One of my articles on the Narmada struggle was recently published in the Journal of Historical Sociology – you can access it here:
Political Economy, Social Movements and State Power
David Harvey on Marx’s Capital
David Havey’s course on Marx’s Capital Volume 1- a chapter by chapter reading of the work – is now available on the net as a podcast. Enjoy at http://davidharvey.org/
If you need a copy of Capital V1, you can access it at www.marxists.org - click on the picture of Marx and Engels, and then go to PDF index …
Sally Hunt on the state of academic freedom at Nottingham and Beyond
Hicham’s article was shortly followed by a piece by Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU, in response to Colin Campbell’s statements on the wrongful terror arrests at Nottingham University — the text is reproduced below …
Research on terrorism is invaluable – but we do it under fear of arrest
The current situation regarding the study of violent extremism needs to be clarified, says Sally Hunt
* The Guardian,
* Tuesday August 26 2008
The fact that terrorists do not all look the same and that “MI5 has concluded that there is no easy way to identify those who become involved in terrorism in Britain” (Terror: secret MI5 report challenges views on extremists, August 21) is no doubt a setback to those who deal only in lazy stereotypes. It also makes knowing thy enemy a bit trickier, but must act as a catalyst for clarification of the legal situation regarding research on terrorism and violent extremism.
If we really want to tackle violent extremism and terrorism, then we need to be safe to explore the issues and get a better understanding. Your report describes the MI5 briefing note as providing “a unique insight into current thinking within the security service about how a modern-day terrorist is made”. No doubt MI5 and the government would welcome greater intelligence in this area, but one stumbling block might be that it remains an area where staff and students who conduct research can find themselves arrested and held without charge.
The arrest of a student and a staff member at Nottingham University under the Terrorism Act in May highlighted the levels of confusion in our universities around academic freedom, sensitive research areas and violent extremism. Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir were arrested because Sabir had emailed Yezza a declassified open-source document, called the al-Qaida Training Manual, available on a US government website.
The MI5 analysis, said the Guardian, is “based on hundreds of case studies of those involved in or closely associated with terrorism”. But if university staff or students had that sort of close contact with “those associated with terrorism”, they might find themselves locked up. Guidelines for universities in dealing with violent extremism say “we should never overstate the menace we face from violent extremism”, and the higher education minister, Bill Rammell, has said that the academic study of terrorism must extend to the “furthest limit of inquiry” and that it is “entirely acceptable and indeed necessary for academics to seek to understand and explain what motivates violent extremists”.
All this would lead one to believe that we have a sensible and reasoned approach to the problem, but in reality we had a man locked up for a week for possessing a document downloaded from a US government website. Reading Yezza’s account of how he doodled in Mills and Boon novellas and compiled lists in his mind to stay sane in his cell (Britain’s terror laws have left me and my family shattered, August 18) really brought home the need to get the situation resolved.
Last month I spoke to a UCU member who is an expert on terrorism. He told me that we have learned the most from in-depth studies of the written materials of terrorist groups, and in-depth interviews with their members. The government has to clarify the current legal situation regarding research on terrorism and violent extremism and clearly articulate that to universities, staff and students. Research in difficult and dangerous areas must continue – without the fear of arrest for students or staff.
Sally Hunt is general secretary of the University and College Union press@ucu.org.uk
Hicham on his case
On August 18, the Guardian published the following piece by Hicham Yezza, depicting his experience of wrongful arrest under UK anti-terror and immigration laws – I reproduce the text below …
Britain’s terror laws have left me and my family shattered
I am innocent yet was detained without charge in solitary confinement for days on end. It was a devastating experience
Hicham Yezza
Monday August 18 2008
The UN’s committee on human rights has just published a report criticising Britain’s anti-terror laws and the resulting curbs on civil liberties. For many commentators the issues raised are mostly a matter of academic abstractions and speculative meanderings. For me, it is anything but. These laws have destroyed my life.
On May 14 I was arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act – on suspicion of the “instigation, preparation and commission of acts of terrorism”: an absurdly nebulous formulation that told me nothing about the sin I had apparently committed. Once in custody, almost 48 hours passed before it was confirmed that the entire operation (involving dozens of officers, police cars, vans, and scientific support agents) was triggered by the presence on my University of Nottingham office computer of an equally absurd document called the “al-Qaida Training Manual”, a declassified open-source document that I had never read and had completely forgotten about since it had been sent to me months before.
Rizwaan Sabir, a politics student friend of mine (who was also arrested), had downloaded the file from the US justice department website while conducting research on terrorism for his upcoming PhD. An extended version of the same document (which figures on the politics department’s official reading list) was also available on Amazon. I edit a political magazine; Rizwaan regularly sent me copies of research materials he was using, and this document was one.
