By: Noeka Nimmervoll, News Editor
Starting on September 9, SFU’s Faculty for Palestine (F4P-SFU) invites SFU community members to wear keffiyehs every Wednesday to show support for Palestine. Organized by members of F4P-SFU in coordination with pro-Palestine students, this campaign aims to symbolically show support for Palestinians around campus.
The Peak spoke to Steff Huì Cí Ling, director of access and equity at the Graduate Student Society, and one of the students organizing with F4P-SFU. “Keffiyeh Wednesday is a way to make Palestinian struggle and resistance visible, as well as a means for students, staff, and faculty to connect through a gesture that shows our continuous solidarity with Palestine and Palestinian members of the SFU community,” Ling shared.
“While it is a symbolic action, we hope our actions contribute to creating an environment that refuses to accept genocidal violence and colonial practices as the norm.”
— Steff Huì Cí Ling, director of access and equity at the Graduate Student Society
She said, “While it is a symbolic action, we hope our actions contribute to creating an environment that refuses to accept genocidal violence and colonial practices as the norm.”
The Peak also spoke to Jérémie Cornut, SFU political science professor and member of F4P-SFU. He shared that he and other members of F4P-SFU came to this idea through discussion over the summer about how they could show support for Palestine in the fall. “We were looking for an activity that would show support, individual support; a small gesture with a big impact, which is showing that it’s an important question, that Palestinians are not forgotten, and that their fight is still our fight,” he detailed.
A keffiyeh is a traditional cotton scarf that has come to be associated with Palestinian pride, resistance, and solidarity. It sometimes features a fishnet black and white design with an intricate border. According to Handmade Palestine, a “social enterprise” sharing Palestinian crafts and supporting Palestinian cultural heritage, the keffiyeh was traditionally worn to protect rural workers and farmers in Palestine from the weather. During the Great Arab Revolt in the 1930s, however, the keffiyeh became a symbol of resistance, donned by “ordinary people, farmers, and rural workers” against British colonization. Today, the keffiyeh still carries the weight of solidarity for Palestine.
For professors concerned about wearing keffiyehs in the classroom, Cornut argued that nothing in the Human Rights Policy at SFU prohibits the wearing of political clothing. The policy states, “The personal characteristics protected by the Code and by this Policy [ . . . ] in the case of employment, also includes unrelated criminal convictions and political belief.”
Cornut shared that faculty members involved in F4P-SFU considered the current environment around Western ideas of Palestine when coming up with the idea for Keffiyeh Wednesdays. “There is a discrepancy between the widespread support for Palestine and the somewhat surprising reluctance to express this support,” he shared. Cornut pointed out that many factors may influence this, including the Trump administration’s intimidation and removal of international students, and detention of US permanent residents, who engage in pro-Palestine university protests. “That created a very surprising situation where people do not necessarily make the difference between the US and Canada, and think it’s controversial to express support for Palestine on Canadian campuses,” he said.
Canadian universities have similarly suppressed support for Palestine on campuses. On July 30, The Breach published an investigation that showed Canadian universities, including University of Alberta, SFU, and University of British Columbia, networking covertly to suppress student encampments for Palestine in 2024. Universities in Alberta would proceed to have increasingly militarized responses, involving “not just police but also an official from Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government.” This is a clear demonstration of Canadian universities intervening in “Charter-protected political activity on their campuses.”
Cornut shared that he hoped as Keffiyeh Wednesdays continued, he would see more and more people participate. “That’s the goal, right? Having a significant, visible, symbolic action where you would see that SFU is an apartheid-free campus.” He connected the Burnaby campus’ Keffiyeh Wednesdays to Burnaby council’s vote on August 26 last year to become an apartheid-free community.
Ling shared, “As students, we hope it will help people, especially incoming students, identify politically aligned people and lead to relationships that are the foundation of actions aimed at more material advocacy such as divestment, policies that recognize anti-Palestinian [discrimination], or pathways for incoming Palestinian students who are stuck in the immigration system.”
