May 02, 2005, 8:06 a.m.
The Stalinists of the AUT
And how to fight back.

By Emanuele Ottolenghi

The Association of University Teachers is the biggest university union in the U.K. It has 48,000 members. On Friday, April 22, it voted to boycott Haifa University and Bar Ilan University, two Israeli institutions, on political grounds. It is investigating the possibility of extending the boycott to a third university.

Israel, alone in the family of nations, earns the undivided attention of such initiatives. But please don't call these zealous unionised scholars Nazis. Call them by their true name: Stalinists. Theirs is not a blanket boycott. The AUT is ready to offer a waiver to scholars on the condition that they publicly state their willingness to conform to the political orthodoxy espoused by those academics who sponsored the motion. In their crusade for academic freedom, this minor detail clarifies their own definition of the concept of liberty: the freedom to agree only with the views espoused by the AUT itself; the freedom to endorse only one opinion; the freedom to conform; the freedom to be ostracized if you do not conform; the freedom to accept what otherwise would be imposed on you, under pain of boycott; the freedom to see your research set aside, censored, and denied publication if you do not embrace the spirit of the age; the freedom to remain silent and dissimulate your views if you disagree; the freedom to take an oath of allegiance to the dominant ideology of our times, and stand courageously loyal to the opinion nobody dares to challenge for fear of retribution; the freedom to harass, silence, oppress, discriminate against those who disagree. And of course, that typical Marxist tool of self-vilification, the freedom to publicly denounce your deviant views, make an act of contrition, and embrace the orthodox doctrine the executive committee of the AUT has sanctioned to be welcome back into the family of scholars. No book-burning, just Selbstkritik, please: We are British, after all...

Oaths of political loyalty do not belong to academia. They belong to illiberal minds and repressive regimes.

The AUT wants scholars to stand out and be counted: Those who are prepared to publicly denounce Israel's policies as "colonial and racist" will be reintegrated. Those who refuse to express this opinion have much to fear: Articles and books pass muster under an anonymous peer-reviewed process that in theory is meant to ensure fairness but that in practice will allow discrimination and political bias to go unchecked. The same holds true with grants, scholarships, conferences, and the whole array of academic endeavors. This is blackmail pure and simple, masqueraded as a crusade for freedom.

It is therefore a moral imperative for scholars of all political persuasions to condemn this measure in no uncertain terms and express their undivided and unconditional solidarity with both universities in particular and with Israeli academia in general. For those familiar with Israeli academia and these two universities, the academic boycott will appear particularly grotesque. Academics of different political persuasions and from all walks of life populate Israeli faculties, often excelling in their fields and contributing to the advancement of knowledge in a way that is beneficial to the whole of mankind, not just the Israelis or their government. Indeed, to suggest that a scientific community like the Israeli one — characterized by a poignant discourse, a variety of views, creative innovation, and tolerance for heterodoxy — is serving evil policies is preposterous. On the contrary, the diversity of Israeli faculties reflects the authentic spirit of academia. The AUT invitation to boycott them betrays that spirit because it advocates a uniformity of views under the pain of boycott.

But this is beside the point. This is no time for hair-splitting on the politics of the Middle East. It is a time to make one voice's heard in the face of a blatant injustice and an assault on the freedom academics must strenuously defend. It is all too easy to protect orthodox views. But the true test of freedom is the liberty to allow others to say what we are not so inclined to hear. The AUT wants to boycott Israeli academics who refute its orthodoxy. Standing by them is a moral obligation because the AUT oath of allegiance, if left unchecked, will set a dangerous precedent for future censorship of other views.

As a symbolic gesture to defend the spirit of academic freedom and express solidarity with my harassed colleagues, I have asked Sally Hunt, the secretary general of the AUT, to be added to the boycott list. I have expressed my wish to be included in the list of people and institutions to be blackmailed and I sincerely hope that other colleagues of all political persuasions will join me. We should all wear the badge of shame that the AUT wants to impose on our Israeli peers with great pride and in the full confidence that we are not only in the right, but that truly free academia stands on our side and against the AUT.

— Emanuele Ottolenghi teaches Israel studies at the Middle East Centre of St. Antony's College, Oxford University.

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