position:vice chancellor

University of Glasgow publishes report into historical slavery

The University of Glasgow has published a comprehensive report into the institution’s historical links with racial slavery.

The study acknowledges that whilst it played a leading role in the abolitionist movement, the University also received significant financial support from people whose wealth at least in part derived from slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Slavery, Abolition and the University of Glasgow report, co-authored by Professor Simon Newman and Dr Stephen Mullen, both from the University of Glasgow, follows a year-long investigation into bequests, support and other ways the University might have benefited from slavery-related wealth.

It estimates the present-day value of all monies given to the University which might have been fully or partly derived from slavery to be in the order of tens of millions of pounds, depending on the indexation formula.

The University has now agreed a proactive programme of reparative justice which includes the creation of a centre for the study of slavery and a memorial or tribute at the University in the name of the enslaved.

The University is also working with the University of the West Indies (UWI) and hopes to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen academic collaboration between the two institutions.

Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, said: “The University of Glasgow has a proud record of anti-slavery activity including petitioning Parliament to abolish slavery and awarding an honorary degree to the emancipationist, William Wilberforce. Glasgow also educated James McCune Smith, a formerly enslaved New Yorker who became the first ever African American to receive a medical degree.

“This report has been an important undertaking and commitment to find out if the University benefitted from slavery in the past. Although the University never owned enslaved people or traded in the goods they produced, it is now clear we received significant financial support from people whose wealth came from slavery.

“The University deeply regrets this association with historical slavery which clashes with our proud history of support for the abolition of both the slave trade and slavery itself.

“Looking to the future, the University has set out a programme of reparative justice through which we will seek to acknowledge this aspect of the University’s past, enhance awareness and understanding of historical slavery, and forge positive partnerships with new partners including the University of the West Indies.”

The University will also work to further enhance awareness and understanding of the history and its connections to both slavery and abolitionism.

Professor Simon Newman, the University of Glasgow report’s co-author, said: “The University of Glasgow has made history in the UK today by acknowledging that alongside its proud history of abolitionism is an equally significant history of financially benefitting from racial slavery. In doing this, Glasgow follows in the footsteps of leading American universities which have confronted the role of slavery in their histories.

“The University of Glasgow is an institution that grew in a city tied to the trade in tobacco, sugar and cotton, all of which were initially produced by enslaved Africans. Launching an in-depth investigation to look at how the University might have benefited from the profits of racial slavery was, in my opinion, a brave decision. But it is a decision rooted in the core values of an educational institution dedicated to the pursuit of truth and social justice.

“I am delighted that we have acknowledged our past, albeit indirect, ties to racial slavery and been inspired to develop new and exciting opportunities and collaborations for students and academics alike as part of a rolling programme of reparative justice.”

One of the three external advisors to the slavery report was Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies; along with Professor Sir Geoff Palmer, a leading civil rights and equality campaigner and Graham Campbell, a Glasgow City Council councillor and an activist for African-Caribbean issues in Scotland.

Professor Sir Hilary Beckles said: “I have looked closely at the report, reading it within the context of the University of Glasgow-University of the West Indies framework for mutual recognition and respect.

“The approach adopted by the University of Glasgow is commendable and is endorsed by the UWI as an excellent place to begin. Both universities are committed to excellent and ethical research, teaching and public service.

“I celebrate colleagues in Glasgow for taking these first steps and keenly anticipate working through next steps.”

The University has accepted the recommendations in the report. This commits it to:

Publish the Senior Management Group’s statement of July 2016, along with the final version of the report detailing the research and conclusions of the research into how the University benefited from the profits of historical slavery, and a statement describing the reparative justice actions to be undertaken by the University.
Strive to increase the racial diversity of students and staff and to reduce the degree attainment gap, in line with the University of Glasgow’s Equality and Diversity Policy. This will include awarding scholarships to BAME students of Afro-Caribbean descent to help address their under-representation in the University.
Pursue the negotiation and signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the University of Glasgow and the University of the West Indies, designed to fit the needs and requirements of UWI staff and students, while working in alignment with the educational and research objectives of the University of Glasgow.
Create an interdisciplinary centre for the study of historical slavery and its legacies, including modern slavery and trafficking.
Inaugurate a named professorship, a rotating post to be awarded to University of Glasgow academics undertaking significant research relevant to historical and modern slavery and reparative justice.
Name a major new University building or space to commemorate a significant figure, perhaps James McCune Smith, with appropriate signage and public-facing information.
Add a commemorative plaque to the Gilbert Scott Building, explaining that this was the site of the house of Robert Bogle, a West India merchant who owned many enslaved people, and who was one of a number of people who made money from slavery and who then later donated funds for the construction of the building.
Develop a Hunterian exhibition exploring the often unknown and unexpected ways in which some items within the collections are related to the history of racial slavery.
Develop a creative arts and sciences series (under the auspices of the new centre), with performances, events and lectures.