Within hours of my incarceration I had lost track of time. I often awoke thinking I had been asleep for days only to discover it wasn’t midnight yet. My confidence in the competence (and motives) of the police ebbed away. I found myself shifting my energies from remaining cheerful to remaining sane. In the early hours, I was often startled by the metallic toilet seat, crouched in the corner like some sinister beast.
For days on end, I drew cartoons and wrote diary entries in the margins of Mills and Boon novellas. I spent hours reciting things to myself: names of Saul Bellow characters, physics Nobel prize winners, John Coltrane albums, anything to keep the numbness away.
I’m constantly coming across efforts being made to give detention without charge the Walt Disney treatment: the crushing weight of solitary confinement is painted as a non-issue; the soul-sapping nothingness of the claustrophobic, cold cell is portrayed as a mild inconvenience. Make no mistake: the feeling that one’s fate is in the hands of the very people who are apparently trying to convict you is, without doubt, one of the most devastating horrors a human being can ever be subjected to. It is (to misquote Carl von Clausewitz) the continuation of torture by other means.
“Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear,” goes the tautological reasoning of the paranoia merchants calling for harsher, ever more draconian “security” measures – as we saw throughout the 42-days debate. They should read Kafka: nothing is more terrifying than being arrested for something you know you haven’t done. Indeed, it is the innocent who suffers the most because it is the innocent who is tormented the most. The guilty calculates, triangulates, anticipates. The innocent doesn’t know where to start. The answers and the questions are absolute, unbreachable, towering conundrums.
I underwent 20 hours of vigorous interrogation while entire days were being completely wasted by the police micro-examining every detail of my life: my political activism, my writings, my work in theatre and dance, my love life, my photography, my cartooning, my magazine subscriptions, my bus tickets.
Aspects of my life that would have been seen as commendable in others were suddenly viewed as suspect in my case for no apparent reason other than my religious and ethnic background. I was guilty of being that strangest of creatures: a Muslim who reads; who studied engineering yet writes about Bob Dylan; was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war yet owns all of Christopher Hitchens’ writings; admires Terry Eagleton yet defends Martin Amis; interviews Kazuo Ishiguro, listens to Leonard Cohen, goes to Radiohead concerts, all of which became the subject of rather bizarre questioning.
This is not all: outside, lives are shattered, jobs are lost, marriages are destroyed, minds are damaged, friends and families are traumatised – often irrevocably so. My parents, whom I wasn’t allowed to call, could barely get any sleep throughout the ordeal. Many of my Muslim university friends were, and still are, worried about being targeted themselves. For most of my loved ones, despite my innocence, nothing will ever be the same again. I’m now jobless, facing destitution and threatened with deportation from the country I’ve called home for nearly half my life.
Immense pressure is exerted on law enforcement agencies by their political mandarins to produce “results”: pressure to produce a higher number of arrests but also the corollary, more dangerous, impulse to justify them at any cost. Naturally, through a perverted but pervasive circularity in the logic, lack of evidence becomes the very justification for requesting “more time”. The government claims that checks and balances will ensure extensions to detention periods are based on verifiable and compelling arguments. I beg to differ: in my case, the judge was simply bullied by streams of technospeak until she had no option but to grant extra time.
Fighting terrorism is a serious matter and needs to be tackled in a serious way – not through empty gimmicks sustained by fear-mongering and alarmist rhetoric. The real danger is that we are witnessing a slide from the essential purity of habeas corpus into a Britain where the innocent are detained until proven guilty.
· Hicham Yezza, an activist and writer, was released without charge after six days in custody, immediately rearrested on immigration charges and issued with a removal order to Algeria, after which he was held for a further 27 days; he is still awaiting a conclusion to his deportation case
The Relevance of the World Social Forum to Struggles for Social Justice in India
REFLECTIONS ON THE SYMPOSIUM “STRUGGLES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN INDIA TODAY: HOW RELEVANT IS THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM?”
(ORGANIZED BY CACIM, DELHI, AUGUST 2008
ALF GUNVALD NILSEN
On August 30/31, I participated in a symposium organized by CACIM (Critical Action – Centre in Movement) in Delhi, which aimed to reflect on the state of struggles for social justice in India today, and the relevance of the World Social Forum to these processes. The symposium offered a welcome chance to reflect on a theme of considerable importance and urgency, as well as to listen to and engage with interesting presentations from seasoned activists and scholars such as Gabriele Dietrich, Vinod Raina and Uma Chakravarty, as well as research papers on the WSF presented by CACIM’s Forum Fellows of 2007-8. In these notes I present a slightly elaborated version of my summary and discussion of the main streams of the arguments that unfolded during the symposium.
