beste Patrice,
ik heb je bericht over nettime gisteren gepubliceerd in het duitse
ondersteuningsartikel voor nakba.munich. is het goed dat er p+7D!&H! staat?
Kijk helemaal onderaan: https://igel-muc.de/rssshow.php?guid=20240513
misschien ook interessant voor je de duitse reacties op Karim Khan's
arrestatiebevel aanvragen, met veel video's, audio's & artikelen:
https://igel-muc.de/rssshow.php?guid=20240521
ciao, david
On Mon, 27 May 2024, Patrice Riemens via nettime-l wrote:
Original to:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/27/university-student-protests-gaza-right
I run a university – people like me should be backing students’ right to
protest over Gaza
Patrizia Nanz
The brutal repression of student protests from Amsterdam to Los Angeles is
exposing failings at the heart of our universities
Mon 27 May 2024
Across the world, university students have set up encampments to protest
against the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza and put pressure on
academic institutions and governments. Whatever one thinks of their message and
of their requests, their moral indignation in the face of avoidable human
suffering is one we should all be able to share.
I find it inspiring that this student movement has been spearheaded by a
generation that was too quickly labelled apolitical and self-absorbed. Think
about it: these students grew up in the bleak post-9/11 world, with a future
foreclosed by the 2008 financial crisis and the climate meltdown. They are
still reeling from two years of pandemic that have taken a heavy educational
and emotional toll. Still, this generation has succeeded in organising a global
movement that is coordinated, smart and humane. It deserves much better than
condescension.
The encampments and most of the protests have been largely peaceful, yet they
have at times been brutally repressed. As a university president in Italy, I
have watched with dismay the scenes of violence that have unfolded at
universities from Amsterdam to Los Angeles and Sydney. It was good to see some
of my counterparts, such as the presidents of Brown and Wesleyan in the US,
engage constructively with the students and even accept some of their requests.
However, they remain exceptions that underscore how far most academic
institutions have drifted away from their main constituency.
Global movements are complex and dynamic phenomena. In the jet stream of
slogans they churn out, some may be contentious or even unreasonable. Yet
single slogans rarely capture the meaning of such large-scale protests. What
matters are fundamental principles.
It seems to me that the student protests are driven by an attachment to peace
and human life. This is what makes the repressive reaction of many academic
administrations so shocking. Anyone attached to the idea of university as a
place of free intellectual inquiry and self-fulfilment can only feel sadness
seeing the recent pictures of the empty Columbia University Morningside campus
barricaded behind police lines. Ironically, western universities without
students have become the mirror image of Palestinian students without
universities. Something has gone terribly wrong. But what?
When researchers and students from the European University Institute, where I
work, set up camp in Florence alongside their peers from other universities
across Tuscany, I saw this as an opportunity to take stock and clarify the
fundamental principles that should inform academic debate. Such clarity is
critical if we want to navigate these challenging times together.
The EUI is a postgraduate university with students and researchers from around
the world, including many who are Jewish and Muslim. I was heartened to see all
of them side by side when I visited the encampment in Florence’s Piazza San
Marco. I am committed to ensuring that their university remains a space where
they can all feel included while exercising their freedom to the fullest. This
includes asking difficult and contentious questions, with no restriction other
than intellectual rigour and respect for the dignity of those involved.
While it is essential to keep the focus on the humanitarian disaster unfolding
in Gaza and on the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, I am also struck by what
this movement says about the state of universities. It reveals a deep rift
between students and administrations. The latter have grown hugely over the
past decades and become massive bureaucracies, also generating their own
corporate interests. The voices of students and faculty have been gradually
marginalised in the process, making productive dialogue often difficult.
Whether or not one agrees with the students’ demands, they are right to take
administrators to task when they ask for transparency about their university’s
financial and corporate ties. This should be standard practice and not a
discussion prompted by a crisis. It strikes me that there is hardly any debate
when European universities accept funding from an external donor, in contrast
to the furore when students demand its suspension. It is also in the interest
of academic institutions to have a comprehensive picture of their “political
economy” – the networks of power and influence that they are part of. This
picture is often lacking, not because of deliberate opacity but because of
organisational complexity. Making a university’s political economy available
for discussion with students and faculty staff is vital to ensure universities
do not compromise our principles when engaging with external partners.
The student movement also gives us an opportunity to overcome the tensions
between academic freedom and diversity, equality and inclusiveness (DEI)
policies. Ironically, universities demanded a “safe space” to justify the
repression of students’ Gaza protests and to curtail their freedom of speech.
It is true that some Jewish students have claimed they no longer felt safe or
welcome due to what they perceived as antisemitic messages at the protests,
despite the presence of many other Jewish students at encampments worldwide.
Such sentiments must be heard, not least because they can reveal deep ethical
and intellectual flaws in the protesters’ messages. Yet we must also be
vigilant about the academic culture: when we say that universities must be a
“safe space”, this is not only true in terms of physical and emotional
integrity (which are paramount) but also in terms of intellectual integrity: a
university is a space in which one can be, and should be, safely challenged,
rather than confirmed in their convictions.
The encampment I’ve visited is a diverse, egalitarian and inclusive space. It
shows that it is only by practising academic freedom, usually around the most
difficult questions, that these principles become meaningful. They must inform,
not limit, our discussions.
Writing in 1967 about truth and politics in the New Yorker, Hannah Arendt
reminded us of our responsibility as citizens to create a public space
ourselves, but also of “the joy and the gratification that arise … out of
acting together and appearing in public”. The protesting Gen Z students are
putting this into practice, and they deserve to be heard.
Prof Patrizia Nanz is president of the European University Institute
in San Domenico di Fiesole (FI)... and is practically down the road from my
house ;-)
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