The Academic Senate of the University for Foreigners of Siena unanimously approved, in the session of Wednesday 26 June, a document on the conflict in the Gaza Strip of the academic community examined during the University Assembly of 12 June.
“The University for Foreigners of Siena – we read in the document of the Sienese university – «rejects every form of nationalism, recognizes the entire world and all humanity as its homeland. […] It repudiates war in all its forms. It promotes the forms of conscientious objection provided for by law and welcomes students and researchers persecuted in their countries for refusing to fight. It aims to train generations capable of preventing war, through the spread of multilingualism and multiculturalism, in line with the guidelines dictated by European institutions and the UN» (from the university Code of Ethics).
Consider with concern this passage in European history, in which the logic of war seems to have made inroads into the consciences of many and to be adopted with increasing unscrupulousness by ruling classes unaware of the risk to which humanity is exposing itself; and considers it the responsibility of every person, particularly if active within an institution with enormous cultural and political responsibilities, such as the university, to commit to promoting and supporting peace and its logic.
Strongly condemns the disproportionate retaliation perpetrated by the State of Israel in Gaza in response to the despicable and unjustifiable massacre committed by Hamas on 7 October 2023 – in the knowledge that these events were preceded by a long history of conflicts, during which the Israeli state has implemented an escalating policy of long-term territorial occupation, bloody repression and discrimination against the Palestinian people.
The collective punishment that Israel has been implementing since October 7 has already caused about 40,000 deaths, most of whom are women and children: a massacre that has nothing to do with the defense of Israel, and which systematically violates international law and is an act of terrorism. The action in Gaza – continues the document of the University for Foreigners of Siena – has also entailed and entails the imposition of mass displacements of the population of the Strip and a systematic destruction of homes, structures and civil infrastructures, schools and monuments, which favors the onset of diseases and contagions, and makes the daily life of over two million people impossible, tending to cancel them as a recognizable community.
It shares the order of the International Court of Justice in The Hague (January 26, 2024), according to which it is ‘plausible’ that this massacre is taking on the contours of genocide, that is, the voluntary, attempted material and cultural annihilation of the Palestinian people. And it applauds the International Criminal Court in The Hague for having issued arrest warrants against the highest officials of Hamas and the government of Israel.
It calls for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages and rapid and effective investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by both sides.
It strongly rejects any attempt to marginalize protests against the war policy of the State of Israel in the infamous category of ‘anti-Semitism’, and to thus criminalise widespread dissent, while at the same time weakening the very meaning of the concept of ‘anti-Semitism’.
It therefore asks the Conference of Rectors and other Italian universities to withdraw their sudden adherence to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, and in general not to adopt any external ideological syllabus against which to measure the orthodoxy and heterodoxy of students and teachers. He expresses deep concern about the possible compression (already manifested, for example, in the United States and Germany) of the guarantees that safeguard the constitutional freedoms of expression of thought and academic research. He also rejects any attempt to justify the aggression against the Palestinian people by exploiting the memory of the Holocaust, which constitutes an undue political use of history, harmful both to historical research and to the quality of public debate.
Expresses outrage at the deliberate destruction of the Palestinian university system, and asks the Conference of Rectors and the MUR to intervene forcefully to welcome Palestinian students and researchers, and therefore, as soon as possible, to help materially and culturally to rebuild those universities, also promoting opportunities for meeting and discussion with counterparts from the Israeli university system.
For its part, it is committed to further intensifying, also in collaboration with other universities,
the aid (scholarships, invitations and other forms of support) intended for this dual purpose.
It supports the peaceful protests of students on university campuses around the world, and urges Western governments, and all other governments, to listen to the voice coming from the universities.
He expresses solidarity and admiration for the colleagues of Israeli universities who, risking their jobs and often their personal freedom, take a stand against the crimes of their country’s government. And he urges all the rectors of Israeli universities who repress internal dissent to remember that a university prone to executive power, aligned against critical thinking and with the single thought of war, is not a university.
Despite not having, at this time, framework agreements with universities in Israel, he rejects, on a principled level, the boycott of universities in any country: «Trusting in academic freedom and the power of dissent, which by its nature is inseparable from research activity, the University maintains relationships with universities, cultural institutes and research bodies from countries all over the world, regardless of the political regime of those countries» (from the university Code of Ethics).
