Every year the Los Angeles Times puts on a massive book festival, with tens of thousands of people attending. This year the festival took place in the midst of an accelerating U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza. And it was hosted by USC, right after the university canceled the graduation speech of valedictorian Asna Tabassum, supposedly for “safety” concerns but in reality to try to silence the voice of someone critical of Israel. For more on what’s been going on at USC, and Bob Avakian’s analysis of why this kind of repression is happening at college campuses around the country, watch last week’s RNL Show dispatch.

It is a howling contradiction that the LA book festival—an event that is celebrated as an open exchange of ideas—happened on a campus that suppressed their own valedictorian because she expressed ideas they didn’t approve of. 

We kicked off the book festival Saturday morning by disrupting the welcome address from USC senior vice president of university relations, Sam Garrison.

When we went into the crowd with a big sign saying “stop the repression of pro-Palestinian voices,” we were constantly approached by people shocked and outraged by what’s going on, wanting our flyers and stickers, thanking us for taking a stand on this, and even joining our team as we marched through the crowd.

Throughout the weekend, we got out thousands of our statement: Stop the Silencing of Pro-Palestinian Speech! Stop the U.S.-Israeli Genocide Against Palestinians! Anti-Zionism Is Not Antisemitism. Asna Tabassum Must Be Heard at USC Graduation!

We distributed more than 1,500 stickers to people all throughout the crowd, including speakers at the festival and vendors—people were eager to let their stand be seen. And we raised funds for the materials, and the work to build this revolution. 

Most importantly, we sold 176 copies of the new compilation from The Bob Avakian Institute, Israel and Palestine, the Middle East and U.S. Imperialism, the Revolution Humanity Needs: A selection of writings from Bob Avakian. We would engage people over the question of why Biden and the U.S. keep backing Israel and why this repression is happening. People often didn’t really know, or their answers were surface level, so we would challenge them to go deeper by getting into this pamphlet. There was real appreciation and curiosity—with people looking over the table of contents and wanting to dig further. We talked to people about who Bob Avakian is—a revolutionary leader who’s developed a new communism aimed at getting beyond this horrific capitalist-imperialist system. And in that context, the importance of BA’s analysis on these key questions about Palestine, the Middle East, and revolution.