cambridge University helps train ‘israeli’ police and military; the Department of Material Science partners with ‘israeli’ arms companies to produce armoured vehicles; Rolls-Royce operates out of the Institute for Manufacturing. We must challenge complicity wherever we see it, so today we showed the world the true colours of these institutes of death; blood on the institution’s walls for blood on the institution’s hands.
On their own website, Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing lists Rolls-Royce, Siemens and BAE Systems among their research partners. They boast their ties with Rolls-Royce, the University Technology Centre this arms company has been allowed to set up on our University. The pride they take in perpetrating genocide, boasting about their links to manufacturer’s of death, cannot continue. Shame on the IFM, shame on the Department of Material Science, shame on Cambridge University.
It’s not just in Cambridge that these genocidal companies are allowed to exist. Across the country, Universities have longstanding technology partnerships with Rolls-Royce, a supplier of the F-35 fighter jets used in the murder of Palestinians. As their buildings continue to litter our campuses, as our Universities continue to invest in arms companies, we cannot sit idly by and allow these buildings to stand un-marked. We are calling on Birmingham, Bristol, Imperial College London, Loughborough, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, Surrey and Swansea to smash, paint and occupy their Rolls-Royce buildings. Birmingham, your building is made of glass; Sheffield, your faculty of Engineering is covered in it too. We must challenge Rolls-Royce’s stronghold in our University campuses and kick them off.
We have seen that direct action works. In the last few days, Barclay’s has divested from Elbit and APCO will no longer lobby for Elbit. The power of the people made these things happen. They fear us when we are organised, and the genocidal war machine only responds to fear. Refuse to let arms companies stay on your campus – all Universities must be forced to cut ties with Rolls Royce.
And to Cambridge University: as you threaten to go back on your promises won by the encampment KNOW that this will continue to happen. You cannot stop the power of the people.