Neutrality in the time of genocide

When the  Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022, Universities Canada, an organization that describes itself as the “voice of Canadian universities, at home and abroad” issued a statement that reads: “Over the past week, the world has watched the invasion of Ukraine with outrage, disbelief and sadness,” and that “Canada’s universities are supporting all faculty, staff and students affected by these disturbing events.”

Almost every university in Canada responded with a similar statement to their faculty, staff, students, and wider community, often with headlines like “University X stands with Ukraine,” including the University of New Brunswick where I work.

Soon thereafter, universities across Canada  established numerous programs to assist displaced Ukrainian students and scholars, providing special scholarships, fellowships, fee waivers, postdoctoral fellowships, and support structures for Ukrainian communities associated with Canadian campuses.  Universities Canada  proudly lists statements from university Presidents across Canada, and the variety of community, financial and  health resources they have made available on their campuses for those affected by the Russia-Ukraine war.

Among the stated priorities of Universities Canada is “building a caring, inclusive society.” This position includes commitments such as “ensuring students of all backgrounds, identities and lived experiences feel welcomed and included” and statements such as “socio-cultural and political events in Canada and across the world have demonstrated the need for further efforts and investments in equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility,” making clear that political events across the world drive its EDIA action.

This emphasis on political events is, of course, not a position of political neutrality. Universities Canada is particularly courageous in its apparent commitment to political partiality, acknowledging how global injustices reproduce at institutional levels. Indeed, the selfless efforts of this organization and its member universities to help Ukrainians affected by war is laudable, and a living testament of their commitment to the venerable priority of political partiality, despite  pre-existing strains on university budgets.

These are noble words and noble deeds, fitting for a society that now opens gatherings of knowledge seekers with acknowledgments of occupied lands, a glacial emergence of conscience after hundreds of years of colonial genocide.

Also notable is that Universities Canada represents the collective voice of university presidents, their administrations, and ultimately the voices of university boards of governors to whom presidents are accountable. Because university boards are composed largely of industry leaders and provincial government appointees, the unequivocal support for Ukraine across Canadian university administrations is an embodiment of the much wider spectrum of political support for Ukraine in Canada. An obvious corollary is that universities are far from being politically neutral or institutionally autonomous when they are so deeply embedded in the structures in which they operate. And so, the moral consciences of university leaders are clear — at least when it comes to Ukraine.

But alas such generosity does not extend to the long-suffering Palestinians of the illegally occupied West Bank and Gaza, where scholars and centres of learning are at the mercy of the most powerful weapons ever envisioned. The president of a university and all his extended family lie in the rubble of their home in Gaza; a celebrated poet is entombed in concrete ruins nearby, his last poem “If I must die” has become a global anthem for student encampments across the world protesting a new horror — scholasticide.

A search for Gaza and the West Bank on the Universities Canada website reveals no items. But a search for Israel reveals several links, including one from 2014 that reports on building collaborations “to work towards increased research links with Israeli universities;” and  another from 2015 mentions Israel and its institutions no less than 12 times. Also in 2015, a UN Independent Commission of Inquiry released a 180-page report on the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza, leading then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to remark that “the scale of the destruction in Gaza has left deep questions about proportionality and the need for accountability.”

Today the destruction of Gaza is comprehensive after over a year of incessant assault. By December 2023 Israel had already dropped hundreds of 2000 pound bombs on the blockaded Strip, a land one-fifteenth the area of Prince Edward Island with the population of New Brunswick, PEI, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador combined.

Just four months into Israel’s current assault, the Palestinian-Canadian Academics and Artists Network (PCAAN), Faculty for Palestine Canada and the Jewish Faculty Network issued a joint statement on Canadian Universities and Palestine describing the deliberate targeting and destruction of centers for higher education across Gaza:

“The Islamic University was bombed on 11 October; the University College of Applied Sciences was bombed on 19 October; on 4 November, Israeli forces bombed Al Azhar University, the second largest university in Gaza, and this was followed by the destruction of the North Gaza branch of Al Quds University on 15 November. The medical school in the Islamic University was bombed on 10 December. The Palestine Technical College was also bombed and has been severely damaged. Al-Aqsa University was bombed on February 6th, 2024.”

But their call for action to condemn Israel’s destruction of the education system in the Gaza Strip and express support for Gaza’s universities, staff, faculty and students was ignored by Universities Canada.

Today no institutions of higher learning in Gaza are left standing, and yet, Universities Canada remains silent.  The chair of its board, an enlightened leader of a prestigious academy, frustrated by inaction of the public police, called in private security to “regain control” of its lands occupied by protesting students.

University presidents across Canada, like mini-generals in their labyrinths, are tying themselves into knots adopting positions of “political neutrality” and “institutional autonomy” while remaining committed to their obviously political statements concerning Ukraine. They argue that these “principles” support academic freedom and unrestricted debate on campuses. This is an obvious deflection, for academic freedom has been a deeply protected structural feature of Canadian universities since at least the 19^th century.

In truth, these relatively new “principles” are the direct result of funding pressures, the need to grow endowments and renew infrastructure in a time of shrinking provincial support for universities — and the lingering effects of the orientalism that still defines the “other” in Western corridors of power. No university president wants to follow the morally courageous path of University of Windsor president Robert Gordon who faced threats and investigations for meeting with students protesting the Gaza genocide.

That the path of Canadian universities to “political neutrality” and “institutional autonomy” passes through the killing fields of Gaza represents a moral abdication of unparalleled proportions, and one that must not be ignored.

As I began with a title borrowed from the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in closing, the absurdity of this time is aptly summarized by a few lines from his Nobel lecture:

Our independence from Spanish domination did not put us beyond the reach of madness. General Antonio López de Santa Anna, three times dictator of Mexico, held a magnificent funeral for the right leg he had lost in the so-called Pastry War. General Gabriel García Moreno ruled Ecuador for sixteen years as an absolute monarch; at his wake, the corpse was seated on the presidential chair, decked out in full-dress uniform and a protective layer of medals. General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, the theosophical despot of El Salvador who had thirty thousand peasants slaughtered in a savage massacre, invented a pendulum to detect poison in his food, and had streetlamps draped in red paper to defeat an epidemic of scarlet fever.