What's this blog about?

As a result of a combination of factors, culminating in the shameful UCU boycott-in-waiting of Israel, I've grown alienated & silenced, working here in one of the UK's finest universities all the while feeling like a Boycotted British Academic, alone in facing some dilemmas of the moment. In this generally chilling environment, it's hard to speak out and be heard, and hear others...and I find myself writing this blog.

What's it about? At present, it seems to me like a rather tortured articulation of the state of being silenced & mute, beyond words; struggling for the right even to use them, for a voice which can still be heard. When it started, all those successive boycott motions ago, I'd hoped it would function as a blog forum of support & solidarity amongst academics similarly-situated to BBA, to help us break through the boycott movement's silencing strategies. That hope remains notwithstanding this silence... Perhaps it lives in trying to articulate beyond the filter of these coping mechanisms of old (denial, avoidance, withdrawal); by way of this labour of finding the words, this voice...
[A forum of sorts has also arisen in the blog's comments, in which others have adopted the BBA moniker in case of need (e.g. here and here exposing the racist hate speech which masquerades as UCU solidarity activism).]

Wednesday, 28 May 2008

Another UCU Congress... Another Racist Motion

This just in, about what emerged this time out of the swamp of swamps:

The University and College Union (UCU) has today passed a motion that would allow for the reintroduction of a boycott of Israeli academia.

At its annual congress in Manchester, the motion was passed without debate and by a show of hands.

I despair...

I've not forgotten my pledge of the other day but today is not a day for writing. Just despair...
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5 comments:

andy said...

I think its about time to leave the union, and I'm thinking very seriously of this now. I'm not prepared to belong to a racist organisation.

29 May 2008 at 07:51
Boycotted British Academic said...

Thanks Andy. You're not alone in feeling this way - others have contacted me to say the same thing.

I'm too upset to know what to do presently. I feel the problem is merely confirmed by what's happening in UCU and resignation is just one dilemma for me right now.

I'll try to blog about this soon. I've started a post entitled 'resignation' although it concerns resignation more broadly, not just from the racist organization which is UCU.

Thanks for coming on here...

29 May 2008 at 10:08
andy said...

keep it mate, you're doing a fantastic job!

29 May 2008 at 13:12
andy said...

sorry, I meant to say "keep it up mate"

29 May 2008 at 13:12
Nick said...

These people are a bunch of idiots. If they're ready to boycott Israeli academics, then they need to not be hypocrites and boycott everything that's come out of their education/tech industries like mobile phones and amazing medical imaging products.

29 May 2008 at 21:45

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