Rreproaching Ms. Schaus for maintaining dialogue with students who defend the Palestinian cause, the 6 signatory professors dare a historical analogy which would make one laugh if it were not ignoble: the rector would be put on the same footing as Daladier and Chamberlain who, during the Munich Accords in 1938, abandoned “their Czechoslovak ally (and) revealed the weaknesses of their states and encouraged the Nazi regime to continue its warlike and anti-Semitic policy”, and were therefore responsible for the Shoah.
Historically, yes, Daladier and Chamberlain can be considered “the symbol of shameful compromise in the face of the unacceptable”. It should still be noted that this compromise did not date from 1938 and that in Munich, it was already too late, and for a long time.
What is the justification put forward by the signatories of this carte blanche? That the rector declared, in an interview given to Evening on September 17, that she wanted to resume “the dialogue with the former occupants of the popular university of Brussels to better explain what we are doing”. And to drive the point home: since this occupation was exploited by Islamist extremist movements, all the students who participated in the occupation are therefore Islamist extremists. QED for being able to attack so violently a woman who, since the start of her first mandate, has fought and is still fighting to maintain the debate, to defend both Palestine and Israel and to claim the right to nuance and its imperative necessity.
A litany of grievances follows, accusing the rector of being too tolerant towards Muslim students, in the purest style of ayatollahs decked out in the false nose of secularism who are rendered apoplectic by the slightest religious sign.
Doctrinaire and fragile arguments
The technique of the short sentence isolated from its context is revealing of who wants to attack someone using doctrinaire and fragile arguments. This is what happened, again at ULB, when Ken Loach was awarded the Honoris Causa Doctorate. And this is still what the signatories of this carte blanche are doing, who carefully avoid repeating the essence of the interview given to Evening by the rector, whose link they are careful not to share. In her interview, Ms Schaus defends free examination, nuance, the requirement for dialogue. And interacting with students – which is the heart of the teaching profession – has nothing to compare with what happened in Munich; to claim the opposite is also to deny History and today’s students. This is an insult to intelligence. No doubt these professors will retort that this interview is just sentences; but what else do they do? There are words that are bridges and actions, and peace can only be built through dialogue. Does this carte blanche, which is also nothing more than a tissue of dogmatic and accusatory sentences, provide the slightest hint of a solution? Or is it just a bad process, driven by some hidden intention, and contributing to radicalization?
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Let us also emphasize that this carte blanche is only signed by men. Would they have written it to attack a rector? We can guess that if they were rectors, they would show strength. Not like Daladier or Chamberlain, well! Like Churchill, whom they summon for their finale. But what do they do, without being rectors but nevertheless being eminent members of the academic institution, to provide real solutions to an eminently complex situation? What are they proposing, other than adding fuel to the fire? What would they have done in 1938, since they did not hesitate to use the Godwin point? Not much, probably. Without doubt making their contribution to this “silence of the slippers” which, at least as much as Daladier and Chamberlain, allowed the Nazis to get to the end of the worst.
We can only approve and support any effort to maintain dialogue and nuance. In a world that is radicalizing in every direction except that of peace, it is essential that universities resist intellectual simplification, easy and criminal shortcuts; that they be a place of exchange, of respectful and open intellectual confrontation. A principle that does not take reality into account has a name: a dogma.
*“The ULB and the Munich syndrome”, lalibre.be, November 14, 2024.
SIGNATORIES: AUTENNE Alexia, UCLouvain professor; BRUCHER Éric, writer; BURNIAT Agnès, professor, faculty of medicine, ULB; BUYLE Jean-Pierre, lawyer, former president of the bar and president of AVOCATS.BE; COHEN Nicolas, lawyer; COSTERMANS Dominique, writer; DE KERCHOVE Alban, FNRS research director; DE TIÈGE Xavier, professor in the faculty of medicine at ULB; DEGAND Liesbeth, UCLouvain professors; DEHOUX Amaury, FSR UCLouvain researcher; DUFOUR Valérie, ULB professor; ENGEL Vincent, UCLouvain professor, writer; ERNST Damien, ULiège professor; GEMENNE François, FNRS ULiège researcher; GOFFIN Julie, lawyer; JANS Stéphane, lawyer; LEYS Christophe, ULB professor; LOWIE Patrick, writer; MARCHAND Christophe, lawyer; PAUL Élisabeth, lecturer, ULB school of public health; PEIGNEUX Philippe, ULB professor; RENMANS Dimitri, ULB lecturer; ROSIER Laurence, ULB professor; SCHIFFMANN Serge, professor, faculty of medicine, ULB; SERVAIS Olivier, professor UCLouvain; SEYLER Lucie, infectious diseases doctor UZ Brussel; SOLOT Pierre, pianist, radio/television producer; TRAVERSA Edoardo, UCLouvain professor; VAN DONINCK Karine, ULB professor; VAN GILS Xavier, lawyer, former president of the bar and president of AVOCATS.BE; VAN HAEPEREN Françoise, UCLouvain professor; VAN HEMELRYCK Tania, UCLouvain professor.
