The Concordia Student Union elections: a story of hate-mongering and outside interference.

Oped by Laith Marouf 

Montreal: March 23, 2004 (MMN): Today the elections for the Concordia Student begin, and by now, we are accustomed to them being accompanied with a lot of hype. It has been two years since I was a VP on the CSU executive and a lot has changed since my team, called ACCESS, ran for elections. The following is a brief description of my observations on this change.

ACCESS and Bnai Brith

It all started a week after ACCESS won the elections of 2001-2002. Within a week Bnai Brith Canada, published an article claiming, "The Arab student leadership has infiltrated the Concordia Student Union". This claim was laid because there was one Arab student -myself- on an executive that was otherwise comprised of white Canadians. The claim of "infiltration" was mind-boggling because ACCESS ran openly as a progressive option that was fighting for student rights and human rights for all - including Arabs - and it won, democratically, in an open election for all undergraduate students. The use of the word "infiltrated" by Bnai Brith was also racist and xenophobic in its connotations. The article went on to describe how Rector Lowy and Vice-Rector Lightstone were supportive of this statement (according to the article, because they happen to be Jewish!). In ACCESS's first meeting with the Rector, we asked Dr. Lowy to condemn these statements or at least distance himself from them if he did not want to anger Bnai Brith. The Rector responded by banging the table with his fist, refusing the polite demand, and storming out of the meeting. The stage was set for what followed next. Within a month, I was summarily expelled from Concordia University after being accused of assaulting a security guard. I went to court and won the right to a hearing. By the end of the process the guard - my accuser - refused to testify and resigned from his job. The panel ruled that I should have been given a hearing before my expulsion and did not address the fact I had no accuser.

September 11 and Hatemongering

When the tragic events of September 11 occurred, Bnai Brith and the administration had a field day. The CSU agenda, "Uprising", was by far the most artistic and progressive student Manuel that the union had ever produced. After 9/11, it was dragged across the nation's TV as the most dangerous Canadian publication. BB called it "Osama Bin Laden's Manuel"; as if Osama Bin Laden was the champion of Gay rights, Women rights and religious minority rights. The CSU was called "Al-Qaeda's North American youth chapter", even though a president who is a bisexual woman was leading it. Around the same time, a group calling themselves the "Committee for the Extermination of Palestinians" was sending death threats to the offices of the CSU. The administration refused to condemn the death threats and actually claimed that we were to blame for "instigating" the death threats. We found out later that the Jewish Defense League (JDL), an organization on the FBI terror list, was responsible for these death threats. We also learned that their Chairmen, Irv Rubin, had been at Concordia trying to recruit new members. Within a month, Rubin was caught by the FBI trying to bomb the US' largest mosque; we probably were next in line. A recall petition was circulated under the recommendations of the Administration. The foot soldiers were asking the students "if you don't want the Fags and Arabs to run the union, sign this petition", several white looking students testified to that. The recall succeeded and a bi-election was held, but the xenophobes did not win, in fact there were so many irregularities that the election was annulled.

CanDo and Netan-yahoo

By March 2002, another election was held, and another leftist slate, CanDo, won. The failure of the administration and Bnai Brith to silence student activists prompted the late Israel Asper, owner of CanWest Global and 80% of Canada's daily newspapers, to sponsor an unforgettable event that changed Concordia as we know it. Mr. Asper invited Benjamin Netanyahu - a known war criminal and hatemonger - to Concordia and insisted to hold the event in H-110, which is located in a building with the highest circulation of students. The event was exclusively for Zionists (no Palestinian or critical Jews allowed), without a question period that is vital in academia, rendering it a Zionist rally, not a lecture. What everybody predicted and what Mr. Asper wanted, happened. People with a conscience blocked the event, and it was all covered by Mr. Asper's media empire. One year of at-noisome coverage to inflame the student population eventually did its intended job. However, this was not before the administration and Hillel did perpetrate many more scandalous moves. First the students were struck by a ban on everything to do with the Middle East. This led to the ousting of two elected MPs onto the street, indicating that all of the talk of freedom of speech applied only to foreign war criminals not to our elected representatives. Second, emergency powers were given to the Rector, allowing him to expel anybody at anytime he wishes to protect the University from legal proceedings as the one that I initiated the year before.

