On Wednesday 15th May at 2pm, two staff members and one alumni of UCL publicly shaved their heads on UCL main campus, Gower Street, London, in protest of the institution’s silence on the scholasticide that has unfolded in Gaza and its complicity through its ties with companies, institutions and banks that support the state of Israel and hence the ongoing apartheid and genocide being committed via its policies and military action.
This act was inspired by the eleven women who shaved their heads outside of UK Parliament in March this year to protest the water and food blockade of Gaza – wherein starvation and dehydration has led to hair loss, scalp ringworm and bacterial infections, and some Palestinian women have been forced to shave their heads and the heads of their children to try and reduce the impact of infections. This action has been replicated also by the movement Juntas Por Palestina, now international but begun by Cuban women, seeing women shave their heads in the same gesture of solidarity and as a political statement and seeking for 76 women total to take part – one for each year of Palestinian occupation.
This demonstration was chosen by the participants at UCL in order to highlight the dehumanisation of the Palestinian people, by highlighting just one aspect of the inhumane conditions the civilian population is being subjected to. The date was selected to coincide with Nakba day, which occurs on 15th May commemorating the Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’: where 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their lands, 530 villages were destroyed and 78 percent of historic Palestine was claimed by Israel.
In solidarity and support of the ongoing student actions and demands, these staff and alumni are seeking to amplify the student demands by urging UCL to:
- Release a statement condemning scholasticide in Gaza, in line with its pledge to uphold academic freedom, and to honour its esteemed alumnus, Dr. Refaat Alareer, who was killed in Gaza by an Israeli air strike late last year.
- Cut ties with the companies and institutions that are upholding Israeli genocide and apartheid by ending all collaborations, research partnerships, and other ties with arms companies, and the withdrawal of UCL from the UUKi Israeli mobility scheme which ties UCL to Tel Aviv University. They also demand UCL stops banking with Barclays which invests in and profits from Israeli apartheid and genocide and for UCL to issue a report disclosing the details and nature of the institution’s current ties with arms companies, and other entities involved in supporting Israeli apartheid and genocide.
- And finally, to establish partnerships with Palestinian universities, and scholarships and fellowships for Palestinian students and academics to study and work at UCL – which the university has already set a precedent for for Ukrainian students and academics in light of the Russian-Ukrainian invasion.
The action was performed alongside the launch of a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign by UCL staff which (similar to student demand) implores the university to:
- Cease to engage with Israeli higher education or any corporation involved in supporting Israeli occupation/apartheid.
- Support Palestinian universities, educators and students
- Speak out against all attempts to silence Palestine solidarity action on UCL campus or beyond.
This has been launched as part of the wider BDS movement.
The three shavers were May, a member of UCL professional services; Diana, UCL Alumni and retired GP; and a lecturer at the UCL Institute of Education who wishes to remain anonymous.
May, a full-time technician as well as a part-time PhD student at UCL, said:
“This is an inhumanity that the institution I am a part of is complicit in – as pointed out by our students who are taking action. So long as Palestinian oppression continues as state policy then Israel should be a pariah state – just as was done for South Africa to push an end to their apartheid. Our institution has a part to play in this, it has ties to cut.
This demonstration cannot hope to capture even a fraction of the inhumanity happening right now in Gaza, or the decades of displacement, killing and oppression inflicted on the Palestinian people since the Nakba. But it can highlight one small part of this dehumanisation by bringing it onto campus, in order to implore this institution to do the right thing.
Dr Diana Warner, retired GP, said:
“I feel privileged to support students by coming to shave my head as they take such courageous steps. Just a month ago shaving off my hair felt like a powerful step, but last week after watching over a hundred thousand people being force marched out of Rafah to nowhere, after such intolerable suffering, this action seems like nothing.
I have feelings of strangeness, utter sadness, and I am uplifted at the same time. Terrible grief that we are watching another genocide unfold before our eyes, with complicity of the UK state, perpetrated by the Israeli government and Israeli army – Jewish people like me.
[…] learning is a two-way process, and sometimes the learning will come to the teachers from those who are normally the students. Right now, students are the teachers. I implore the UCL leadership to use their minds, to apply clarity and humanity, to take up their courage, to listen to students and accede to their demands”
The participating UCL IOE Lecturer, who works on the role of education in conflict, said:
“I’m here to resist scholasticide. Genocide and epistemicide are two sides of the same coin. When powerful forces want to control or wipe out a whole group, they don’t just go for their bodies—they go for their minds too. They target knowledge, memory, and history. Israeli forces have bombed, damaged or destroyed all 12 universities in Gaza, along with over 300 schools, cultural centrers and libraries. The loss of lives and targeted assassinations of students, researchers, and academics, including numerous internationally respected scholars, deans, and presidents, have had a devastating effect on the intellectual foundation of higher education in Gaza. Westernised universities have risen to dominance against a backdrop of imperialism and historical genocides committed against various populations: the persecution of Jewish and Muslim communities during the conquest of Al-Andalus, the brutal colonisation of the Americas which decimated indigenous peoples, the centuries-long enslavement of Africans in the Americas, and the witch hunts that vilified and executed countless women in Europe. Gaza is the metaphor for global justice! “Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere”. While girls in Gaza should be enjoying books in libraries, playing in schoolyards, or exploring their favourite sports, they’re faced with the unimaginable task of searching for killed loved ones or finding the limbs of their siblings in the rubble. I’m here because I have an ethical obligation that my work doesn’t contribute to denying them their dignity, knowledge, history, humanity, or even their existence. I am here because our liberation is bound up with each other.
Notes to the editor:
- Head shaving also has a history as a method of political protest beyond Palestine action.
- This demonstration is staff-led and not a part of the ongoing UCL encampment protest, which is student-led, and therefore does not speak on their behalf