—
The context of CACIM’s symposium was set in a brief discussion note that drew up a broad-brushed picture of the context in which struggles for social justice unfold in India. Contemporary India, it is argued, is witnessing a great intensification of popular struggles for social justice, which is often reactive in character – that is, reactions by particular communities against the depredations of neoliberal restructuring and the upsurge of communal and fascist forces. Simultaneously, popular struggles are encountering an increasingly repressive response from above, which further reinforces the reactive character of many of these struggles. However, India is also witnessing “greater collaboration and convergence of different movements and campaigns for social justice, as a part of this rising assertion”. This scenario parallels with “the invention and the institutionalization of the World Social Forum” as a potentially crucial development in the crystallization of resistance against neoliberalism and for an alternative world order. CACIM notes that the WSF was heralded in these terms in India since its inception there World Social Forum in Mumbai in 2004. Nevertheless, something seems to have gone wrong – not only was there significant criticism against the WSF from radical quarters when it was introduced in India, but more recently, activity around and interest in the WSF and the wider Forum process has been at a low, thus raising the question as to how relevant the Forum actually is to popular struggles for social justice in India today.
I share in much of CACIM’s diagnosis of the state of popular struggles in India today. However, possibly as a result of the bias that flows from my own research over the past six years, I would add that popular struggles in India have also witnessed some crucial defeats in recent times. A key example here would be the Narmada Bachao Andolan; despite its many substantial achievements – the empowerment of adivasi communities in relation to an unresponsive and coercive local state, the politicization of dams and displacement, the successful campaign against World Bank funding of the Sardar Sarovar Project and corporate investments in the Maheshwar Hydroelectric Project – the movement nevertheless failed to achieve its key goal, which was to stop dam-building on the Narmada River (see other posts on this blog). The very fact that the strategies of a movement that had so much going for it, not just in terms of organizational strength and impact, integration into transnational activist networks, and international attention, but also in terms of the burden of proof against its opponent, ultimately foundered should indeed be an issue of concern to activists everywhere as dispossession assumes increasingly virulent and violent forms in India. This is the context, then, in which the WSF has to render itself relevant – on the one hand, an intensification of struggles, but on the other hand also defeats and increasing levels of state repression.
How has the WSF tried to make itself relevant to popular struggles for social justice? By being an open space – that is, a space in which movements, activists and other progressives can come together and share their experiences of struggle. Now, in and by itself, there is nothing new in this; it is quite simply what activists and movements tend to do per definition. It is through such sharing of experiences that movements come into being, and if they extend their reach and scope beyond the immediate locale of resistance and come to fight wider struggles for social justice, this is the activity which drives that process. Indeed, it is through such sharing of experiences that movements come to build the capacity to change the world – as they have done at several conjunctures in history, even when they have been defeated.
Yet, there is a crucial difference between the sharing of experience as a part and parcel of activist praxis and the way that it is practised by/within the WSF. When activists come together to share their “lessons learnt”, this tends to happen with a view towards “joining the dots” between issues and struggles so as to facilitate joint action. In other words, such sharing is done with a view towards figuring out who the common enemy is, defining a common identity, and chalking out a common strategy. In its refusal to do just this – i.e. to work towards the development of political platforms and strategies – the WSF stops short of this kind of action-orientation, and in listening to the various presentations at the symposium, this seemed to be key to the concerns expressed about the relevance of the WSF to struggles for social justice in India today.
For example, Gabriele Dietrich argued that whilst there was substantial enthusiasm for the WSF initially, it had gradually waned as it became clear that the practical impacts and implications of the process were relatively limited. In her view, the WSF often worked in such a way as to secure a degree of attention around issues that activists are engaged with, but little more – issues become known globally, but they are left unresolved locally as the power relations from which they stem remain intact. Vinod Raina pointed out that one of the great promises of the WSF was that it would facilitate greater horizontal integration between movements at a time when it was highly needed. Although a certain level of horizontal integration had been achieved, it had, however, proven to be transitory and had not been sustained by the Forum process. Finally, Uma Chakravarty criticized the kind of “rainbow coalition” mentality that tends to be fostered by the open space strategy for failing to provide an analysis of how issues of class, caste, gender and imperialism are interlinked, and how single issues are integrated into a greater structural totality.
