Silent Resistance Strategies Gleaned from Suppressed Communities
In a thought-provoking symposium titled 'Academic Freedom Under Threat in the Global North', academics explored the growing concerns surrounding the suppression of intellectual discourse. The symposium, published on Völkerrechtsblog and cross-posted by Verfassungsblog, aimed to re-open and expand space for difficult conversations rather than serving as a concluding event.
The symposium examined various modes of censorship in universities of the Global North, from overt and brutal forms like police brutality to more subtle and covert strategies such as social and professional ostracism, reputational assassination, and reduced opportunities on the job market. These new modes of silencing are particularly insidious because they are internalized by those concerned, leading to self-censorship.
One interviewee emphasized the performativity of words and the importance of controlling the circulation of words that run against colonial, racist, conservative, or capitalist projects. They argued that the notion of academic freedom has always been both inflated and deceptive, and suggested a discursive strategy of silent resistance to circumvent conservative and authoritarian censorship on words.
The interviewee also historicized the question of academic freedom, stating that academics have always lived with a government watching them and have always been fine with that. However, they expressed disappointment in the majority of tenured peers who have remained silent in the face of censorship practices. The tenure system, they argued, has little explanatory virtue in this debate, and being tenured does not necessarily mean one will speak out against censorship.
The situation is troubling as it results in actors that cannot be criticized, discourses that cannot be articulated, and theories that cannot be pursued without brutal, explicit, or overt censoring practices. Certain actors have constructed 'zones of uncriticizability' around themselves, rendering them immune to scrutiny and criticism regardless of their actions.
The interviewee provided an example of a recent ban on words, but did not specify the ban. They also expressed concern about the potential for even more insidious and overwhelming forms of censorship in the future.
The interviewee praised non-tenured colleagues for their courage in contesting the censorship practices and suggested that the current repression and censorship in the Global North may usher in a new critical era where academic freedom is no longer sold out for comfort. They argued that this strategy of silent resistance is not novel, and has been used by oppressed groups in the past.
However, the interviewee declined to discuss their personal experience of censorship, citing that the victims of censorship practices are not academics and students, but those affected by colonial enterprises, mass exterminations, deportations, a conservative revolution, the whitening of societies, the unbridled exploitation of bodies and nature, the restrictions of the possibilities of defining one's identity, etc.
The timeliness of the questions addressed in the symposium was highlighted, underscoring the urgent need for academics to stand up against censorship and for democratic and legal institutions to protect academic freedom within the framework of the constitutional order and democratic values, without explicit confinement to state defense purposes.
