[jm_collective] Just Mathematics Collective Newsletter, No. 7
Just Mathematics Collective newsletter
jm_collective at inventati.org
Wed May 8 23:37:55 UTC 2024
Hello!
Welcome to the Just Mathematics Collective newsletter. This is our
(roughly) monthly round-up of news about our campaigns and activities,
suggestions for how you can help, and reading we've found useful
recently.
---
News/Announcements
- JMC has put out a statement on 'Mathematics and Science Beyond
Apartheid and Genocide'. You can find it in printable pamphlet form on
our website here:
https://www.justmathematicscollective.net/masbag-jmc-pamphlet.pdf, or
the full text in this email below.
- We stand in solidarity with all student encampments around the world.
We encourage you to visit your local encampment and show your support.
Encampments are shown on the following map in green:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Columbia_University_pro-Palestinian_campus_occupation#/map/0
- FOLLOW US on Instagram! @just.math.collective
https://www.instagram.com/just.math.collective/
---
---
Signal boosts: stuff we've read this month and want to share
-
https://respondcrisistranslation.org/en/newsb/20231102-mistranslating-the-movement
- https://jewishcurrents.org/who-has-the-right-to-disrupt-the-university
- https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1784760265071849815.html
- https://twitter.com/BirzeitU/status/1785653272507818081
-
https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/can-you-tell-us-why-this-is-happening/#fn1-48677
-
https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/theres-a-sniper-on-the-roof-of-the
-
https://theintercept.com/2024/05/01/nyc-gaza-college-protests-police-outside-agitators/
- https://jewishcurrents.org/the-work-of-the-witness
---
Digest of the JMC twitter
* https://twitter.com/jm_collective/status/1784983587072381294
* https://twitter.com/jm_collective/status/1781379407623729661
* https://twitter.com/jm_collective/status/1787171605090574666
---
---
Ongoing JMC campaigns/how you can help:
---
1. Cut ties between mathematicians and the NSA:
https://www.justmathematicscollective.net/nsa_statement.html. Please
sign the statement and take the pledges if you haven't already, and
share with your colleagues.
2. Support the USACBI academic boycott of Israeli institutions:
https://www.justmathematicscollective.net/USACBI_statement.html. Please
register your pledge.
---
As always, please feel free to contact us at
justmathematicscollective at inventati.org with any questions, comments, or
suggestions, including materials and campaigns for us to consider
including in next month's newsletter.
- JMC newsletter team
--
Just Mathematics Collective
https://www.justmathematicscollective.net/
https://twitter.com/jm_collective?lang=en
Full Text of Pamphlet
Mathematics and Science Beyond Apartheid and Genocide
Campaign for Scientific Boycott of Israeli Institutions Complicit in
Genocide [1]
We write as representatives of the Just Mathematics Collective [2] to
express our unequivocal and enthusiastic support for the grassroots
student movement in solidarity with Palestine that is sweeping across
the United States. We're inspired by the tremendous organizing [3]
students are doing all over the country and the world: understanding the
networks surrounding them, how they contribute to the ongoing genocide
of Palestinians, and how students can leverage their positions within
those networks to achieve some semblance of justice.
Medical doctors are organizing [4] because they understand the red line
that Israel crosses when it intentionally targets medical personnel.
Lawyers are organizing [5] because they understand how dramatically
Israel's actions are eroding the foundations of international
humanitarian law. Auto workers are organizing [6] because they
understand the interconnectedness of the global economy and how their
labor and the value it produces ultimately fuels genocide halfway across
the world. Dock workers are organizing [7] because they understand that
if the weapons are to get to Israel, the workers will be needed to load
the ships. Journalists are organizing [8] because they understand that
their own safety is jeopardized when a militarized state kills more
journalists in 6 months than the number of journalists killed in the
entirety of the Vietnam War.
Some of our colleagues in mathematics and science departments might be
wondering: why would we, _as scientists, _choose to register a public
opinion about what's happening in Palestine? Putting aside the reality
that there are many scientists who are deeply personally impacted by
this violence, and many more whose students are putting their bodies and
their academic futures on the line to stand up for what is right, this
question misses the point that the previous paragraph demonstrates: the
genocide is all-encompassing. It impacts every dimension of Palestinian
life, and that means that all of us can play a role in ending these
atrocities. Indeed, given our inextricable entanglement with the ongoing
genocide, a more appropriate question we would ask in response is: why
_wouldn't _we?