Similar themes emerged in the papers of the CACIM Forum Fellows. Mamata Dash’s paper on how movement groups view the WSF pointed out that in the case of the struggles of forest people, the Forum had contributed to the initiation of dialogue amongst movement groups both inside and outside India, resulting in greater coordination of campaigns for the right to the forest and forest resources. This was a rare example, however – the exception rather than the rule. As movement activists see it, there have been few practical outcomes of the WSF, and its ambit of active participation has often been restricted to leaders and movement intellectuals rather than the grassroots “rank and file”. Mayur Chetia’s paper on the relationship of the left to the World Social Forum raised similar issues in pointing out that much of the left perceives its operational mode as limiting the ability to craft common perspectives and strategies between movements. Finally, Susanna Barria’s paper on the main debates around the 2004 WSF argued that one of the reasons why the Forum has had limited resonance among movement groups in India is quite possibly that its mode of operation and its ambition to craft a “new politics” is quite alien in the Indian context, where “old” forms of oppositional politics still remain strong.
Now, there is of course an obvious rejoinder to such arguments, and that is that the perceived lack of relevance stems from movements and activists expecting to be the WSF to be what it ostensibly is not – a kind of co-ordinating committee for action. Consequently, the question of relevance can be resolved with a readjustment of expectations, so to speak. But I think this would be an inadequate and indeed unfortunate response to the WSF. Whereas a rejoinder of this kind is valid on its own terms, it would nevertheless, I think, amount to turning one’s back on activist needs and concerns, and, moreover, to an abdication of accountability and responsibility towards the strategic imperatives of the hour.
The World Social Forum came into being at a time when open spaces were highly needed. Two decades of defeatism and fragmentation had passed, in which the powers that be rejoiced in the mantra that “there is no alternative”. With the emergence of the WSF it was again possible to say that “we are everywhere” and proof was in hand that “another world is possible”. But where are we now? There is no doubt that the global alterglobalization movement has been crucial in eroding the legitimacy of institutions such as the WTO, the G8, the World Bank and the IMF, and that the neoliberal state is experiencing a crisis of hegemony. It is the lack of popular consent that leads the neoliberal state to resort to surveillance, gagging, imprisonment and liquidation – precisely because it has so little else to offer social majorities after decades of daylight robbery of social wealth and public goods. In spite of this, we are facing a powerful enemy, and this is evident in the ever-widening scope and intensity of dispossession and imperialist warfare. Hence, perhaps it is time to get beyond the celebration of another world being possible and our presence being everywhere and move towards more fecund forms of theoretical production and strategic propositions that can move us beyond what is arguably a stalemate and towards a viable plan for progressive oppositional action. And if the WSF wants to be relevant to such a process, there are several issues that could be usefully discussed and reflected upon.
One of those issues is the very obvious and very simple fact that being perceived as relevant often flows from being perceived as effective. I say this partly on the basis of my experience with research on the Narmada movement. The Narmada Bachao Andolan was of course one of the main drivers behind and participants in the National Alliance of People’s Movements in India – a network that united several hundred movement groups around an agenda for alternative development. Although this was a significant achievement, what struck me in interviewing activists in adivasi villages was how faint the NAPM was to their lifeworld – the NAPM was somewhere the leaders went to hold discussions, it was not something directly relevant to them and their everyday plights. What would be talked about in great detail, though, was their participation in the trade union Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath, a precursor of the NBA, which struck at the heart of the everyday tyranny exercised over these communities by local state officials, and which did so with considerable success. In other words, a grassroots experience of relevance is likely to flow from a grassroots experience of being able to win victories that modify or transform power relations in a tangible way. Without such impacts, the reach and relevance of networks, alliances and indeed open spaces is quite likely to remain limited.
Another issue relates to the WSF’s ambition of crafting a “new politics” and how this relates to the issues and forms of power faced by movements. The basic point is that many of the issues around which struggles for social justice crystallize are ostensibly “old” in character. If anything, it is dispossession which occurs again and again as a theme in these struggles – dispossession not only of land, but of forest and water resources, of agricultural livelihoods and factory jobs, of squatter housing and coastal zones, and of hard-won rights and entitlements. And dispossession is as old as capitalism itself; indeed, it is the dispossession of social majorities of the productive resources that sustain their livelihoods that the fires of accumulation are fed – there is nothing new about this. Moreover, the state is deeply implicated in advancing dispossession – not only by promoting neoliberal agendas and policies, but also by smothering popular opposition through the deployment of the coercive apparatus at its disposal. The state, then, is blatantly a capitalist state, and there is nothing new about this either. I am neither saying this in an attempt to argue that there is nothing new under the sun, nor in an attempt to absolve the “old” politics of its shortcomings, but in an attempt to encourage, perhaps, a greater degree of humility amongst those who argue for a new politics and an ability to recognize that “old” forms of politics may not be completely devoid of virtues. What is more, I think it would be regrettable if the convergence of contemporary struggles for social justice, and with it the WSF process, was to descend into trench warfare over the supposed fault lines between “old” and “new” social movements. Such a development can only be detrimental to popular resistance, and the option of dialogue and cross-fertilization between political traditions is a far more preferable avenue to pursue.
