By World BEYOND War, July 15, 2024
World BEYOND War has given the 2024 Youth War Abolisher Award to Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union. In May, 2024, Trinity College agreed to fully divest from Israeli companies over the coming months. This victory followed a tent encampment protest on campus that was part of a movement at campuses in several countries, sparked by the media coverage of an encampment at Columbia University in New York.
The Students Union had worked with the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, other groups, university staff, and supporters in Dublin and Ireland. For months, they had organized weekly marches to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza. On April 30th, they blockaded the entrance to the Book of Kells Museum, which houses a 1,200-year-old Celtic Gospel book and a library built in the 1700s. The Book of Kells is estimated to generate a weekly income of approximately €350,000 for the college during the summer months. The university quickly fined the Students Union €214,000. The public response to that move was largely in the form of support for the students.
The Students Union did not back down, but set up an encampment and continued pushing for divestment, eventually succeeding. A detailed account of this effort has been published at Waging Nonviolence.
Accepting the award at an online public award ceremony on July 22, 2024, will be Jenny Maguire. She is the newly elected president of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union. She served as one of the negotiators of the Palestine-solidarity encampments, achieving the complete divestment by Trinity College Dublin from Israel.
The award will be presented by the President of World BEYOND War Kathy Kelly.
“We at TCDSU and TCDSU BDS are incredibly honoured to accept this award,” said Jenny Maguire. “We are incredibly aware that this, however, is not a win for us, but a win for all who believe in a just world. We are a part of a movement larger than any single individual or organisation, with each of us playing a part to achieve peace and a liberated Palestine. It is important to recognise the moments of success we achieve in our struggle, especially in a world that fights so hard to prevent justice. Our struggle is ongoing, and it will continue to progress until Palestine is free. Saoirse don Phalaistín.”
Jenny Maguire
The timing of the awards ceremony will be July 22, 2024, at 16:00 UTC, which is 6 a.m. in Honolulu, 9 a.m. in San Francisco, 10 a.m. in Mexico City, 12 noon in Washington D.C., 5 p.m. in Dublin, 5 p.m. in Yaoundé, 6 p.m. in Berlin, 7 p.m. in Rafah, 7 p.m. in Jerusalem, 7:30 p.m. in Tehran, and 9:30 p.m. in New Delhi.
The event is free and open to the media and the public. Register for the Zoom link here.
World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement, founded in 2014, to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. The purpose of the awards is to honor and encourage support for those working to abolish the institution of war itself. With the Nobel Peace Prize and other nominally peace-focused institutions so frequently honoring other good causes or, in fact, wagers of war, World BEYOND War intends its awards to go to educators or activists intentionally and effectively advancing the cause of war abolition, accomplishing reductions in war-making, war preparations, or war culture. World BEYOND War received hundreds of impressive nominations. The World BEYOND War Board, with assistance from its Advisory Board and Staff, made the selections.
The awardees are honored for their body of work directly supporting one or more of the three segments of World BEYOND War’s strategy for reducing and eliminating war as outlined in the book A Global Security System, An Alternative to War. They are: Demilitarizing Security, Managing Conflict Without Violence, and Building a Culture of Peace.
