Statement of Non-Violence and Abstention from Property Destruction
We the occupying students of New York University do not support or condone violence against people, nor do we condone or support the destruction of property over the course of this occupation. Such acts undermine our goals of the reclamation of student space, and therefore all participants in the occupation are expected to retain respect for all persons and property throughout the course of the action. We do not intend any harm or damage to any living beings or to private property, and strongly criticize any will to do so. Any individual who wills such violence or destructiveness will be asked to leave the premises, and will not represent the interests of this occupation. Our action condemns oppression in any form, and thus we do not espouse the subjugation of others using violence. We will not tolerate any discrimination based on race, color, sex, gender, religion, age, sexuality, or nationality. We take very seriously the safety and wellbeing of all those involved in and affected by this occupation, and hold them as our highest priorities. In our quest to construct an ideal university, we seek a university founded upon mutual respect, democracy and accountability, and we espouse methods consistent with that quest.
great job!!! woohoo! i hope your occupation goes as planned!
just one question, if there is no property damage happening, how are you blockading and/or effectively occupying the building? i am sure you took great time and care into figuring out how to non destructively blockade, but i am at a loss to figure out how you are doing it. i know it is probably of essence to not inform the public yet of your tactics because it could endanger the occupation from “security” forces, but please eventually spread word of them.
we are an image from the future!
free2resist
you people are idiots
VIVA the Struggle of the Students…the hearts of the socialist students in Alexanderia University in Egypt is with u…. Power to the people.. and down with tyranty
I was somewhat unintentionally involved in the New School occupation last December and I saw a great opportunity pass through clumsy hands. Too often, as per my experience, students push for reactions from authority figures instead of launching pro-community offensives. At New School, the protests quickly shifted into a student/security brawl, and at that moment they may have garnered some attention, but the group lost the respect of their fellow students. Radical student groups must pose an alternative to the chaos that these protests can invoke.
There are plenty creative options for this protest. Projects such as painting a mural in the occupied territory (maybe the Tisch students can help), organize performances in Washington Square (ask the theater kids), distribute poems and literature in the park (get the writers to do it), and get musicians to play protest songs (someone’s gotta be able to play guitar). The protests must involve all NYU students from each corner of the academic institution in order to better represent the needs of all students through creative means. We must spawn new ideas, create diaologue, create bonds, create opportunity.
While I agree with most of your statement, I strongly urge you to rethink your take on private property and violence… I think it is quite skewed to construe property damage as violence and destructiveness. To frame anything not explicitly articulated under the tenets of “non-violence” as necessarily a form of “violence” is itself a deployment of a violent dimorphous logic, an “either you are with us or against us” form of thinking, such as that of George Bush’s crusade, that amounts to its own form of pacifist fundamentalist pathology… To be clear, the proposition of any binary position as a root principle is one of the most violent acts constitutive of a Eurocentric, colonial episteme of which you, for all your well intentioned statements, have yet to untangle yourself from. I stand with you when you say you are against “oppression of any form” but I also stand against all forms of fundamentalisms and please realize that your position on nonviolence IS fundamentalist and therefore “oppressive.”
Quote: I also stand against all forms of fundamentalisms and please realize that your position on nonviolence IS fundamentalist and therefore “oppressive.”
Bravo!
[...] students have also released a “Statement of Non-Violence and Abstention from Property Destruction” that reads in [...]
first of all: in complete solidarity with you (from a grad school in chicago)! I salute your direct action, and wish you courage to endure.
that said, i must say agree with point #5 made above ^^. i think it is a mistake to even run together the two issues of a) oppressing people, violently or otherwise and b) destruction of private property.
destruction of property that has been privatized and (in many cases) serves the interest of capitalist accumulation and exploitation is in certain cases a very important tool of resistance.
i concur with the above sentiment that you consider revising your perspective on the political importance of private property.
Get some Guy Fawkes masks!
All power to the students and workers.
And good for you for making voluntary agreements (the foundation of any democratic free collective community) and asking people who join you to honor and respect them. To be blunt, property destruction (not it’s not violence, just frequently counterproductive and what police agents try to get us to do), attempts at fighting cops and the individualist refusal to make or honor groups agreements about what tactics make sense to groups has led to the dramatic decline of mass direct actions in the United States.
[...] and ends - While at first the NYU students declared a commitment to non-violence and no destruction of property, they later revised the property clause in order to [...]
[...] let’s take a look at some key lines of the original non-violence/no property damage statement. We do not intend any harm or damage to any living beings or to private property, and strongly [...]