Communicative inversions and disinformation as the communicative infrastructure of the Free Speech Union

Image from AAUP

I have written elsewhere about the communicative infrastructure of the Free Speech Union and the investment of this infrastructure in a particular form of free speech that reproduces the hegemony of the powerful while continuing to perpetuate the silencing of marginalized voices.

In my analysis, I noted that the survey designed by the Union to assess academic freedom in Aotearoa New Zealand seemed to have a preconfigured ideological agenda.

The items guiding the report put out by the Free Speech Union seem to have been designed to reach the preconfigured conclusion that there is a "woke culture" threat to academic freedom in Aotearoa New Zealand, some kind of conspiracy of social justice warriors to shut down academic freedom. Salient here is the framing of the issues tied to freedom of speech, “gender and sex issues” and “treaty issues.”

I had written about how these two issues are the sites of targeted attacks by the far-right at the margins of society in Aotearoa New Zealand, and part of a global attack by the far-right on academic work. This fixation on the issues as the rallying points for academic freedom give away the underlying ideological agenda driving the Union.

In the same opinion piece I had written how the Union had platformed the Hindutva supporting Counterspin media collaborator and disinformation spreader Roy Kaunds on an interview on the Islamophobic Hindutva propaganda film "The Kashmir Files." The Union had invited me to an interview on the freedom of speech issue surrounding the film "The Kashmir Files," that was turned into a political issue by right-wing politicians in Aotearoa New Zealand while the Chief Censor was following the due process of reviewing the rating of the film after complaints about Islamophobia and violence were raised by the Indian Muslim community in the diaspora and allied community groups concerned about the vilification of Muslims in the film. I had declined the invitation.

I had also noted in the opinion piece that the Union had no word of support to express when my academic freedom was being threatened by Kaunds and Hindutva supporters running a targeted campaign attacking me, the researchers at the Center I direct, and Massey University.

Since publishing this piece, I haven't seen a response to it from the Union.

However, yesterday on 17/02/2023, I came across a retweet of one of my Twitter threads by Dane Giraud, who is on the board of the Free Speech Union. The initial tweet labeled me an anti-semite (for my decolonizing work on the communicative rights of Palestinian people and a liar) (see below). 

Earlier in 2019, David Cumin of the Union had launched a similar campaign labeling me and other academics writing about Palestinian rights as extremists, tagging the Vice Chancellor of the University, writing to the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Massey Business School, and then creating a defamatory web page calling us extremists when he didn't get his way with the University. 

I took a screenshot of Giraud's tweet and re-posted it. 

Note here the systemic strategy deployed by Zionists to attack academic freedom across University campuses globally to silence the academic critique of the settler colonial state of Israel and its apartheid policies. 

After a Palestinian activist asked me to take a screenshot of the tweet to archive for a potential defamation lawsuit, the tweet was deleted. Giraud then re-posted a thread this morning, changing the language, and claiming that the Union had offered me assistance and I had declined it (see below).

 

The claim here that the Union offered me assistance that I then declined is a category example of disinformation (misinformation that is strategically planted). 

As I noted in my opinion piece, I hadn't heard a word from the Free Speech Union in the months that my academic freedom was being attacked by the far-right Hindutva ideologues, from Hindutva organizations here in Aotearoa running letter writing campaigns to the University to censor my writing to armies on online trolls. 

There were no emails, telephone calls offering support, or public shows of support from the Union.

I searched digital platforms of the Union thoroughly and didn't register a word of support.

If the Union was so keen to support my academic freedom, why hadn't it issued a public statement or created a freedom fund like it did for the Royal Society academics being investigated? Did the Union need to wait for my acceptance of its supposed offer of assistance before speaking up publicly?

Moreover, when it was platforming Roy Kaunds after Kaunds had been exposed by diaspora Indian activists (especially minority Muslim and Sikh activists) for his role in targeting my academic freedom (these activists had documented the pattern of Islamophobic posts made by Kaunds, thus challenging his suggestion that there was no Islamophobia in the Hindu community in Aotearoa), the Union didn't ask him any questions about his role in the attack on academic freedom. 

Note here that my employer Massey University and the University leadership remained steadfast in their support for my academic freedom in the face of this campaign.

If Giraud's tweet as a board member is reflective of the communicative infrastructure of the Free Speech Union, it relies on disinformation to sustain itself. 

One has to scratch the surface of the Union's communicative infrastructure to see that the deployment of communicative inversions, rhetorical tropes that turn materiality on its head, hold up and reproduce the organizing role of the Union in reproducing hegemonic narratives of the powerful to attack the claims to justice from the margins.