TODAY! April 5, Groningen –
Protest vs. Paul Cliteur at Nacht van de Filosofie
Friday 5 April is the Groningen Night of Philosophy, a night of talks and debates on philosophical topics. The theme of this edition is ‘stumbling and failing’ and someone thought it would be a great idea to invite Paul Cliteur, one of the ideological strategists of neo-fascist party Forum voor Democratie, to do a talk on how ‘the West’ is failing to address the threat of religious (read: islamic) terrorism. Knowing FVD, this talk is going to be steeped in xenophobic, islamophobic and white nationalist rhetoric, and whether its audience (who paid for a ticket) will speak out against it is uncertain. This choice of topic is especially ironic considering most of the recent terrorist attacks in ‘the West’ (Utøya, Christchurch, Pittsburg, Urk) have been committed by white supremacists, who draw from the very same branch of ideology (the fear of ‘Umvolking’, the need to create a ‘white ethnostate’, etc.) that the FVD is based on.
We have tried to reason with the Dean of Philosophy and explain that, by giving a platform to this hate speech and framing it as philosophy, you are indirectly supporting such views or stating that they have a place in the public debate. The Dean disagrees and, apparently believing freedom of speech to also apply to hate speech, wishes to give Cliteur this opportunity to spout his xenophobic nonsense.
This willingness to platform Cliteur from the view that ‘all speech should be free’ is especially ironic considering the FVD’s recent direct attack on academic freedom: their opening of a registration point (‘meldpunt’) for teachers whose views are ‘too leftist’. Do we have to wait until the ‘Gleichschaltung’ of our universities with FvD’s climate denialism?
We cannot allow this to happen unchallenged. The plan is to protest in front of the Forum and hand out flyers to the visitors of Night of Philosophy to make them aware of the racist, xenophobic, islamophobic, white supremacist nonsense the FvD stands for. Join us in making clear such hateful ideologies have no place in Groningen!
Furthermore, we demand that the University Board publicly and unanimously rejects the FVD’s attack on academic freedom by signing this open letter, already signed by over 1200 academics in the Netherlands: https://openbriefacademici.wordpress.com/
This protest is supported by the Groningen Feminist Network, Comité Groningen Tolerant and the Groningen Free Activists.
Protest vs. Paul Cliteur at Nacht…
SOURCE: antifainternational.tumblr.com
