The sit-in is over

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

After six days, the sit-in is finally over without any demand concretely met. I don't know to be happy or upset with the end of this issue, but I am certainly happy that none of the sisters that I know fall into those last 30ish of students who had to be "chucked" out of the faculty. 

I don't know who plotted the plan to break this sit-in and I don't know if they are clever or cunning in this plot. For many days, the university has been trying to get the students out. Last night, there was a CUSU (Cambridge University Students' Union) Council meeting to debate among many issues two motions relating to the sit-in (one for and one against). Although it's only some council members and the Presidents and External Officer of each college's JCR (Junior Common Room) and MCR (Middle Common Room) could vote, everyone can speak at the council. So, a big group of the people in the sit-in went out to attend the council meeting to support the motion which starts at 7.15pm. 

At around 7pm, the Registrar of the university issued a letter to them saying that those who trying to go in after leaving the building will be charged as trespassers. So, those who have left the building to attend the meeting, could not go in after that and the door to the building was locked and guarded by the university security. Around 10pm, when they came back after loosing the battle at the meeting, they could not go back to the sit-in, so some of them remain outside the door in the cold. This morning, at around 11am, all of them had to leave the building. More of the story can be found here. 

I personally supported the demands but I do not support the means. Hence, ISOC sent a letter to the Vice Chancellor stating our demands and sent press release to the university's newsletters. We also successfully passed a motion at the meeting last night for CUSU to acknowledge the humanitarian crisis in the region and support any student who want to raise awareness and money to help the situation.

Muslims should be peace-loving bunch of people. We should not disrupt others in the means we use to try to achieve our goal. Islam doesn't teach us that end justifies the means. There are so many other legal channels to get our voice heard. Probably less loud than this but at least we are not taking the rights of anyone away because the sit-in has created inconvenience to the students who use the lecture halls for classes. They have to move to small lecture halls and sat on the floor or stood at the door to listen to the lectures. The fact is that, after a few days of the sit-in, the Gaza issue is not the spotlight but the sit-in. People from sympathising the situation in Gaza as a result of the awareness raised through the sit-in, into hating to want to know more about it now. I don't know how much good the sit-in has done to the issue in Gaza, but it certainly has join in at least 18 other universities in the UK to occupy their universities to make sure that their demands are met. From the poll run by the university, from 2273 voters, less than 50% of the students believe that the university should grant demands 1, 2 and 4 but more than 50% of the students agree with demands 3, 5 & 6, and especially with disinvestment of arm trades. 

Anyway, we hope that our letter to the Vice Chancellor will receive a positive feedback and alhamdulillah this sit-in doesn't create a single noise that the stereotype extremist muslims are among those that created the chaos, even though it is a peaceful sit-in with some disruptions to the normal life of the students and staff of the Law Faculty. There were a handful of them in the sit-in but most of them went to the council meeting, hence they were not among those that had been taken out by the university this morning. 

Image is important because that's how dawah is made through examples and behaviours of the muslims. What I can learn from this is that only praiseworthy action will produce praiseworthy results; if we don't want people to continue occupy other people, we must not first be the occupier; never fight an injustice with another injustice; repel evils with good; do not do what you desire not from other to do to you.

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.