▻https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_607154_en.html

#esclavage #histoire #rapport
cc @reka

Ici pour télécharger le rapport :
▻https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_607547_en.pdf

Autres documents sur l’esclavage sur le portail de l’université de Glasgow :
▻https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/slavery

Dear occupiers, sorry if we hurt your feelings - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com
Not one Israeli statesman today intends to apologize for the Nakba – not for the ethnic cleansing, nor for the exiling. But Abbas had no choice but to apologize for his Holocaust remark

Gideon Levy May 06, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-dear-occupiers-sorry-if-we-hurt-your-feelings-1.6055095

It’s hard to imagine a more unfounded, bizarre and insane scenario than this: The leader of the Palestinian people is forced to apologize to the Jewish people. The one who was robbed apologizes to the robbers, the victim apologizes to the rapist, the dead to the killer.
After all, the occupiers are so sensitive – and their feelings, and only theirs, must be taken into account. A nation that hasn’t stopped occupying, destroying and killing, and has never considered apologizing for anything – anything – gets its victims to apologize for one measly sentence by their leader. The rest is known: “apology not accepted.” What did you think would happen? That it would be “accepted”?
You don’t have to be an admirer of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to understand the depths of the absurd. You don’t have to be an Israel hater to understand the extent of the chutzpah.
Israel holds a magic card, the lottery of the century: the horror of anti-Semitism. The value of this card is on a dizzying rise, especially now as the Holocaust recedes and anti-Semitism is being replaced in many countries by criticism of Israel. Playing this lucky card covers everything. Its holders not only can do anything they please, they can be insulted and put on the squeeze.
The world became agitated over Abbas like it never was over any Israeli incitement – the chorus of the European Union, the UN envoy and of course, the ambassador of the settlers, David Friedman, who never denounces Israel for anything, only the Palestinians. Even The New York Times took on an amazingly sharp tone: “Let Abbas’ vile words be his last as Palestinian leader.”
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It’s hard to imagine that the newspaper the Jewish right has marked as an Israel hater, baselessly of course, would use similar language against an Israeli prime minister; the one responsible, for example, for the massacre of unarmed protesters.

There’s a double standard in Israel as well: It will never attack the anti-Semitic right in Europe as it attacks Abbas, who is certainly much less anti-Semitic, if at all, than Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache or Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Abbas said something that should not have been said. A day later he apologized. He regretted and retracted what he said, condemned the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, and reaffirmed his commitment to the two-state solution. It wouldn’t have taken much more for him to bend his knee to Israel’s hobnail boots and ask forgiveness for continuing to live under them.
But Israel won’t let any apology stop its nefarious gloating. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman was quick to damn the other side, as usual: “despicable Holocaust denier apology not accepted.”

Europe Should See Refugees as a Boon, Not a Burden

Many European leaders have described the refugees who are risking their lives to get to the Continent as a burden. But there is good reason to believe that these immigrants will contribute more to Europe economically than they will take from it.

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/opinion/europe-should-see-refugees-as-a-boon-not-a-burden.html?_r=0
–-> ça date de 2015, mais je mets ici pour archivage

#migrations #asile #réfugiés #économie #opportunité

The South African Compromise
▻http://africasacountry.com/the-south-african-compromise

At this week’s #Open_Book_Festival in Cape Town, one of South Africa’s many literary events, one of the most anticipated non-fiction writers was #Adam_Habib. A veteran political scientist, erstwhile Trotskyist, and as of recently, vice chancellor (equal to an American college president) at the #University_of_the_Witwatersrand, Habib just released his new book South Africa’s Suspended (...)

#POLITICS #ANC #COSATU #DA

Les révoltés de l’université de Warwick, en lutte contre le processus de libéralisation de leur institution

The University of Warwick is in occupation against the amount of money being paid to Vice Chancellor and other issues regarding the neo-liberalisation of the university. I know that they would appreciate support from other universities and from academics.

Please email solidarity.ppu@gmail.com<mailto:solidarity.ppu@gmail.com> and sign their statement of support.

For more info see ▻http://protectthepublicuniversity.wordpress.com

In the academic year of 2011/12 the Vice-Chancellor of Warwick University, Nigel Thrift, was awarded a pay increase of £42,000. He now receives a pay packet of £316,000 – earning over twenty-two times more than the lowest paid worker at this university (£14,202).

This is not unusual. Vice-Chancellors of the country’s most selective universities have received similar pay increases. These come at a time of continuing economic crisis, rising youth unemployment and falling intake of students from less-privileged backgrounds. This is symptomatic of widening social inequality and a mass transfer of wealth from poor to rich, public to private.

Widening inequality within higher education is driven by the marketization and privatization of universities. Institutions that were once for the public good are now being turned over to private, profit-driven interests. This is deliberately advanced by government policy on higher education. Our university system was once acknowledged as one of the best in the world. This is now being dismantled.
Unlike their Vice-Chancellors, university staff members have experienced a real wage pay cut. Made in the name of ‘growth’ and ‘efficiency’, these cuts go hand in hand with longer hours, less money and insecure contracts for postgraduate and junior staff members. This puts enormous pressure on staff and visibly reduces teaching standards, forcing us to ask: efficient at what?

