– Rector accuses the occupiers of censorship
Part of the University of Bern has also been occupied since Sunday. The university management finds this unacceptable and some uninvolved students feel uncomfortable.
Published today at 9:04 amUpdated 1 hour ago
Rector Christian Leumann personally delivers the University of Bern’s response to the students.
Photo: Jürg Spori
At 3 p.m., Rector Christian Leumann entered the Unitobler cafeteria. The place that around 300 students and activists have been occupying since Sunday evening. They accuse the University of Bern of complicity with Israel and internal censorship of voices of solidarity with Palestine.
Rector Leumann made it clear on site what he thought of the protest. “This occupation is unacceptable,” he told the assembled crowd. The university has to fulfill its teaching mandate, and anyone who doesn’t like the scientific orientation of the individual institutes should choose something else. “We will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed and firmly call on the occupiers to vacate the premises immediately.”
However, Leumann did not avoid giving the activists an ultimatum, even when a student asked about it. The university has not yet decided how to proceed, the rector replied. “But we’re keeping all options open.”
In dialogue with the pro-Palestinian activists: Rector Christian Leumann.
Photo: Jürg Spori
The University of Bern is now the fifth Swiss university to be occupied by pro-Palestine activists. On Monday, those in Basel and Freiburg were also seized, and the occupations continued in Geneva and Lausanne.
In Bern, the first day was not particularly spectacular, with the exception of the rector’s appearance. The squatters had set up shop in the cafeteria and in the plane yard. There they ate, gave interviews or held reading and discussion groups.
According to Leila, the occupier’s media spokesperson, everyone involved is a student at the University of Bern. A number of them are also active in the Bern for Palestine collective, which repeatedly calls for demonstrations. They have also networked with other university staff in Switzerland and abroad.
Exchange program with Israel
As at other universities, the activists in Bern are calling for “an academic boycott of Israeli institutions” and “an immediate end to the genocide against the Palestinian population.”
In particular, the university management does not want to address the first point. “The occupiers are thus demanding a massive restriction on academic freedom,” said Leumann, also accusing the occupiers of censorship.
According to the media outlet, there is currently an agreement with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Birzeit University regarding student exchange. There are also joint publications in the areas of biomedical research, clinical research, biology, earth sciences and historical sciences.
Stereotypical blame
For Leumann, the accusation that the university management took a clear position in the Gaza war is also untenable. The activists cite the dissolution of the Institute for Middle Eastern Studies as well as the treatment of a professor who pushed a member of the communist movement Der Funke as arguments. The activists write that this remained “almost free of consequences”.
The activists want to make a visual statement with the occupation.
Photo: Jürg Spori
The university counters this by saying that the professor concerned received a warning. The institute was also dissolved after a lecturer glorified Hamas’ violence in a tweet and his wife, the institute’s director, did not take a clear stand against him. It is now planned to integrate the institute into a larger department in the next few months.
Schulze criticizes occupiers
The institute became known through the former head and Islamic scholar Reinhard Schulze. The professor emeritus now says of the protests that the university must insist that academic virtues are not violated.
Schulze criticizes the stereotypical blame of the protesters. They are expressed in the slogans and arguments of the occupiers. “In this respect, the student protest seems largely unacademic,” he says. Schulze calls for a renunciation of blatant dogmatism and calls for the rejection of all discrimination and the willingness to subject political concerns to an appropriate scientific debate.
“If protests take on an anti-Semitic character and threaten to become a resonance space for such resentments, they must be sanctioned and stopped,” says Schulze.
Is the protest anti-Semitic?
The occupiers themselves called on a banner to refrain from both anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism. At the same time, they hung numerous posters with the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free,” which was considered anti-Semitic. The apartheid and genocide accusations are also seen as anti-Semitic demonization of Israel. The speaker Leila does not want the slogan to be understood as anti-Semitic. “It means freedom for everyone,” she says.
In principle, the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression also applies to the pro-Palestine protests at the university, as long as they remain non-violent, says social anthropologist Jevgeniy Bluwstein.
But the pro-Palestine occupations sometimes cause discomfort among Jewish and other students. The first university members have already moved their jobs out of concern and students and their families feel unsettled, the university writes in its press release.
The Jewish Community of Bern is also critical: “We are concerned about increasing radicalization and the sometimes unreflective rhetoric.” The University of Bern is expected to ensure the safety of its Jewish students and employees.
Finally, the first political parties also took a stand. The GLP Canton of Bern writes: “All students and all staff should be able to move around the university safely and without fear, and university operations must not be disrupted.”
However, two Jewish university employees who had installed themselves in the cafeteria with their laptops and were watching the protests at the same time emphasized that the mood was neither anti-Semitic nor did they find it threatening.
Found an error? Report now.
51 comments