Then came a lawsuit by Hillel. After Hillel was found contravening the Canadian criminal code by recruiting for a foreign army they were politely asked to remove the material. They refused. Instead Hillel continued to recruit for the Nahal Brigade, the unit responsible for building and protecting illegal settlements on Palestinian land (a war crime under the 4th Geneva Convention). The CSU had to move. They suspended Hillel's funding pending their agreement to sign a policy that bans recruitment on campus or racism by clubs; a statement that every other club had signed. Hillel refused and sued the CSU for $100,000 in damages claiming that the CSU is anti-Semitic. The lawsuit was another manufactured event to manipulate student opinion and Mr. Asper took full advantage of the situation. The CSU was compared to Nazis and the events of September 9th were compared to Kristallnacht until the day of the next elections. Although the residing judge found no anti-Semitism in the actions of the CSU and in-fact stated that the issue was a quarrel within the Jewish community -sighting the fact that three out of the six CanDo execs were either Jewish or half Jewish- the outcome of the case was scarcely reported. The initial charges on behalf of Hillel Concordia were reported throughout the world as "the first Jewish group to be banned since the 1930's."

The Evolution Campaign and interference

In March 2003, at the height of the fear mongering campaign the CSU elections were organized. Evolution -a Zionist and Administration-backed slate- was being groomed to take helm of the Union. Canwest-Global was mobilized to insure a win, daily coverage of the election campaign on local and national news surpassed that of Montreal city elections, and the lines were drawn. According to the media the choice for students was between the "extremist" Clean Slate and the homeboys of Evolution. The following election irregularities occurred but the CEO didn't have the guts to disqualify Evolution, fearing another Bnai Brith -funded lawsuit. First, Evolution campaigners got a hold of the list of student phone numbers and called every white-sounding name to encourage them to vote, again saying, "don't let the Arabs run the Union". Second, the Alumni association somehow found 100 000$ to run an election ad campaign out of their $200,000 per year budget. The ads were run in all English newspapers and radios in Montreal and even national newspapers. Third, at the first night of the campaign somehow 50 supporters of Evolution were allowed to poster, although regulation stipulate that only people running for positions are allowed to be on campus that night. And finally Evolution posters that were glossy full color print must have surpassed -if not by triple at least by double- the allowed election expenditures. In the end Evolution took the CSU, and the theft of student rights commenced. A year passed, tuition hikes were uncontested, the administration's attack on student space was not confronted and a multimillion dollar surveillance system was installed with hidden cameras and phone taps throughout the University.

RE-Evolution, the saga continues

This year things did not change, in fact the right wing is more emboldened since nothing happened last year about their irregularities. Again we have an Alumni ad campaign; again hordes of campaigners were allowed to poster the first night. This time though the hordes were 100 strong and were being paid by the athletics department. They had walky-talkies and earpieces that were not counted as election expenses. And again they were calling students at home to sway their vote and inflame their passions. Add to that the expensive posters and surely New-Evolution surpassed the allowed expenditures and even last year's expenses. The latest ploy by the administration is an email blitz sent by the office of the dean of students stating their support for the actions of Evolution. The administration also hired a telemarketing company to call students and ask them who would they vote for and around twenty other questions some of which are even illegal for the RCMP or CSIS to ask, such as religious affiliation and religious practices. In the process the University's administration breached the confidentiality of students by handing over the student's information to a third party. One just hopes that this year's CEO will have the courage to disqualify them, but that seems a remote possibility.

Laith Marouf contributed this OP-ED to Montreal Muslim News. He can be reached via e-mail at: laithofsyria@hotmail.com