The Press in Oregon | Occupation in Portland, capital of demonstrations

(Portland) This could all have gone very, very badly.

Thursday morning, police evacuated the Portland State University (PSU) library. About fifty people had occupied it for six days. Results: 12 arrests, including a minority of students. The others had fled running.

When I arrived, the police had set up a security perimeter and barricaded the library, which was covered in graffiti. Around a hundred demonstrators faced him, chanting slogans. A second circle of supporters were there to see what would happen. And nothing was happening.

But around 4 p.m., a white Camry pulled into a pedestrian lane. She was walking towards the students. After a final push of the accelerator, she stopped. The driver got out of the car with a can of cayenne pepper and released a cloud of it, while the crowd rushed at him.

While the police went to stop him further, the masked demonstrators completely destroyed the car, covering it with pro-Palestinian graffiti.

The guy was examined in psychiatry, last I heard.

We were one step away from a death on an American campus.

“We have to admit that we have a reputation in Portland,” Ryan tells me, observing the line of riot police facing the demonstrators.

Yes, Portland, Oregon, the progressive city par excellence, North American urban and social laboratory, has quite a reputation. In particular for being a sort of capital of demonstrations. Those following the violent death of George Floyd lasted more than 100 consecutive days here.

Compared to the encampments that have sprung up elsewhere, and Portland-wide, then, the brief occupation of the State University campus library is no big deal. It is still a summary of the entire national debate, Portlandian sauce. That is to say this touch of strangeness that the city likes to cultivate as a signature. “Keep Portland Weird,” one t-shirt says.

The first one I met was Rod Such, a 78-year-old retired editor and member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Adjusting his keffiyeh, he tells me with a touch of nostalgia in his eye that as a young journalist he covered the demonstrations against the Vietnam War at Columbia University in 1968. “The Democrats have not learned their lesson, but this generation understood. There is nothing extremist about demanding equality and protesting apartheid in Israel. »

You can’t go to any American city without seeing a student demonstration denouncing Israel. But the comparison with the Vietnam years has its limits. The students were protesting a military operation by their own government in 1968. And it was precisely this generation that was being conscripted to fight an immoral war.

In 2024, it is the policy of military support for Israel that is denounced. The similarity is that some of the student youth are distancing themselves from a Democratic president because of this.

But what can friendly Oregon State University do about it?

“The University needs to cut its ties with Boeing,” Silver, one of the organizers, told me, masked so as not to be identified by the police. The Seattle aircraft manufacturer manufactures military equipment used by the Israeli army. She cites the case of Brown University, which negotiated the lifting of the encampment in exchange for a recommendation for divestment.

“But how do you react when you make “glory to the martyrs” graffiti, which could be written by Hamas?

— For us, the martyrs are the children, the women, the civilians killed in Gaza.

— And the hostages, you don’t talk about them?

— It would be great if they were released, but the Netanyahu government doesn’t care. There are some who have celebrated Shabbat elsewhere. »

Behind the first circle of demonstrators, there are the sympathizers. And behind the sympathizers, there are the observers.

A masked student yells at the police and tells them to leave. Andrew Olson, an 18-year-old music student, replies that you can’t just give up your job like that. That the police are necessary. A guy in a cowboy hat, looking for someone to yell at, comes to shout at him, thinking he’s dealing with one of the occupants of the library.

Then, a 1980 graduate in his wrestling team t-shirt arrives with his bullhorn to bury the protesters. He talks about Khomeini’s Iran, who kidnapped American diplomats in 1979. A masked student tells him: there were only a few dozen, while there are 40,000 dead in Gaza. The wrestler is furious. People are shouting around.

By chance, Israeli journalist Meirav Moran, from the left-wing daily Haaretz, is here. I say by chance, in the sense that she didn’t come to Portland for the demonstration, but to talk about the homeless. She is shocked by what she reads and hears. “Opinions are OK, they are young, I think they all have good hearts. But I ask them about Israel, they have no idea of ​​the facts. I ask them: What is Palestine from the river to the sea? They don’t know what sea. One told me: the Jews could return to the United States…”

Without having done a survey, it is quite obvious that the average student is all for the right to protest, but gives up when their university is damaged.

Finn and Luke walked into the library on Tuesday, just to look. Because the demonstrators claimed that the library was still open to everyone.

“First of all,” Luke said, “there are many who are clearly not students. They made graffiti everywhere, the computers are destroyed. They dismantled tables and chairs to make a barricade. They will lose a lot of support. »

“I am sensitive to the cause, but it becomes counterproductive if you destroy public facilities,” said Will Francis, who came with two friends. “It’s no longer peaceful. »

Hubert Thériault, a 20-year-old Quebecer and member of the tennis team, passes by with his friend Nika Beukers, who is holding his rackets.

“Just looking, you can see that it’s not just students. But we are a little outside of that: in the team there is an Italian, a Serbian, etc. One of the guys is especially annoyed at having to wash his underwear in his residence because his laundry has been in a pavilion that has been closed for three days…”

Precisely, the city that has pushed tolerance for dissent to the maximum in North America wants to send a new message to the rest of the country: we are not so flyés What do you think. There was no question of letting things go any longer. The mayor (Democrat, of course) of the very progressive city of Portland, Ted Wheeler, drew a line as soon as there was an intrusion and a bit of damage. Over the past year, Mayor Wheeler has taken a serious step forward in terms of public safety – I will come back to that.

Friday morning, the library was barricaded, but for cleaning. The graffiti had almost all disappeared.

Portland is still Portland.

There’s a healthy-habits-minded guy in a “smoke a chicken, not fentanyl” t-shirt.

There’s a guy sitting on the floor pretending to read a book in Hebrew and German. “It’s the best way to learn, but I don’t understand it yet.” »

There is the Reverend Aric Clark, who came to admire the commitment of the youth. “It’s messy sometimes, but they learn. »

Suddenly there are 10 skaters arriving from the next park with their loudspeaker, to enjoy the wooden planks lying on the stairs. The demonstrators watch the spectacle.

There’s Bam, a guy who hasn’t missed a demonstration since the ones against the war in Iraq, 20 years ago. He monitors police brutality. He shows me a bandage on his hand: he was injured when he fell when the police evacuated.

There is also Greg Nagle, 49, who watches the scene, touched. His daughter came to support the demonstrators.

“I love my city, it is passionate, it has compassion and although it sometimes goes to extremes, we end up finding common ground from time to time…”