The first step towards fulfilling this responsibility as scientists is
to understand the nature of our community and institutional complicity.
The Israeli state -- the self-proclaimed "start-up nation" -- bills
itself as a global hub for science and technology [9]. Some of the most
prestigious science meetings in the world happen at institutions -- for
example the Technion [10] and the Weizmann Institute of Science [11] --
at which the weapons [12], the surveillance technology, and the AI
algorithms the Israeli state uses to target and kill [13] are designed
and built. These institutions host scientific meetings and conferences,
employ researchers, and disseminate technical expertise to students.
Their faculty help to publish highly ranked journals. The prestige
generated by research activities in all areas solidifies into donations,
grants, and other resources for those institutions; some of those
institutions' resources are then devoted to developing the technology
used in the slaughter of Palestinians and the maintenance of the
apartheid regime. The translation of academic prestige into material
resources means that we as scientists are _all _implicated, even if we
work in fields with no obvious military/"security" application.
And now, over the last 7 months, every university in Gaza has been
destroyed [14]. Academics -- including many scientists -- have been
targeted for assassination and murdered alongside their entire families
[15]. Thousands of young scientists and students now have no means of
pursuing their research and studies. This scholasticide [16] -- this
total silencing of institutionally organised research and education in
Gaza -- is the terrible culmination of a long [17] history [18] of
attempts by the occupation to disrupt the academic and scientific
culture in Palestine more broadly.
The students organising on campuses around the world are exhibiting a
commitment to what should be the animating ideals of their institutions.
The increasingly violent and fascistic police repression, egged on by
elected officials and, even more disturbingly, by many university
administrators, falls on the same spectrum as the IDF's scholasticide in
Gaza. Those scientists and engineers who work at universities should be
absolutely clear on this point when deciding whether they are aligned
with the students currently upholding academic values by insisting on
calling genocide what it is, or whether they are aligned with officials
willing to countenance authoritarianism in order to ensure that
institutional, financial, or careerist aims are given primacy over
actually educational ones.
As scientists of conscience who understand the importance of centering
those most impacted in our struggles against imperialism and militarism
and who are inspired by the courage of our students, we say: enough! Our
Palestinian colleagues have been asking us to engage in academic boycott
for over 20 years now. It is long past time that we heed this call, and
also that we do the minimum to follow the example being set for us by
students. The Just Mathematics Collective has designed a campaign for
this very purpose [1]: it is open to all scientists and engineers at all
levels of academia (undergraduate students, graduate workers, postdocs,
adjuncts, research scientists, technicians, as well as full-time
faculty). Please join us!
Power to the students! Power to the people! Free Palestine!
Links:
------
[1] https://www.justmathematicscollective.net/USACBI_statement.html
[2] https://www.justmathematicscollective.net/
[3] https://nationalsjp.org/
[4] https://doctorsagainstgenocide.org/
[5] https://www.workers.org/2023/11/75249/
[6] https://uaw.org/uaw-statement-israel-palestine/
[7]
https://imemc.org/article/union-workers-refuse-to-load-weapons-to-israel/
[8]
https://prismreports.org/2024/03/04/media-against-apartheid-and-displacement-free-palestine/
[9] https://twitter.com/naftalibennett/status/1777500022457745696
[10] https://adri.technion.ac.il/
[11]
https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/en/online/sciencepanorama/science-behind-israels-fight-independence
[12]
https://medium.com/@phds4palestine/technion-exposed-israel-technology-institutes-links-with-the-idf-caffae135923#:~:text=Technion%20is%20where%20one%20finds,to%20global%20audiences%20(6).
[13] https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
[14]
https://theintercept.com/2024/02/09/deconstructed-gaza-university-education/
[15]
https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-strike-gaza-kills-scientist-sufyan-tayeh-family#:~:text=Israeli%20airstrike%20on%20Gaza%20kills%20renowned%20Palestinian%20scientist%20Sufyan%20Tayeh%20and%20family&text=Physicist%20Sufyan%20Tayeh%20and%20his,in%20Gaza%2C%20Palestinian%20authorities%20said.
[16]
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/04/un-experts-deeply-concerned-over-scholasticide-gaza
[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imad_Barghouthi#History_of_arrests
[18]
https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/report/2023-09-24-birzeit-university/
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