Prevent critics slam Reading for labelling ‘mainstream’ academic text as extremist
If the government are seeking to scare academics and the media…, especially independent/contrary voices, in to being silenced or watching their language they have another thought coming. This is not Fahrenheit 451. They will perish long before we do. 1945 and all that.
The Prevent programme, set up as an anti terrorism strategy, is harming the innocent, dividing society and creating more conflict than had originally existed. This is especially the case in those places where freedom of thought and analysis is a pre requisite essential.
Prevent scheme ‘fosters fear and censorship at universities’
In this specific instance the late University of Manchester academic Norman Geras, who died in 2013, has had an essay he wrote, seeking to analyse the use of violence within society and whether it can be ever justified, highlighted as an example likely to fall foul of Prevent. Reading University have warned students against downloading and reading the article.
‘Third-year politics undergraduates have been warned not to access it on personal devices, to read it only in a secure setting, and not to leave it lying around where it might be spotted “inadvertently or otherwise, by those who are not prepared to view it”.’ (Guardian)
This is possibly the first step to mass societal censorship unless it is challenged from the bottom up. And with that in mind and in the ethos of freedom of thought we have tracked down the essay and bring it to you in in full. Make sure you share it and introduce as many to it as possible if only to provide a sign to the government of what we really think of them.
OUR MORALS THE ETHICS OF REVOLUTION
Douglas James
