From a trip to Rome

President’s blog 13 May, 2024.

I spent the last long weekend in Rome as a participant in a roundtable discussion on peace and humanity, which resulted, among other things, in a declaration of peace. It was hosted by the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, chaired by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, together with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus. The meeting was also attended by several former Peace Prize laureates – along with the husband of last year's winner Narges Mohammadi, who is still imprisoned in Evin prison in Tehran – but also several representatives of civil society organisations from around the world. The focus was of course on Ukraine and Gaza, but also on the many other wars and conflicts going on around the world that do not always make it into the media spotlight: Sudan, Myanmar, Congo, Yemen, Ethiopia... the examples are endless. The meeting also established a ”task force” to promote dialogue and mediation in conflicts. At the same time, it fully highlighted the problems of global peace dialogues; starting points and conditions are so different that it can be difficult to agree even on formulations in a document.

As a university, we subscribe to a set of fundamental core values and, like so many other public and private actors, we naturally and rightly react as staff and students – as human beings – when they are not respected, especially when this is done through terror or military force. There are many ways to work for peace, and a current debate centres on how best to do so.

Recently, as President of Stockholm University, I have received several similar emails, via the Registrar, calling for the immediate severance of all relations with Israeli universities, as well as individual other emails, including those based on the appeal circulated to send emails on the issue, the wording of which in turn provoked a strong reaction. Universities should be open and provide space for the exchange of views. My conclusion is therefore different from that of the letter writers.

As the Chicago Declaration put it in 1967: ”The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic”. As a university, our primary role is to conduct higher research and higher education, based on both critical thinking and active dialogue. Conducting diplomacy in and through academic exchanges is an important aspect of this, and cancelling academic exchanges in other countries is very rarely the right way to promote peace and justice in global conflicts – and when it happens, it also means great losses. On the contrary, when universities fulfil their role as protectors of critics, continued exchanges can contribute to this necessary work, ”to speak truth to power”. This can only be done jointly, not on the basis of a polarisation that makes dialogue impossible. It is therefore my conviction that one of our most central academic missions, for staff and students alike, is to continue dialogue and debate – even today, when it may seem most impossible.

Astrid Söderbergh Widding
President