It is committed to rigorously implementing – on a case-by-case basis, and with reference to universities around the world – what is still prescribed by its Code of Ethics: «In the event that an institution in an official relationship with the University expresses official positions incompatible with the values of the Italian Constitution, the University bodies identify a way to express the dissent of the academic community, if necessary to the point of interrupting the relationship».
It bases its rejection of a boycott on a national basis on the belief that even in the worst situations of compromise of the university system with national war policies (such as the Israeli one) universities remain among the few places where an alternative thought can develop; as well as on the belief that universities cannot therefore be identified with their governments, nor reduced to their national belonging: for this reason Stranieri has not interrupted relations with Russian universities, and continues to collaborate with those of many other countries in similar situations.
It gives substance to this belief by concretely and verifiably practicing the university autonomy guaranteed by article 33 of the Constitution of the Republic. It does so through symbolic actions (for example: the refusal to comply with the government’s invitation to display flags in mourning for the death of Silvio Berlusconi; the suspension of lessons for Ramadan and Yom Kippur…); through strategic choices (the vote against Crui on the relationship with Leonardo’s Medor foundation; the decision not to join the neocolonial Mattei Plan…); through the rules that have been established (the opening of sessions restricted by group to all members of the department council) and through precise rules of the Code of Ethics: «All members of the University, starting with the rector and those with managerial roles, are required to safeguard the independence and autonomy of the academic community from political and judicial power, from religious and military power, from local authorities, from economic interests, from foreign governments and diplomatic corps»; «No research by those who work and study at the University and no teaching position can be financed by companies or foundations linked to the production and sale of weapons» (articles 11 and 13).
For this reason, in the deepest respect for their autonomy – continues the document of the University for Foreigners of Siena on the Gaza conflict -, invites other universities to consider the possibility of introducing similar principles into their ethical codes that inhibit collaboration with the arms industry; to evaluate the renunciation of agreements that are not directly and exclusively between universities, but pass through the governments of countries at war (such as the contested Maeci tender). And asks all rectors to ask themselves whether it is not the case to resign from the scientific council of Medor.
It asks Italian universities to question themselves on the opportunities and ways of cultivating research in the service of war (as also happens in departments and centers of strategic studies); to give more space and funding to Runipace’s actions; to constantly address, and in the most transparent way, the problem of the military repercussions of its research, bringing a vigilant and critical voice to Europe.
Condemns the European Commission’s orientation (expressed in the WHITE PAPER on options to strengthen support for research and development activities involving potentially dual-use technologies of January 2024) to give ample space within Horizon Europe to the transfer of civilian research results to the military field: a united Europe was born to prepare for peace, not for war, and the enlistment of research is very serious and unacceptable.
He refuses to conform his thinking to the ferocious logic with which conflicts and their inevitability are patiently constructed, and to the great simplification induced by the logic of war and the friend-enemy criterion, claiming the mission of the university: to build, nourish, defend a complex thought and nourish community values and a universalistic conception of humanity.
He believes that his particular mission includes the task of deconstructing the concept of ‘Western identity’, subjecting to systematic criticism every form of nationalism and colonialism, contesting the theoretical identity structures (the ‘us’ versus ‘them’) that fuel and justify conflicts due to the will to power of states and the great interests of global markets. At the same time, he distances himself from Western chauvinism, which claims to judge and solve the problems of other peoples against their beliefs and cultures.
It reaffirms its repudiation of the war, recalling the right to exist of the State of Israel, and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. He asks the Italian government to recognize the State of Palestine (thus uniting our country with around 70% of the members of the United Nations), but he is in tune with those, even in the Jewish world (think of Judith Butler), who hope that it can be arrive one day at a single state: not ethnocratic but binational, non-confessional but secular, not theocratic and founded on apartheid but truly democratic.
Remembering its commitment to multiculturalism and multilingualism – the University for Foreigners of Siena adds in the document on the conflict in the Gaza Strip -, it makes its own the conviction expressed, not in Arabic but in Hebrew, by the great Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish: « The Israelis are no longer the same people they were when they arrived, and the Palestinians are no longer the same people they once were. The other is found in one.”
It is in this perspective – concludes the document of the University of Siena on Gaza – that the University for Foreigners of Siena once again forcefully reaffirms that everything is lost with war, everything is possible with peace”.
