United in Struggle

Steadfastness, Organizing and Workers’ Power Defeat Zionist Smear Campaigns and State Repression at Langara College!

United in Struggle salutes the courage and steadfastness of Natalie Knight and celebrates her reinstatement at Langara College almost two years after being fired. Natalie’s political courage in refusing to back down on her support for the Palestinian resistance and the just cause of Palestinian national liberation exposed the complicity with the Israeli genocide in Gaza of the BC NDP and whole Canadian political establishment. Her refusal to cave in to the ruling classes’ intimidation tactics yielded important lessons about how we resist repression and support movement leaders when they are targeted by the state. 

Natalie, then a co-chair of United in Struggle, was initially put on paid administrative leave following a speech on October 28, 2023 in which she upheld the right of Palestinians to resist colonization and occupation, including by armed struggle. After an internal investigation by Langara’s Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression Advisory Committee, she was reinstated without discipline on January 18, 2024. But when Natalie continued to speak out against the genocide and support the Palestinian resistance, an orchestrated Zionist campaign, and the direct political interference of then BC NDP Minister of Post Secondary Education Selina Robinson, led to her being fired outright on January 26, 2024. 

Natalie’s suspension and firing are just one example of the way Canadian imperialism, elites and the whole Canadian political establishment closed ranks in support of its Israeli imperialist ally and activated its machinery of preventative counter-revolution to repress, intimidate and punish the broad support for Palestinian liberation and self-determination that erupted in the wake of the historic Palestinian resistance of October 7 and the subsequent Israeli genocide in Gaza. This wave of repression included firing, discipline and suspension of public figures who spoke out, proactive suffocation of free speech, aggressive and violent policing of solidarity actions, the outrageous designation of Samidoun as a ‘terrorist entity’, the full engagement of the corporate media propaganda machine, and arrests and raids of pro-Palestine activists and organizers. 

In this context, Natalie’s reinstatement is very much a partial victory. The attempt to intimidate Natalie, to silence her and to politically marginalize her failed! But the message that speaking out against imperialism and genocide can get you fired, publicly condemned by a sitting government minister, and dragged through the mud in the media, were soundly driven home during the time that it most mattered, as Israel, backed by the U.S., Canada and the rest of the Anglo-American Imperalist Alliance engaged in their genocidal massacre in Gaza. In this sense the legal and paralegal processes which dragged out the grievance filed by Natalie’s union, the Langara Faculty Association, for two years, functioned very much as part of the machinery of repression, rather than an antidote to it. 

Put pointedly, in no way should Natalie’s reinstatement be viewed as some kind of validation of liberalism and human rights in Canada. This victory comes from Natalie’s steadfastness and courage, from the political compass set by the Palestinian people’s national liberation struggle over decades of resisting imperialist colonization and occupation, from her union’s determination to take a clear stand for her rights as a worker, from the broader workers movement in Canada which fought for and won protections for workers under bourgeois law, and from the organizations, communities and individuals who rallied behind and stood with Natalie throughout this process.

The lesson is that principled proletarian internationalism, building the workers movement, and patient step-by-step mass organizing are our best tools for resisting state repression and striking back against the capitalist parasites who plunder our communities, our class, and our world.

– United in Struggle Planning Committee, 2025-11-23