‘Scholars against genocide and repression.’ Roundtable organised with Noura Salah Aldeen.

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza. In the landmark case, South Africa also brought attention to the ongoing scholasticide, describing how Palestinian academics and educational infrastructure are wilfully and systematically being killed and destroyed. In this political climate of ruthless and sanctioned assaults on Palestinian lives, culture and knowledge systems, scholars and academic institutions have a responsibility to speak out. Nevertheless, many remain silent. Moreover, repression of Palestinian solidarity and rights activism are intensifying at universities across the world, threatening academic freedom. Scholars criticising Israel or calling for Palestinian rights are harassed, intimated and silenced. Careers have been interrupted, public statements and job offers withdrawn, and critical debates and events on Palestine cancelled or crashed by the police. Palestinian students and scholars are particularly targeted, as are people of colour and anti-Zionist Jews accused of betraying their heritage. Critical theoretical frameworks used to understand Palestinian dispossession – including settler colonialism and Apartheid, even comparisons and contextualisation– are censored or problematised.

In this roundtable, scholars from different countries and institutions discuss the ongoing assaults on Palestinian lives, academic freedom, and humanity. The speakers will reflect on scholars’ situated responsibilities to speak out and institutional and personal incentives to remain silent. The roundtable also considers the tactics and narratives academic institutions use to repress Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices and discusses possibilities for transnational solidarity and anthropological interventions against genocide and scholasticide. The roundtable builds on the conveners’ experiences from organising at the University of Vienna and co-editing the special issue “Speaking out against genocide and repression” (with Lori Allen).

In light of South Africa’s interventions at the ICJ and continuing western silence and hypocrisy, the WAU congress in Johannesburg represents an ideal venue to think critically about current events.