Discordia Revisited: The Concordia Netanyahu Riot of 2002

New Books in Higher Education

20 years ago at Concordia University in Montreal pro-Palestinian protestors clashed with police over whether Benjamin Netanyahu should be allowed to speak on campus. Windows were smashed, arrests were made, the talk was cancelled.

The fallout from that day defined how the school year proceeded, with heated council debates, media stunts, lawsuits, explosions, and a contentious student election.

This was captured in the film Discordia (2004), and while the fight had no influence over the conflict in the middle east, it was a major moment in the lives of those involved, so we tracked them down.

Henry Kissinger once said "the reason that university politics is so vicious is because the stakes are so small." Was he right? We investigate what university politics means, and how it has evolved in the two decades since Discordia.

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