A New Generation is Emerging, and Gaza is their Compass

- By Noura Kamal

Lecture by Rashid Al-Khalidi at the University of Vienna, May, 2024. Photo courtesy of Sofia Bempeza

Let me tell you a story about how working on knowledge production about Palestine in Austria is walking on a minefield. You can (and will) encounter a wave of ignorance and hatred that may explode your academic future, if you are not careful enough—and even if you are. The whole time I have lived in Vienna, and even before then, Palestinians in Gaza have faced continuous aggressions by the Israeli army—in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2021, and 2022. The most recent, horrifying attack started in October 2023. Of course, Palestinians outside Gaza—in Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Hebron, and elsewhere—also encounter violence every day, at the hands of the Israeli colonial army.

I have been surprised to see how most academics in Austria detach themselves from the Palestinian struggle. I have been stunned at their ability to create a space of neglect, presenting themselves as logical for not engaging in humanitarian and moral causes, as if an academic’s role is to be passive. But I also noticed that while it was “essential” for many of them to disengage from any issue related to Palestine, this was not the case when it came to talking about struggles that benefit their career and demonstrate their “morality,” as with the war in Ukraine.

When it comes to Palestine, most of the people I encounter are passive; they hardly engage in any activity or support any academic endeavor aimed at ending the apartheid regime. When the American Anthropological Association voted on whether to sign onto the academic BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement in 2016, most of my colleagues at the Institute where I have been working for years did not vote for the resolution and took a passive stand. Only a handful voted in favor. I asked two senior researchers directly whether they would vote or not. In their answers, one emphasized that he would not interfere “because this was not his issue, and it is imperative for academics to remain neutral.” Perhaps he failed to realize he had already taken a side by choosing to be silent. The other said that, whether he voted or not, Israel would always be above the law, and that he did not want to waste his time reading everything that has ever been written on this topic.

Such answers reflect their acquiescence; their interests come before any sense of morality. Being silent when the question is whether future generations should live under colonization is simply complicity in the suffering of Palestinians.

In 2021, my colleagues and I invited a prominent Palestinian scholar to lecture at our Institute—this was during the attack on Gaza. We began preparing for the lecture; we booked a date and prepared to send out the invitations. Then my colleagues and I received a long email. Part of the message read: “I would strongly recommend that we do not share it”; restricting us from sending it to anyone beyond our Institute. Sadly, the lecture was cancelled, ostensibly because the title included the word “genocide,” a word which, according to our senior colleagues, was allegedly forbidden in Austria. I could not find any evidence for this in Austrian law, which does, however, specifically address the denial and belittlement of genocides, particularly those committed during the Nazi era.

We were told that this lecture was political, when it should have been academic. We were told that academics should not engage in politics and that we should keep our distance. For almost two weeks after the lecture’s cancellation, I kept trying to explain to senior colleagues how this action curtailed our freedom of speech and expression. I pointed out that they had let fear guide their judgement, to which they responded with denials, telling us we should respect the decision of our “seniors.” After long conversations via email, phone, and many in-person meetings, it became clear to me: when it comes to Palestine, everyone will cave, justifying their actions and expecting us all to conform to their logic.

The hypocrisy is obvious: when it comes to other political issues, like the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, the same administration was quick to post a statement on the Institute’s website, never feeling the need to consult with any of us. Yet the atrocities being committed against Palestinians in Gaza at the time the lecture was cancelled were not even deemed worthy of discussion. We were told that the Institute would never issue any political statement without everyone’s consent, and that was why they were obliged not to write any statement in support of Gaza. It was astonishing that, even after being confronted with their hypocrisy, they could not admit that they were silencing Palestinians and their allies—and that by taking such actions, they were creating a rift between their morality and their academic work.

Today, Palestinians are being deprived of their humanity before the eyes of the world, especially in Gaza. Not even the cries of innocent, orphaned children have stirred the world, and the majority of Austrian academics are no exception. The images of the mothers and fathers who lost their families and children have not affected them, nor did the rubble under which Palestinians are buried. Not even the burning bodies of our martyrs has managed to connect them with their humanity. Nothing has been sufficient to move them to demand a stop to the slow, relentess torture that Palestinians in Gaza are facing every minute.

Since the start of the atrocities in October 2023, I have not seen any of my colleagues at the weekly protests demanding a ceasefire. Perhaps they joined without me noticing, but when I tried to write an open letter to the president of the Institute, asking him to acknowledge Palestinians’ rights to equality and make a statement that Palestinians’ lives matter, as he had for the Israelis, I encountered discontent, even from my closest colleagues. The censoring of those who speak up about the Palestinian struggle at academic institutions in Austria and all over Europe has now reached a whole new level of inhumanity. The University of Vienna, for instance, did not hesitate to cancel a teach-in series on Palestine, to be delivered as an undergraduate course in Spring 2024, which was a clear violation of academic freedom. Instead of spreading knowledge, with this decision, the rectorate undermined the very essence of academia’s core educational mission.

And yet, despite academic leaders’ best efforts to silence the truth, the new generations are eager to learn about Palestine. When the rectorate of the University of Vienna cancelled another event in May 2024, a talk by Rashid Al-Khalidi, the lecture was moved to Zoom and opened to the general public; students gathered on the university grounds with their laptops, they logged onto Zoom, and they attended his lecture anyway. Although the university refused to provide the students with a space of freedom to access knowledge, the students’ moral compass led them to overcome the physical limitations the university tried so hard to impose. Before the war on Gaza in 2023, several lectures about Palestine had already been quietly canceled in Austria, as has happened in other parts of the world. But since the systematic annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza and in the rest of Palestine has begun, this censorship has only intensified. Any yet, despite all the silencing, a new generation is emerging, and their compass is Gaza.
 

NOURA KAMAL, founder of Academic Research Training & Beyond, is a lecturer and coach with a PhD in Social & Cultural Anthropology and a master’s in Sociology.