At the same time, students are forced to take on the burden of financing higher education. While fees climb to £9,000 a year, bursaries are either cancelled or transferred to ‘fee waivers’; meanwhile, in universities like Warwick, maintenance costs are driven up by the construction of ever-more expensive accommodation. The vast post-university debt (£43,500) now facing less privileged students whose families cannot afford to pay up-front makes university education seem both risky and undesirable for many. This process is changing the perception of higher education from a public good to a private investment, from a communal right to an individual privilege, accessible only by the few, as demonstrated by falling applications from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The widening gap in pay between senior managers and frontline staff, and the debt forced on students, means that the university now reproduces social inequalities rather than contesting them. This undermines the university’s democratic function as a space in which free thought, debate and critical inquiry is fostered in order to give people the tools to challenge social hierarchies and play an active role in the public sphere.

Our opposition to the rising salary of the Vice-Chancellor speaks to a deeper opposition to the continuing marketization and privatization of higher education. The problems at Warwick University are problems for the entire university system under market logic. The management of this university is failing to make the case for the protection and promotion of the public university, so we must do it. The government’s radical restructuring of higher education has crept up on us, and we must act now if we are to resist – before it’s too late.

We contest these reforms to our university, however the voice of the student body has been reduced to customer feedback and merely tokenistic representation in the governance of this university. There is currently no space for dialogue over the future of our own university. We are occupying this council chamber in order to open that space, to start that dialogue and to make our voices heard. If we are to halt this government’s assault on the university we must make ourselves heard TOGETHER and begin to work towards an alternative.

Join us.
▻http://www.twitter.com/WPPWarwick
▻http://www.facebook.com/ppuwarwick

What Israel could be like - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/what-israel-could-be-like.premium-1.516628

Teach us, dear South Africans, black, white and colored, how yesterday’s enemy becomes today’s partner. How to drive away the fear, erase the hatred, atone for the injustice and create new justice.
By Gideon Levy | Apr.21, 2013

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — When Adam Habib enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand, he needed government permission: Habib is “colored” and the Jo’burg university was white. That was some 30 years ago. Next month Prof. Habib will begin his new job, vice chancellor of the university that barely admitted him as a student. The position is equivalent to university president in Israel. Habib’s alma mater is now one of South Africa’s top two universities. The majority of its students are black, and its president is colored. Only 30 years have passed.

Only 30 years have gone by since Roelf Meyer served as deputy minister of law and order in the apartheid regime and as minister of defense and minister of constitutional affairs and communication. Next month Meyer will submit a national defense review to South Africa’s government. The man who fought Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, which he viewed as a terror organization, and who jailed its activists, became the defense adviser of the government headed by the ANC. In between he also testified to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about his role in the apartheid regime.

Both of these remarkable figures, Habib and Meyer, are the face of the new South Africa. Their story, like the story of their country, is among the most amazing in modern history. A visit to South Africa, which has more than a few challenges and tough problems - unemployment, crime, a failing education system and among the highest levels of economic inequality in the world - still stirs deep feelings of both wonder and envy.

The miracle of South Africa could have imparted a useful lesson to another modern miracle, that of Israel. It was born in the same year as apartheid, but look at where Israel is today in terms of morality and justice, and where South Africa is. Let us set aside, for the nonce, the increasing comparison between apartheid and the Israeli occupation regime, and instead study the lessons of the new South Africa. Had Israel (and also the Palestinians) done as South Africa did, we would have a different Israel today. South Africa proved, against all odds, that it is possible; is there anything more hopeful than this?

The South African miracle, the fall of an evil regime in favor of a just regime through a thrilling process of reconciliation, must be learned in Israel. Instead of battling Pretoria’s decision to label products from the settlements and boycott Israeli universities, it would have been better to send study missions from Israel to South Africa. Teach us, dear South Africans, black, white and colored, how yesterday’s enemy becomes today’s partner. How to drive away the fear, erase the hatred, atone for the injustice and create new justice.

The list of lessons is a long one. When Meyer was first elected to the apartheid parliament, he looked around and sensed that something was wrong. “Suddenly I felt I did not represent my nation,” he related this weekend at the former Afrikaner farm on the outskirts of Pretoria, where he is studiously working on his defense review. How many new Knesset members have ever looked around themselves and felt that something was amiss, that millions of people have no representation?

It continued with the impressive numbers of whites, including more than a few Jews, who took up the blacks’ struggle. MP Ben Turok, who is Jewish, spent years in prison and moved abroad as an exile; Judge Albie Sachs, another Jew, lost an arm and sight in one eye in an attempt on his life, and he too went into exile abroad. Like them, Ronnie Kasrils, Helen Suzman and many others paid a high personal price in the fight to obtain justice for the other, not for themselves. Where are their Israeli counterparts?

The main lesson for Israel lies in the formative moment for South Africa, when the dawning realization that apartheid could not continue spread: The army, the economy, the sanctions, the isolation enough, everyone said. And once that awareness crystallized, the road was a short one. Were Israel more conscious of its situation it would be in the same place, the place of saying we cannot go on like this. True, South Africa’s blacks had Nelson Mandela and the Palestinians have Mahmoud Abbas; South Africa’s whites had F. W. de Klerk and we have Benjamin Netanyahu. Nevertheless, look at South Africa and see what we could have had here.