Standing for Palestinian Liberation in the Face of Repression: Interview with a San Antonio High School Student Activist

This week (10/2), the San Antonio Independent School District, in San Antonio, Texas, issued an alarming letter to the families of students claiming to have “received information” from “area law enforcement” of “an armed protest” set to take place on October 7th.” The letter did not specify where the alleged protest was to take place, nor did it include “evidence” the district claims to have received. Nonetheless the monopoly media ran with the story without interviewing any student activists. In an effort to combat what our investigation indicates is a scare tactic from the police to repress the student movement, The Worker has conducted the following interview with a student activist close to the situation.

According to News4SA, a monopoly media outlet, “some individuals have impersonated a school organization.” This sounds remarkably similar to the “outside agitators” claims commonly leveled against mass protests. Is there any truth to it?

These claims are an obvious attempt to slander FSL [Fox Students League]. This is basically the school saying that if students don’t register an organization to be controlled by the school directly, they are “Impersonating Student Organizations”, and it’s being used to further their unstated position that we are some unknown organization impersonating students. This too is an absurd claim that not even they believe, seen in that they have tried to pin FSL leadership on students and threatened them with police repression. The Administration has no right to determine what organizations are “Legitimate”, “Registered”, or even “Legal”, and what organizations are “Impersonators” and “Outside Agitators”.

Can you tell us a little about the organizing at your school?

We’re organizing at 3 high schools, in 1 building, so conditions are pretty diverse. ALA [Advanced Learning Academy] and Cast are charters that style themselves as schools “Supporting and uplifting student voices”, whereas Fox has a more openly antagonistic approach to students through “Traditions”. While different approaches, they’re similar in that their core goal is to repress students. Since we have began distributing fliers and holding meetings, they have made relentless threats against students for being allegedly involved with us. Since then, the school has taken up increasing amounts of surveillance against students, abandoning any pretense of “Student Voice” through their absurd rumor-mongering against us and students in general.

The hysteria in the monopoly media and from the school district administrators appears to be connected to a flyer for a Palestine solidarity event issued by Fox Students League. The flyer labels the event a Teach-in on “Palestine, October 7th, and the necessity for armed resistance.” The flyer also states the event as being held at a public library and not at school. Can you tell us about how these things are related?

We held a teach in talking about the resistance in Palestine, which is, and can only be, armed. Campus administration, the school district, SAPD [San Antonio Police Department], and the FBI/DHS “SW Texas Fusion Center” are falsely equating supporting the Palestinian Resistance with “promoting gun violence” and “holding an armed protest” as a means to repress us from protesting against a genocide paid for and supported by the Ruling Class, who they are paid to protect.

Do you believe that the students rights to free speech are being attacked even though in its letter the district claims to support students’ right to free speech?

Yes. Admin and SAPD can claim they support our right to free speech all day, but they don’t mean it for a second. They are tearing our flyers off of walls and out of peoples’ hands, they have threatened students with legal action for simply holding a flyer, and they are spreading false information to discredit our organization. This is not some new or unique event but a slip show of the United States Empire’s corrupt and bloody role here and across the globe; we’ve made them scared and they’re showing their true colors.

Do you believe local and federal police are behind the actions of the school district?

The Southwest Texas Fusion Center, which administration and SAPD have stated are involved in the “investigation”, is a deceptively named collaboration of government agencies including the FBI and DHS. As federal agencies are involved, and both the district and Administration have based all of their claims in “credible evidence from SAPD”, which no party has shown or elaborated on, of course the police are behind the actions of the district. While they may have had the motive after we called them out, they could not have acted entirely of their on volition, nor was it by the will of any one individual or party. The actions of the district are a sharp representation and consequence of the more and more reactionizing bourgeois state.

What repression have you, your classmates, or comrades faced as a result of this?

Fox Tech campus administration and the district have deliberately tried to silence and slander us through absurd lies and accusations (“promoting gun violence, armed protest, impersonating a student organization”). Why? It has become clear administration is attempting a McCarthyite crusade against their own students, whereby they are associating previously repressed students with FSL, and FSL with the Palestinian resistance. They have shown they will be wholly indiscriminate in the means they will use to repress us by their targeting of innocent students, the law enforcement they have involved and their use of federal agency. However we know their threats and attempts to silence and control us are empty and worthless in the face of the rising resistance. We have faith that our fellow students will take up the struggle and stand against whatever they may threaten us with.

What are the positive and negative lessons in all this and how has it conditioned the will among your peers to continue being active in the solidarity movement?

We have learned a great deal throughout, first and foremost that we can never bow to the attacks of reactionaries and the ruling class; after all, they but fleeting grasps for control in this dying system, and if we fold to them we only grant credit to their spineless action. We have also come to the understanding that mistakes are necessary, we’ve made many in getting where we are today, perhaps most relevantly: including the words “armed resistance” on a flyer for highschoolers. We’ve endured threats and punishment, but we are immeasurably better for it! As we have been repressed and attacked it has only strengthened our will to continue fighting; it has inspired and motivated others to stand up alongside us, because we and the people know their attacks must be met with resistance ten fold!

Finally, please share any words to fellow working class high school students across the country about their role in the struggle.

Our capitalist oppressive government, school districts, and administration will pull every stop, every threat, and every absurd claim to keep you down. They pull these fleeting grasps for control because they are afraid, because they know better than anyone the power of the masses when we get organized! It is not some administrator or cop that makes history, but the masses, all of you who do! We as students are powerful, there is no denying this, but we are only students for a short time, after which, workers, so I urge you to think of yourselves not only as students but future members of the working class. Know that your impact rings far beyond the walls of a school. I urge you to think not only of the waves you make as a students but to the working class movement, for you raise the foundations of revolution!

Image: A graphic announcing the formation of the Fox Students League from a September social media post.

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