Perhaps, then, it is time to re-think the mode of operation of the WSF in relation to activist needs, concerns and ambitions. Perhaps it is necessary to consider whether it is possible for the Forum to move from being an open space to being an infrastructure of resistance that is capable of supporting and sustaining engagements in theoretical production, strategic propositions and practical action. If the World Social Forum is, as it purports to be, a process, then surely the possibility of such change should not be inimical to its character.
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Notes towards a Marxist Theory of Social Movements
Does Marxist theory have anything to offer us in our efforts to make sense of social movements – both our own and those of others? In the two articles below I argue that it does, and try to unearth some of the potential for a Marxist theory of social movements …
[These two articles have served as raw material for shorter pieces that have either appeared or are forthcoming in Sosiologisk Tidsskrift and Capital and Class]
Notes towards a Marxist Theory of Social Movements Part 1
Notes towards a Marxist Theory of Social Movements Part 2
Thoughts on Popular Struggles in India
These two articles – both of which are rooted in my research on the struggles against dam-building in the Narmada Valley – present some of my musings on the character and dynamics of contemporary popular struggles in India …
The River and the Rage: Dispossession and Resistance in the Narmada Valley, India
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.
The War on Terror Comes to Campus – Reflections on the Nottingham Terror Arrests
On May 14, the war on terror came to my workplace, the University of Nottingham, with the arrests of an MA student and a member of staff who had downloaded a widely available Al Qaeda document for research purposes. The unjustified arrests have attracted global attention and have kicked off a virulent campaign for academic freedom and civil liberties in and around the university, involving both academics and students. Below I reproduce an article by Kemo Sabe which provides an introduction and an initial commentary on the incident and the issue …
(also published on freehichamyezza.wordpress.com)
THE WAR ON TERROR COMES TO CAMPUS
BY KEMO SABE
What happened at Nottingham University?
On May 14 an MA student at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, Rizwaan Sabir, and an administrator at the School of Modern Languages, Hicham Yezza, were arrested under the Terrorism Act of 2000. The arrests followed the discovery by one of Hicham Yezza’s co-workers of an Al Qaeda training manual on that had been saved on his computer – the document had been sent to him by Rizwaan Sabir for printing. When university authorities learnt of this, they in turn contacted the police, which resulted in the high profile action on May 14 by the Nottinghamshire Constabulary and the West Midlands Counter-Terrorism Unit.
The two men were detained for six days, until they were finally released without charge on May 20. Hicham Yezza was immediately rearrested on immigration charges and taken to a detention centre in Manchester. On Friday May 23, he was put on fast track deportation to his home country Algeria. Scheduled for deportation on June 1, he was first shuttled to Colnbrooke detention centre in London, then shifted to Oxford, and then back again to Colnbrooke. On Friday May 30, the Home Office imposed a stay of execution on his deportation after his lawyer filed for a judicial review of his case. At the time of writing, he is in the process of being shifted to The Citadel detention facility in Dover; the threat of deportation still hangs over his head.
So why were Rizwaan and Hicham in possession of an Al Qaeda training manual? For the simple reason that Rizwaan Sabir was going to use it as data material for his MA dissertation on radical Islam and the strategies of Islamist terror networks. Not being able to print the document himself, he sent it to his friend Hicham Yezza who had access to a printer through his job as an administrator at the School of Modern Languages. And where had Rizwaan gotten hold of the document in the first place? Through a US government website, where it is openly available for downloading. Of course, he could also have obtained the document through other sources had he wanted to – for example the website of the Federation of American Scientists, or the website of the FBI, or indeed through Amazon.co.uk, which offers the document for sale for £16.
And what is the nature of the document? Well – having gone through the document, “boring” is the first word that comes to mind. By and large, the document contains starch dry information on how to avoid having a telephone bugged, how to undertake surveillance by car, and how to recruit new agents – indeed, the material in the document is certainly of a far less inflammatory character than, say, the collected speeches and writings of Osama Bin Laden, which are widely available in the shelves of the high street bookseller Waterstones.
Of course, the University of Nottingham could have found out all this for themselves if they had chosen to adopt the cool, calm and rational response that one might expect from an institution of higher learning and research when faced with materials of this sort. A quick word with Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir about their reasons for having the document, a phone call to Rizwaan’s supervisor and personal tutor, or indeed a quick Google search would have made it possible to settle the matter internally within the university without any police involvement, and without any unjustified arrests. The police’s handling of the matter was equally inept – in spite of the fact that they were informed by Rizwaan Sabir’s supervisor as well as his personal tutor that the document in question was perfectly legitimate and highly relevant data material for his MA dissertation two days after the arrest, the police chose to hold both him and Hicham for four more days. A Google search seems to have been beyond the investigative capabilities of the West Midlands Counter-Terrorism Unit. Instead, they preferred to subject Rizwaan and Hicham to excruciating interrogations, covering amongst other things their political convictions, and to raid the homes of the two men and impounding their computers and other personal belongings – it goes without saying that Rizwaan’s family and Hicham’s partner were deeply upset and terrified in the process.
