See No Evil, Hear No Evil?

Below I reproduce an opinion piece penned by myself and my colleagues Bettina Renz and Vanessa Pupavac in response to the unjustified terror arrests at the University of Nottingham … 

[originally published in Times Higher Education, June 5 2008]

NB! This opinion piece prompted a response from the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, Sir Colin Campbell, in which he (quite predictably) claimed that academic freedom was not under threat at Nottingham, and furthermore labelling me and my two colleagues as liars by claiming that our statements in the opinion piece were “entirely false” (Sir Colin, however, did not bother to provide evidence of this claim). This has prompted a debate in THE which you can read here http://freehichamyezza.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/times-higher-education-supplement-letters-pages/

See no Evil, Hear no Evil?

  

“I will suggest that in academic freedom lies one of the most powerful means at our disposal to refute violent extremist views on campus. And further, I believe that unless it is used actively to challenge those views, then academic freedom will find itself undermined by violent extremism”, thus spoke Bill Rammell, Minister of State, Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education on 27 November 2007. Yet, recent events at the University of Nottingham have left academics and students in doubt as to the security of their civil liberties and human rights in relation to research into controversial political and social phenomena. The question that many of us ask today is whether UK universities will stand up and defend academic and intellectual freedom in the face of the potentially draconian ramifications of anti-terror legislation.

 

On May 14, Nottingham University student Rizwaan Sabir and an administrative member of staff, Hicham Yezza, were arrested and held without charge for nearly a week for downloading an edited version of the Al Qaeda training manual. The arrest followed the discovery of the printed document by university staff, who reported this to the police. It should be noted in this context that the document is from an open source widely available via respectable web sites like the US Department of Justice, the Federation of American Scientists, or the RAND Corporation which we put on our reading lists. No doubt there a dozens of students or academics around the country who download similarly sensitive open source documents. The two men were finally released without charges on May 20. Hicham Yezza was subsequently re-arrested under immigration charges, and now faces deportation to Algeria on June 1,  thus severing the deep ties he has developed with his community, the university and civil society in Nottingham over the past 13 years.

 

The response of Nottingham University seems to have conflated having a document with holding extremist views and planning to act upon them. But if you are looking into unpleasant subjects, then the chances are you will need to review unpleasant material in the course of your work. Whatever happened to the maxim nothing human is alien to me? Moreover, the University seems reluctant to accept that the downloading of such material for political studies is unexceptionable and necessary. Have they not checked out on-line reading lists on terrorism? Have they not seen that the Nottingham branch of Waterstones sells the collected speeches, interviews and statements of Osama Bin Laden?

 

The Nottingham arrests set a dangerous precedent for intellectual freedom and the scope of academic and journalistic research.  How can we follow the scholar Hedley Bull’s injunction to ‘pursue the question’ if we are only to examine squeaky clean sources?  Where does Nottingham’s response leave terrorism studies in the UK? We cannot combat terrorism by adopting an approach in which we see no evil or hear no evil. A panicky response can only undermine vital research on terrorism and developing public understanding to address the problem. What about our PhD student researching Arabic language sources on the Iraq War? What about those researching or studying Al Qaeda propaganda at Leeds University? What about those wanting to research the recruitment to terrorist organisations? What about those who want to go beyond internet sources and venture into the messier world of field work?

 

Where do the Nottingham arrests leave the much-hyped citizen journalist or blogger? University managers are narrowly interpreting intellectual freedom to authorised academics and registered students. Indeed, university managers appear reluctant to concede that a non-academic might legitimately possess sensitive open source documents, here someone writing regularly for student papers on current affairs. Citizen journalists and blogger beware! 

 

Academic and intellectual freedom is one of the values we should be defending in the war on terror.  And we are doing the terrorists’ work if we submit to a climate of fear and suspicion. The way for society to defeat obnoxious ideas is not to bury our heads in the sand, but to have more engaged and informed citizens. Not least individuals are more likely to become susceptible to obnoxious ideas if we let them fester or glamorise them through censorship rather than exposing them to the light of critical analysis. 

 

The problem of terrorism cannot be defeated militarily, it must be defeated politically. The more informed and open public debate we have, the more we as a society can address obnoxious ideas and expose their weaknesses. Yet, if universities choose to run to the police when confronted with documents expressing extremist views, instead of tackling these ideas head on, they are ducking their intellectual and moral responsibilities. Panicking in the face of extremist ideas might be an expected response from shocked maiden aunts, but it will not combat terrorism or political threats. A vibrant intellectual climate fostering an engaged and informed public might.