In my paper, I try to identify what can be ethical and social considerations for those working or studying in universities, regarding the current rapid militarization of European societies and, importantly, the sciences. I’m making three interconnected points: The first point concerns the need for broad knowledge acquisition about the political-economic ecosystem in which higher education is embedded, and the role of military and security concerns in this ecosystem. The second point concerns the ethical and political roles concerning human rights of our scientific institutions. I argue that reflecting on these roles and acting accordingly should become an intrinsic part of the work of scholars and students. The third point concerns the democratic and solidarity dimensions of the universities and particularly of the ‘hard’ sciences, in relation to their extensive cooperation with increasinly militarizing industries and technologies. I argue that these solidarity and democratic dimension currently are lacking, and that there is an urgent need to change this. An argument I am working on and would like to discuss, is how the increased overlap between war, genocide (including ecocide) and privatised ‘civil’ but highly militarized violence in various contexts, as well as the risk of ‘omnicide’, form specific extra reasons for resisting militarization. I would like to discuss with everyone present what they think about these questions, not just about the paper itself, which should be taken more as a starting point for a conversation.

4^th March from 3.30 to 5pm in Faculteitskamer II, OTM, as well as on Zoom.

Please email j.d.cattien@uva.nl if you'd like to participate and receive a copy of the paper and/or Zoom link.