What can we make of the re-arrest of Hicham Yezza? In answering this question, let us observe a few facts about Hicham first. Having lived in the UK for 13 years, Hicham has developed deep bonds in Nottingham. He carried out his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Nottingham, and had also started his PhD studies there. Moreover, he was a very active in the student union, a prominent peace activist and editor of Ceasefire magazine, and a central member of various cultural troupes seeking to advance intercultural understanding through dance and music. Moreover, Hicham was not a person trying to stay below the radar of the immigration authorities. In fact, he had been consistently trying to clarify confusions around his visa and work permit, and was scheduled for a hearing of his case in July. However, the Home Office with its decision to put him on fast track deportation brushed this process, aside, and Hicham has effectively been denied his right to a fair hearing. In light of these facts, it is very difficult to not agree with Labour MP Alan Simpson, who in a letter to the Home Office argues that there is “no reason for an emergency deportation of Mr. Hicham Yezza other than to cover the embarrassment of Police and Intelligence services”. In other words, Hicham Yezza is paying the heavy price for the police authorities’ perceived need to save face in this shameful affair.
Academic Freedom Under Attack
The Nottingham terror arrests constitute nothing less than a grave attack on academic freedom – and tragically, it was the University of Nottingham itself that initiated this attack.
It goes without saying that it is the job of academic researchers, be they staff or students, to probe controversial, objectionable, distasteful, deplorable and even criminal aspects of social and political life. And in doing so, we also have to consult primary data material that may be controversial, objectionable, distasteful, deplorable and even criminal. This work yields crucial inputs to open, rational and informed debate about issues of public concern. A central aspect of this process is that of questioning and testing received wisdoms, of pushing the boundaries of what we already know, and doing so by putting forward opinions about and interpretations of social and political phenomena that may be controversial and unpopular. The very hallmark and basic criterion of academic freedom is in turn that researchers can feel free to carry out this task without having to fear disciplinary action, dismissal, or worse – infringements upon our civil liberties.
It is precisely this hallmark of academic freedom that has been undermined by the terror arrests at the University of Nottingham. As a result of doing precisely what he is supposed to do as a researcher – consulting primary sources in order to produce critical knowledge – Rizwaan Sabir was subjected to a gross violation of his civil liberties and human rights. Hicham Yezza suffered an equally grave violation of his civil liberties and human rights as a result of wanting to help his friend in doing this – and worse still, he faces unjustified deportation in a thinly veiled attempt by police and intelligence authorities to deflect attention from their disgraceful handling of the initial arrests.
The responses of the University of Nottingham to critical claims from academics, students and citizens worldwide that its actions in this case have in effect trampled all over the basic principles of academic freedom have been puzzling to say the least. Initially, a university spokesperson stated categorically to the media and to the public that the document in question was “not legitimate research material”– in other words, an open source document widely available in the public domain, and acutely relevant to Rizwaan Sabir’s MA dissertation – was not considered as relevant research material. This statement was subsequently withdrawn, and the university changed tack to argue that academics and registered students have “very good cause to access whatever material [their] scholarship requires”. However, the university spokesperson also added that it is expected that scholars act “sensibly within current UK law” and refrain from sending their materials to “any Tom, Dick or Harry”.This statement of course leapfrogs over the fact that the document in question is in fact available to any Tom, Dick and Harry – or Tom, Hicham and Harriet – in the public domain; they can even purchase it from Amazon. Are we to understand then that the University of Nottingham believes that members of the public should be prepared for the ominous prospect of a quiet knock on the door at night as a consequence of their most recent Amazon purchase?
Furthermore, the university’s statement raises the broader question of intellectual freedom – and indeed the university’s attitude to intellectual freedom as such. Is the university of the opinion that only academics are entitled to access controversial documents that are available in the public domain? If so, on what grounds do they hold this opinion? And if they truly hold this opinion – whatever happened to the right of citizens to inform themselves about matters of great concern to the public? Fuelled by the informational flows of the World Wide Web, ours are the halcyon days of the political blogger, the citizen journalist and the critical autodidact – and democracy is being broadened and deepened as a result of this. Shouldn’t the university, itself arguably a model for open debate, critique and dissent in wider society, welcome and strengthen this development, rather than implicitly label it as illegitimate and suspect? Shouldn’t we all welcome the concerned, curious, informed citizen who makes up her or his mind about current affairs on the basis of her or his own examination of the available evidence?
In a recent comment to BBC East Midlands in connection with the demonstration on the campus of Nottingham University on May 28, which saw 500 or so academics, students and supporters gather in defence of academic freedom and in protest of the deportation of Hicham Yezza, a university spokesperson stated that the University of Nottingham takes the issue of academic freedom seriously, but that it also “comes with responsibility and it needs to be handled thoughtfully and sensitively”. It is hard to imagine that scholars and researchers of various descriptions do not take the responsibility which accompany their intellectual labour very seriously, but in relation to the recent terror arrests it is quite clear that there is only one party that has not accepted and respected the responsibilities that attach to academic freedom, and handled this responsibility thoughtfully and sensitively, and that is the University of Nottingham itself. The conduct of the University of the Nottingham in this case and the resultant arrests set a worrying precedent for the future and raises a host of unsettling questions for scholars in the UK academy. Who of our staff and students will be next to be arrested and detained for a long period of time without charge? And which controversial or objectionable subject area will be targeted next time? Research on human trafficking? Research on the sex industry? Research on political protest? Research on illegal immigration? And what will be the outcome of the possible constraints upon research signalled by the terror arrests? Most likely a sanitized and censored research culture in which controversial, distasteful and objectionable research areas have faded from view – a research culture in which we see no evil and hear no evil, and therefore also a research culture which is ill-equipped to contribute to combating evil. Society will be the poorer for it.
Casualties of War
What happened at the University of Nottingham on May 14 brings home a simple but chilling insight: the so-called “war on terror” does not only have destructive ramifications in faraway places and for distant strangers; it also impacts upon our own societies, our communities, us and our friends and loved ones, and indeed our campuses. This is of course not the impact of bombs, tanks and troops that is all too familiar to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. Rather it is the impact of the intersection of, on the one hand, a culture of fear that turns our neighbours into suspects and criminalizes whole communities on the basis of ethnic origin and religious beliefs, and, on the other hand, increasingly draconian anti-terror legislation which turns amateur poets into terrorists, leads authorities to encourage teachers to spy on Asian-looking and Muslim students, and allows the repressive arm of the state to snatch away and detain without charge individuals whose only “crime” is their pursuit of intellectual curiosity, academic interests and political ideals in what is supposed to be a free and open society.
The impacts of “the war on terror” at home tear away at the very fabric of our communities, eroding the mutual bonds of trust, support and solidarity that sustain us in our everyday lives; the impacts of “the war on terror” at home wreak havoc on the lives of individuals, threatening to sever them from their communities and their loved ones and deport them to an uncertain future as and when police authorities feel the need to save face in the wake of unjustified terror arrests; the impacts of “the war on terror” at home undermines those hard-won rights and liberties that are supposed to protect us as citizens and individuals from random acts of power from above; the impacts of the “war on terror” at home constrains the intellectual space available to us to question the given order of things and circumscribe the political space that is at our disposal for expressing our reasonable doubts about the legitimacy of “the war on terror” itself.
In doing this, “the war on terror” has become the enemy of that which it claims to protect – freedom, democracy and human rights – and the architect of that which it claims to vanquish – tyranny, fear and totalitarianism. And that poses the challenge to us: it is only by coming together as we have done, as academics, students, citizens, community members and friends, over the past two weeks – not just in Nottingham, but indeed country- and worldwide – that we stand a chance of reclaiming the ground we have lost to “the war on terror” and the climate of fear and undemocratic legislation it has created. In doing so, I believe we follow the fine example set by Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza both as scholars and as activists.
FOOTNOTES
Both the University of Nottingham and the police have repeatedly claimed that the arrest and investigation of Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza were conducted in a “low-key” manner and “sensitively handled” (see for example the statement by the Registrar, Dr. Paul Greatrix, in Times Higher Education supplement, May 29, 2008, and statement by a Nottinghamshire police spokeswoman in The Guardian, May 24, 2008). Leaving out for now the question as to whether police involvement was at all necessary, this claim hardly stands up to scrutiny. Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza were arrested and held from Wednesday May 14 until Tuesday, May 20 without charge, in spite of the fact that Rizwaan Sabir’s supervisor and personal tutor both confirmed to the police that the document they had downloaded and printed was legitimate research material on Friday, May 16. The homes of the two men were raided; they had their computers impounded and they have still not been returned (as at the afternoon of Tuesday 27 May); Rizwaan Sabir’s family members were ejected from their home during the police’s search; several colleagues in the School of politics were interviewed for hours by the police. The day after the arrests, students had their bags searched by uniformed police before entering the Trent Building the day after the arrests, and Black Maria’s were parked very visibly on the university campus.
