Updates from the Liberated Zone at the University of Washington: Fascists, Chuds, and Barricades

Report from The Nightly about the ongoing encampment in solidarity with Palestine at the University of Washington (UW) and defense of the space from the far-Right.

Clashes were expected Tuesday night when a talk given by Charlie Kirk, the golden boy of that specific alt-right subdivision that’s really into tailored suits, lured hordes of smirking chuds to the HUB. In preparation for the worst– a fascist assault on the Liberated Zone, which the UWPD could have taken as an excuse to sweep the area– anarchists made shields and donned helmets and goggles.

The UF recruited a bunch of people to wear green pieces of tape, so that’s also something. Luckily, it turned out that the Kirk supporters, and chuds more broadly, weren’t all that interested in actually fighting a war. The Liberated Zone got heckled by a bunch of drunk frat boys and one old man trying to recreate January 6th at the barricade, but in a cosmopolitan setting like Seattle, that’s just another Tuesday night.

Though there were minimal injuries, the fact that the University of Washington (UW) chose to let fascists speak on campus in the first place is telling. The situation could have easily devolved similarly to the 2017 Milo Yiannopoulos event, in which counter-protesters and reactionaries clashed in Red Square, leading to a shooting of a protester.

What is notable is not the fascists, who are mainly misguided cowards, but the university administration who chose to put hundreds of students at risk. Not only do speakers like this spread violently Zionist, racist, and transphobic rhetoric, but the kinds of people they bring onto campus are those the UW had to have known would antagonize or attack protestors at the Liberated Zone. It’s not far-fetched to believe UW was hoping for a violent outcome. A clash would give UWPD an excuse to enter the area and destroy the protest that has become a thorn in the UW’s side (though not a very large one, due to the lack of escalation).

President Cauce and her henchmen (and henchwomen, go girlbosses!) truly do not care if UW students live or die. Though they’ll smile and tell us pretty lies, human life has no value to them. They remain complacent in genocide, they refuse to take a stand against fascism, and they value their students only as economic and political pawns. Cauce is a killer. The administration’s complacency has a body count, and they won’t hesitate to increase it.

For now, the Liberated Zone needs to build on the experiences of Tuesday Night and continue preparing to defend the community. They should continue to stock barricades, shields, goggles, helmets, gas masks, and other provisions that will be needed in the event of a violent clash with police. We already know UW will call the cops on its own students before it gives in to demands, so if these demands are ever going to be met, we need to be prepared to fight off the pigs. The Liberated Zone should also have a deep conversation about the crucial role that autonomous action played in Tuesday’s defense. If fascists had decided to attack the LZ, as many anticipated, anarchists would have been largely the only ones prepared to defend it. Yet this movement is so dominated by the UF, autonomous voices are almost completely ignored. As one anarchist said, “It feels like we need to fight to have a presence in it at all, and at the same time they depend on us to do their dirty work.”

Capitulating to neoliberal forces that would rather feed you to fascists than grant your demands is futile. UW’s violence trumps all destruction that protesters could possibly cause, and condemning escalation protects no one but Cauce. Inaction perpetuates oppression. In conversations about escalation, protecting the most vulnerable means maintaining safe spaces (for example, keeping some distance between escalations and the encampment), not escalating at all. UW students need to remember that attending this school puts them in a position of privilege and stop treating non-students like their voices don’t matter. This narrow perspective is what has allowed nonsensical arguments like, “Escalation harms the most marginalized,” to flourish within the UF. Inaction itself harms marginalized groups because it perpetuates their marginalization– a fact that would probably be better observed if the UF valued the input of those without the privilege to attend a prestigious school.

Now is the time for radical autonomous action and community-building. UW is a neoliberal, genocidal, and settler-colonial institution. Autonomous destruction is the only way forward. Bring them hell.