alx

alx, 5 days ago

@anne_twain or at least schadenfreude.

alx, 6 days ago

And as a designer who has long been involved in local activism for both social justice and environmental action (the 2 are intertwined), I can't but defend the right to protest. Some might say that peaceful protests are ok, but we should condemn violent ones.
However I rarely saw a protest starting as violent. Turned violent? Yes. I'm Italian and the Genova G8 is still a vivid memory. So yes, protests can turn ugly. But were they ugly from the start?
2/

#StudentProtest

alx, 6 days ago (edited 6 days ago)

There are exeptions of course, and there are also many protests I disagree with. But in general, the pattern seems to be:

• people not in power asks people in power to change
• the people in power can respond in various ways: listen to the demands, engage in dialogue, work for a shared solutions (aka 'negotiation'); they can ignore the protest, and wait for it to pass (willful ignorance); or they can use their position of power to suppress it, generally violently (repression)
  3/

#StudentProtest

alx, 6 days ago

The latter is a purposeful display of power, which only obtain to radicalise people even more, as it foster and enhances rage and anger. And exactly because of this, repression only leads to more violence and then more repression. It's a vicious cycle that moves away the attention from the original nature of the protest itself, and twist it into a violent mess of power display.
That #Academia, the place for dialogue, chose repression over negotiation is deeply disturbing
4/
#StudentProtest

alx, 6 days ago

Because what is the point of producing tons of research about social change, bottom-up strategies, community-led practice-based research, or student wellbeing, if then, when your own corpus of students (and staff) demands actual change based on that same body of research and knowledge production, on the same ethical principles ethics committees fill they mouths and h-index with, you just repress and shut them down, demonising them, and punishing them?
5/

#StudentProtest

alx, 6 days ago

How can we, as scholars, stand in front of the world, and defending our research as valuable, as something for the people, in service of our shared humanity, if then, Universities choose repression over dialogue?
I've been struggling with these questions for months, and tbh, I don't have a clear answers or solutions.
What I know, it is that repression, silencing, and criminalisation of anti-war and anti-genocide dissent is the antithesis of academic values.
6/

#StudentProtest

alx, 6 days ago

For those that prefer to parrot Biden's statements of 'you have the right to protest, but quietly, without disturbing the status quo', I think this article answer to it much better I can:

"Protest is never convenient, never comfortable and frequently unpopular. But dissent from indifference – and through the discomfort of disorder – is the work of choosing democracy."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/06/campus-pro-palestinian-protests

7/endof

#StudentProtest

alx, 10 days ago

@estherschindler from my current PhD report draft:

"2023 has been a turning point for my research. And then the dragons arrived."

alx, 12 days ago

@pvonhellermannn great, beyond the racism, Germany seems to love so much the right-wingers to give them another way to enhance anti-EU sentiments.

alx, 13 days ago

@itamarst "whether we're racist or not doesn't matter" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokhav_Ya%27ir

alx, 14 days ago

@reichenstein I started my MA in Weimar. At the final presentation of an interactive project, the professor looked at me and my project partner (both from Italy), and said:

'Interesting project. I just have one question: Can Italian say anything without using their hands and feet?'

(I guess the latter it was because during the presentation we were moving around the screen to better point the different elements of the interface).

alx, 14 days ago

@reichenstein I know, the old good Orientalism towards ''working class' backward Italy. I mean, it's not like Italians have ever contributed to knowledge in any meaningful way.

alx, 14 days ago

@reichenstein I know the feeling, but sometimes personal biases and beliefs just overwrite any rationality and knowledge. My philosophy teacher had similar Orientalist views on Arab philosophy/culture because of its personal faith.

alx, 14 days ago

@reichenstein PS: thank you for this resource, I didn't know about it, and as a doctoral student in craft and design cultures, that's really a great reading!