Susanne Nyaga

As of February 2018, Nyaga’s LinkedIn said she served as president of the Ryerson University (Ryerson) Student Union (RSU) in 2017. She graduated from Ryerson in 2017 with a bachelor’s in Social Work.

On July 3, 2017, it was reported that Nyaga and another senior RSU officer released a controversial statement on behalf of RSU, without consulting other RSU executives or board members. The statement demanded that Ryerson remove a campus statue of the school’s namesake, change the university’s name and create indigenous-only spaces on campus.

As of October 2017, Nyaga’s LinkedIn page listed her as a “Resume and Online Profile Advisor - Team Lead” at Ryerson.

Nyaga goes by the alias “Eno Nags” on social media.

Promoting BDS

On March 11, 2015, Nyaga tweeted: “Nothing better than discussing race issues with a group of racialized people then going to a BDS movement event for Palestine #dopenight.”

Trivializing Anti-Semitism

Nyaga, while the 2017 RSU president, reportedly attempted to remove references to Israel from Ryerson’s official definition of anti-Semitism.

On July 18, 2017, the Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter at Ryerson posted on Facebook that Nyaga had attempted to “redefine our definition-despite it already being adopted by last year's RSU.”

SSI Ryerson also reported that Nyaga “didn't really put forth a different definition … she just wanted there to be no mention of Israel in it.”

SSI Ryerson published a photo of the RSU-approved definition which included using anti-Semitic “symbols and images” in relation to Israel, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”

Also included were “applying double standards” to Israel and “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.”

The definition had originally passed the RSU in March 2017 and included wording from the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Antisemitism, which was adopted by the Canadian government in 2012.

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/100003336511340

Twitter 1:https://twitter.com/susanne_nn  

Twitter 2:https://twitter.com/s_nyaga/

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/susi3_n/

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannenyaga