The university in Geneva falls victim to the woken spirit of the age – although the universities have long promoted identity ideologies themselves.
Students traverse the numerous corridors and halls of the University of Geneva.
Direct democracy can be stupid. A voter in Switzerland risks being in the minority a dozen times a year. It’s really annoying when the CO2law is rejected by a majority and one is firmly convinced that something must now be done to combat global warming. Direct democracy is an impertinence. And yet it remains the best form of organizing social life for a multitude of individuals.
But there are also citizens who do not even want to recognize this form. People who stick themselves to highways and thus endanger the safety of others because they disagree with climate policy. There are black blocks that want to change the whole system, so they hit everything that stands for it. And there are more and more people who define themselves primarily on the basis of their sexuality, gender, origin, skin color, religion, diet – and in return feel constantly discriminated against by everyone else. One then speaks of identity politics or culture wars. But the forms of this struggle have little to do with politics, let alone culture.
Recently, the University of Geneva has become the scene of this militant vigilance to spot injustice everywhere. Within a month, two events were so disrupted by rabid activists that those responsible had to cancel the events without further ado. It was about gender issues, i.e. gender identities, about the effects of their propagation on minors. And yes, controversial scientists were invited to publish controversial works. But isn’t a university the place where you want to get ahead through the scientific dispute, in search of the provisional truth, which then applies until the next time there is a dispute?
Disillusionment is spreading at the University of Geneva after the incidents. Rector Yves Flückiger, who also presides over the umbrella organization Swissuniversities, sees academic freedom in danger. In the “Tribune de Genève” he said about the gender activists: “People who are afraid of books have never been on the right side of history.” The University of Geneva now wants to take legal action against the narrow-minded diversity extremists and file a criminal complaint. A clear sign not to be intimidated.
At the same time, as an exception, it is worth doing a perpetrator-victim reversal. The events in Geneva should be reason enough for the universities to question their own role in this overly sensitive zeitgeist. Universities have long since become one of the main platforms for identity ideologies, especially in the humanities and social sciences. First the words were deconstructed, then the supposed myths, finally the biochemical processes in a human body.
The Federal Council has also jumped on the Woke wagon. Since January 1, you can have your registered gender changed “unbureaucratically”. The declaration can be made by any person who is older than 16 years and “who is firmly convinced that they do not belong to the gender entered in the civil status register”. The state has thus revealed a largely objective criterion such as biological sex – for CHF 75 per person. There was no vote on this. The debate would have been a beneficial impertinence.