The Good of Difficult Conversations

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a conversation with a community member whom I consider a friend to talk about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. A few other University employees were a part of this conversation on campus. She bought us tea and the Chaplain who sat across from me brought home-made gelato. We sat on couches with our refreshments as the stark winter sun beamed down on our faces. The mise en scène made it look like a cozy afternoon yet there was a palpable discomfort.

The impetus for this particular chat was University of Alberta professor Laurie Adkin’s article from a few months ago, which had to do not only with the shelling in Gaza but also with silencing critics. But the reason this diminutive community member came to campus at all was because she was wondering, in light of Adkin’s piece, whether anybody was saying anything. Was a conversation possible?

Like many, I’ve been thinking a lot about Gaza over the past several months. I received an email a few days ago from a concerned reader of the Centre’s Newsletter asking whether we would voice our objection to Western governments’ support of Israeli occupation. So I’ve felt called to state publicly that what’s happening to Palestinians right now is more than a humanitarian crisis: The International Court of Justice has stated Israel’s actions are plausible genocide, and governments worldwide should be more forcefully demanding a ceasefire. 

But let me add something more about conversations on this topic in universities and the context of religion and public life.

The University of Toronto appointed novelist and English Professor Randy Boyagoda to be the provostial adviser on civil discourse. The goal is to create a campus culture and personal sensibilities that allow for difficult conversations in public between people holding contrary commitments. These exchanges are how a public institution like a university can move collectively toward “the greater good.” 

But what is the greater good? In a CBC interview, Boyagoda gives an example of obstructed discourse. He was having a public argument with a student over cultural appropriation; as a novelist, he’s all for it but the student disagreed. Boyagoda describes his excitement having the conversation until he noticed another student recording it. Only then he reflected on the power optics: a male University administrator having a heated exchange with a female student. His conclusion: “technology erodes our disposition for civil discourse.” Boyagoda shifted the topic to food out of fear of being canceled. 

Both Boyagoda and Adkin give reasons why people are afraid of public discourse and speaking out. Yet it is a false equivalence to suggest the actions of a Premier-supported University President to fire a precariously employed woman is the same as a male Vice-Dean, Professor, and provost advisor’s worries about where a student might post a video of him. Boyagoda admits there’s power dynamics involved but refuses to integrate that into the purpose of civil discourse. 

As a friend of mine observed, it’s not that we don’t know how to have difficult conversations, it’s that we don’t know how to have those conversations under threat. Both Adkin and Boyagoda illustrate how expressions at Canadian Universities are inhibited by fear of reprisal. Universities do need to be spaces where different experiences and opposing thoughts can co-exist, but if the conditions of possibility for that space include eroding resistance strategies masquerading as neutrality, the status quo will remain in place. In other words, if we think civil discourse depends on neutral space, the conversation that takes place there can never lead to structural change. Boyagoda thinks taking students’ phones away would promote civil discourse, but I hardly think he'd say the same about his own tenure.  

I see the CRC’s mission to not only provide space for difficult conversations but also to help direct them to a greater good—an equitable, diverse, inclusive, decolonial community and campus. Empathy, critical listening, and uncertainty are important qualities and habits for interlocutors. Conversations aimed at the greater good don’t require giving up deeply held commitments, but they do need to include power analysis and centering oppressed voices.

A conversation about Israel’s attack on Gaza, for example, begins by recognizing the violence not as primarily religious but colonial. Palestinian-American historian, Rashid Khalidi, argues Israeli occupation is modeled on British colonial strategies in Ireland. Killing isn’t a religious issue just because the targets are religious. Neither is aid policy humanitarian when it serves colonial powers. Maps of American military plans to build a port on Gaza’s shores eerily coincide with Israel’s plan for extracting gas reserves. Narratives about the “Israel-Hamas conflict,” as it’s described in mainstream media, mask settler-colonial realities for Palestinians. Neither the atrocities of Hamas’ violence on October 7 nor Israel’s disproportionate retaliation are recent eruptions of so-called “wars of religion” rooted in ancient grudges. 

Listening to Jewish voices is important and also serves as a reminder that settler-colonial critique of Israel isn’t antisemitism. Gabriel Winant, a Jewish historian at University of Chicago, writes in Dissent: “One way of understanding Israel that I think should not be controversial is to say that it is a machine for the conversion of grief into power.” There are groups in Israel supporting Palestine: B’Tselem is an Israeli human rights organization; Breaking the Silence are Israeli veterans exposing the reality of occupied territories; and a joint Israeli-Palestinian group, Parents Circle-Families Forum, connects bereaving families in the work for reconciliation. American organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace call for ceasefire, as does Independent Jewish Voices Canada. The argument that anti-Zionist criticisms makes one anti-Jewish is a myth that ultimately supports occupation forces.

Israel’s violence is primarily colonial, which means its critics are anti-colonial, not antisemitic, which in turn draws our attention toward Palestinian-led solutions. Palestine needs to be liberated, self-determined, and the bombing must stop. Working towards these ends takes many forms. Groups like American Palestinian Women’s Association focus on helping Palestinian refugee camps as well as “publicizing the Palestinian historical narrative” and promoting cultural heritage reinforcing the importance of visibility and how stories are told. Palestinian journalists like Motaz Azaiza and Plestia Alaqad have used their photography and poetry skills respectively to tell stories of Gaza to western audiences, gaining huge followings on social media. Jonathan Kuttab, co-founder of the Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-violence and human rights attorney, argues for creative solutions in Beyond the Two State Solution, which can be downloaded for free.

These are a few examples of helpful directions for conversations about Gaza in the context of religion and public life. It involves understanding how power structures are at play, listening to marginalized voices, and then working with each other for peace and justice. Public discourse happens in and during that work. Admittedly, such a conversation might look more like speaking truth to power and protest than exchange, especially when the industry behind silencing is real. Writing this article has been the most demanding thing I’ve done in my academic career. Having a difficult conversation about religion and conflict is hard enough; framing it as anti-colonial critique poses actual risks.

At the conclusion of my conversation with the community member, I walked her out and we continued to chat for another half an hour. Not just about Gaza but about the community, the Centre, and friends we have in common. She later brought flowers just to say thank you for listening and told me after her visit that she had visited her local MP to speak with him directly. She had come to campus to speak up about the crisis in Gaza, challenging us simply by asking what professors are saying about it, and then had taken her question to her elected official. It was a moving gesture. The flowers currently sit on my windowsill now all but dead as a poignant reminder that difficult conversations come and go; merely having them isn’t enough. Their purpose is to work toward a greater good: an equitable social order not lived under threat.