Hicham Yezza stated the following about the relocation to Dover, which occurred very much against his wishes: “This would be the fifth movement in 9 days and is therefore unacceptable … I am not a piece of luggage but a human being and deserve to be treated as such” (Press Release, 31.05.08; www.freehichamyezza.wordpress.com).
In several of its public statements on the matter, the University of Nottingham has claimed that it had no choice but to involve the police in the matter (see, for example, statement on the University of Nottingham intranet portal, posted on May 27, 2008). This, however, does not dovetail with guidelines issued by the Department of Education and Skills on how to handle extremism on campus, which clearly argue that “[t]here are a number of intervention options available to HE providers that may be more appropriate than direct police enforcement action” and that its is only on “rare occasions” that law enforcement action “may be required”. Had the University of Nottingham followed these guidelines, rather than making the police the first port of call, it would first of all had discovered that the document in question was in any way related to extremist activities, but also have avoided instigating a chain of events which in sum violated the very duty of care to staff and students that university spokespersons tend to refer to when they seek to justify the fact that they contacted the police (see for example statement on the University of Nottingham intranet portal, posted on May 27, 2008). Moreover, the argument that police was contacted due to “reasonable anxiety and concern” is also an odd one, given that the document was found in the setting of a university where the School of Politics and International Relations specializes in research on international security and terrorism. Indeed, university authorities could in all likelihood easily have obtained an assessment of the document from one of the experts in international security and terrorism at the School of Politics and International Relations.
In an interview in The Guardian, May 31, 2008, Hicham Yezza states: “Someone could be forgiven, in this current climate, for panicking at this type of document. But I would have appreciated had I been given five minutes simply to answer the questions relevant to the document”. Similarly, in a statement to The Guardian, May 24, Rizwaan Sabir’s lawyer, Tayab Ali, argued that the matter “could have been handled sensibly if the university had discussed the issue with Rizwaan and his tutors”.
Rizwaan Sabir’s lawyer, Mr. Tayab Ali through this into relief in the following statement: “The two members of the university were treated as though they were part of an al-Qaeda cell … Why did it take so long for the police to reach the conclusions that they did? … These are not unqualified police, they are the top counterterrorism command for the region” (Times Higher Education supplement, 22 May, 2008).
Rizwaan Sabir commented to Times Higher Education supplement on May 29, about the interrogations that: “It was sheer psychological torture – particularly in the last 24 hours when they were umming and ahhhing about whether to charge me”.
Whereas the Home Office refuses to comment on Hicham Yezza’s case, its zealous pursuit of deportations is evidenced by a statement made to Nottingham Evening Post on May 31: “We will seek to remove those who no longer have any right to be here, we are already removing one person every eight minute and we are committed to removing more”.
Letter from MP Alan Simpson to MP Liam Byrne, Minister of State (Borders and Immigration), 23 May 2008.
The University of Nottingham has received between 40 and 50 e-mails from scholars across as well as beyond the UK expressing their concern over the unjustified arrests and their ramifications on academic freedom. Some 100 academics from the University of Nottingham, as well as several other UK universities have also signed a petition asking the university – among other things – to guarantee the academic freedom and civil liberties of all its student and staff, irrespective of ethnic and religious background. A demonstration for academic freedom and against the deportation of Hicham Yezza on May 28 gathered about 500 academics, students and supporters at the campus of the University of Nottingham, and Labour MP Alan Simpson addressed the demonstrators in support of their demands.
The university’s statements on its future actions related to the terror arrests and its implications for academic freedom have been nebulous and unsatisfactory at best. For example, the Registrar, Dr. Paul Greatrix, points to the University Research Committee “considering the enhancement of our research ethics network” and also argues that an issue that arises is “the level of discussion and guidance on the rights and responsibilities of staff and students in terms of research and freedom of speech” (Times Higher Education supplement, 29 May, 2008). In its current Intranet portal statement, the university states that it is “already addressing issues raised by these events through the ongoing work of the Research Committee”. What is unsatisfactory about this statement is of course that it reflects the university’s persistent unwillingness to enter into dialogue with concerned staff and students on the issue of academic freedom raised by the unjustified arrests – an unwillingness that was recently manifested in the university’s refusal to participate in a roundtable discussion on the issues of academic freedom raised by the terror arrests. Moreover, the statements seem to indicate that the university wants to issue guidelines on research materials, which in all likelihood will amount to an institutionalization of constraints on academic freedom. What is not forthcoming from the university is of course an unconditional guarantee of the academic freedom and civil liberties of its staff and students, which is hugely disappointing.
