Once again has the University of Helsinki leadership gathered behind closed doors, to make secret decisions in hiding. This time discussing on the topic “What can the University take a stance on” (well, they planned to, but now it has been cancelled or postponed indefinitely, in equally secretive and mysterious manner). Students and Researchers for Palestine Helsinki have few words on the topic, despite the cancellation, so bear with us.
The University CAN take a stance. It is very telling that the question posed is one of ability and permission, not one of willingness or responsibility.
Regarding the university’s ability to take a stance we have witnessed 16 months of the university’s failure to condemn Genocide. It is clear to us that the University leadership has lost their moral compass (which is stuck pointing toward the west) in the bureaucracy of neoliberal university. Yet the university has managed to take a stance on other political matters. So the problem seems to be willingness instead of capability.
Furthermore, The University has the autonomy, which it has so far refused to use. By refusing to take a stance and action, and waiting for the opinion of the EU, Ministry of Education and so on, the university has unfortunately and effectively handed over their autonomy to politicians and administrators. By choosing inaction it has chosen silence, complicity, and submission over academic integrity, freedom and responsibility.
So the question is not if the University CAN take a stance, but whether they are willing to.
The University HAS taken a stance. This point is two-fold:
First we contend that the University leadership has taken a stance already, by remaining silent and inactive in the face of genocide. It has refused its responsibilities, deployed police force and smear campaigns against its own students and remained a proud partner of the colonial and genocidal universities of Israel. Its actions have spoken loud and clear (in support of apartheid and genocide).
Secondly, and in contrast, the University community and its students especially, have taken a clear stance for the Academic boycott of Israel. We, Students and Researchers for Palestine, have campaigned tirelessly, and achieved some partial wins. One of which is the Student Union HYY’s decision to support the Academic boycott of Israeli universities, effectively meaning that the whole student body of this University stands with with the demands of the Palestinian civil society (namely, the BDS campaign). Furthermore, hundreds of researchers, professors, teachers, and staff members have supported the academic boycott. Several departments, research groups, and scientific societies have published statements for the boycott and against repression of Palestine solidarity action in the University.
So instead of WHAT the university can take a stance on, the questions at hand seems to be Whose stance matters in the University: the many or the few? Students have spoken, and now University leadership is once again trying to speak over us. But we will not be discouraged nor will we be silenced. We have made ourselves clear, what is left to do is to make ourselves louder.
The University MUST take action. We have not asked the University to take stances, but demanded it to take action. We, the students and researchers, have not pleaded for grand declarations nor pretty speeches. We have demanded the University to partake in the Academic boycott of Israel, based on the BDS movement. We have demanded the University to act in accordance with International law, and to follow their own ethical guidelines. We have demanded that the University put their money where their mouth is.
But instead, the University still continues multi-million euro research cooperation with Israeli academic institutions complicit to apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and has not divested from companies profiting from the genocide. The self proclaimed values of sustainability and human rights bear no meaning, if your actions do not reflect these values. So enough with the empty words. WE WANT ACTION.
So, University leadership, stop hiding behind closed doors (physical or virtual), academic freedom, ministries and the EU. WE SEE YOU. And we condemn you, the circus and the clowns.
We want more, we deserve more and we demand more.
ACADEMIC BOYCOTT NOW! ACADEMIC BOYCOTT NOW!