I did not intend to write about the blocking of the appointment of Professor Denise Helly to the INRS board of directors; not because I would have agreed with the minister’s decision, but quite simply because it seemed to me that everything had been said about this political interference and this rather blatant infringement of academic freedom.
I changed my mind after reading Thursday in The duty the text of Francis Dupuis-Déri, “Where are the defenders of academic freedom? », in which he criticizes “local columnists” for denouncing attacks on academic freedom or freedom of expression on campus only when it is the work of “woke” activists. The reproach is worth what it is worth, and could be referred, in the same way, to many columnists or academics who are just as “from here” and whom censorship only concerns when it is the fact of fascist hordes or nasty reactionaries.
However, it was especially the conclusion of his text that caught my attention. He indeed evokes the “cultural war” on the altar of which “beautiful principles are sacrificed” and ends this depressing observation with two questions: “Defend freedom? Yes, he writes, but for whom? »
To this last question, I would tend to answer: for everyone.
For Denise Helly as for Verushka Lieutenant-Duval; and we could of course mention after these two names a long list of people who we wanted to silence or who we sanctioned for their words or their ideas in Quebec and Canadian universities in recent years. There will appear prominently Katy Fulfer, whom a young man wanted to assassinate because she spoke about the notion of gender in her class, but also — with all due respect to Francis Dupuis-Déri — Mathieu Bock-Côté and Jordan Peterson , etc.
But for this academic freedom and freedom of expression to be thus guaranteed to all, whatever the philosophical or political tendencies with which they identify, it is precisely necessary to rely on “the beautiful principles”, and these should prevail over all other considerations in a society concerned with freedom. Obviously, no freedom being absolute, these “principles” include certain limits set on these two freedoms, but such limits must be the same for everyone, while being closely marked out by laws or regulations to which everyone has access. .
More prosaically, these “beautiful principles” also constitute the best way, if not the only way, if we want to ensure that the condemnation of censorship, in all its forms, does not emanate, each time, from a only camp, and if we want to be able to unite a very large majority of reasonable people against these repeated attacks on these freedoms. I am indeed convinced that most people remain attached to these “beautiful principles” which are those of democracy, and that they are capable of sorting things out. That we can be, in other words, opposed to the discourse which equates any criticism of Islamic fundamentalism with Islamophobia, and yet aware that sanctioning Mme Helly because she once met a certain imam named Adil Cherkaoui has absolutely no common sense.
It is clear that no law, no regulation prohibits dating, inviting or meeting anyone. In the same way, one could be shocked by the sanction imposed by his university on Verushka Lieutenant-Duval for having uttered a word that no law, that no regulation prohibited from uttering, while being otherwise sincerely opposed to any form of racism.
These “beautiful principles” in which we must believe and which we must vigorously defend guarantee us all from the return of an arbitrariness which is, by definition, undemocratic, whether it comes from a liberal and progressive rector or a minister. caquiste. In a society attached to the values of democracy, this defense of freedoms should be almost unanimous.
It is also a miscalculation to defend freedom of expression or academic freedom only for those who line up behind the same flag as us. Freedom can only be reciprocal. Only this reciprocity has the consequence that everyone has an interest in defending it. It also ensures that equality and respect reign among all citizens: I grant you the freedom to express your thoughts frankly and publicly, on the express condition that you grant me the same right, and therefore that of not agree with you and contradict you without you insulting me or wanting to silence me.
The day we no longer believe in these “beautiful principles”, we will have little choice but to happily plunge into a “culture war” which I for one am convinced that most people do not want. Cultural, civil or foreign, with or without quotation marks, war authorizes certain extremists to adopt heroic postures and to abuse a freedom that we no longer recognize in these others, who we now consider as an enemy. War in fact kills all the “beautiful principles”, and everyone suffers. This is why, while there is still time, we must defend these common principles which ensure peace.