There is a pervasive assumption that the Athenian Agora was the space of dialogue that encapsulated the Athenian democracy. Herodotus, the “father” of History as a knowledge discipline, was buried in the Athenian Agora and drew inspiration from it to write about how equal speech empowers people. The Athenian Agora, for him, was an exemplar of power-to-the-people as he wrote, ‘equal speech is clearly a good: take the case of Athens, which under the rule of tyrants proved no better in war than any of her neighbors, but, once rid of those tyrants, was far the first of all’.
The late Zygmunt Bauman, a renowned Polish sociologist, famously wrote: ‘Democracy is the form of life of the Agora‘ and he celebrated the Agora as dialogue in concert and contention. Although Herodotus and Bauman praised the Athenian Agora, critical historians warn us that Herodotus’ version of the Agora was about dialogue that steered people toward certain directions (i.e., propaganda) rather than equality, freedom, and democracy. In a way, the Athenian Agora, like social media nowadays, was a politically charged marketplace of freewheeling where one could speak truth or lies, be persuaded or tricked, benefited or harmed.
If you know, the symposium titled The Risks of Weaponizing International Law on 7th May in the Agora center at the VU, then you would not be surprised to learn that the Athenian Agora and VU Agora are deeply similar spaces. They are both marketplaces of ideas where freedom turns into a joke and the equal right to speech into a field of possibilities to recycle the dehumanization of Palestinians and suspension of law.
Collective punishment
The Athenian Agora and the VU Agora don’t differ. It seems history is mocking VU, naming its conference rooms after the Greek spaces of “dialogue”, where women and enslaved peoples were excluded. I, the foreigner and non-European barbarian—to borrow from Sinan Çankaya— remain amazed at how much working at VU teaches me about the hypocrisy of freedom in liberal democracies.
The spaces of dialogue shrink and freedom, academic and otherwise, turns to a joke when VU Agora will be under siege by VU security and the FCO on 7th May, as the symposium The Risks of Weaponizing International Law takes place. VU resources, from front desk employees to senior-level security staff, are mobilized to lock down VU Agora conference rooms. In total, VU Agora can host more than 150 people, but all rooms are under siege to protect the symposium that is hosted in one of them.
VU Agora is under siege to protect the symposium, which hosts illustrious historians such as Professor Danny Orbach, who suggested aid to Gazans must be controlled by Israel to bring Hamas down. He suggested, in the opinion piece, that an outright collective punishment of Gazans is justified for military purposes, and now VU welcomes him at the symposium.
Professor Danny Orbach, along with others who take part in the symposium, published an intriguing read titled, ‘Debunking the Genocide Allegations,’ that shows how some academics, like circus jugglers, can throw numbers in the air to dazzle the audience and whitewash atrocities. The report weaves together numbers, graphs, and rhetoric to relativize the death toll of Palestinians and debunk the genocide. It relativizes in the same manner as despicable Holocaust deniers who use documents from the Arolsen Archives to relativize the death toll of Jewish communities.
It seems that denying genocides is the game of playing with numbers by politically motivated historians, and no wonder VU Agora hosting such a game becomes a marketplace of ideas like the Athenian Agora. The joke of Agora, since the times of the ancient Greeks, has been turning freedom into a game and a form of trickery in which dialogue is intentionally misleading, and freedom has been applied to a select few.
Inclusive dialogue
My qualm is neither with the report, Professor Danny Orbach, nor the organizers of the symposium, since the poverty of their arguments speaks for itself. My qualm is with the VU management and its inability to develop a critical perspective on safeguarding inclusive dialogues and academic freedom in times of wars and genocides. The VU management seems unable to grasp the value of academic freedom, and dialogue does not rely on the diversity of speakers holding diverse views in their speeches, but primarily on the speech and its effects.
Academic freedom is more than who and how many speakers get platforms; it is mainly about what is said on those platforms. VU management has a history of ignoring what is said till shit hits the fan, and the Dutch media reveals their lack of foresight and inability to understand freedom, let alone academic freedom. It seems the memory of what Het Parool revealed about VU has faded amongst the VU management.
VU management is freewheeling academic freedom in its Agora. It seems academic freedom extends to academics playing fast and loose with numbers to oil the war machine, but it does not to those stating Israel is an apartheid state, or organizing a Teach-In ‘Gaza in Context’. The joke of Agora, as embodied in the 7th May symposium, is VU’s false pretense of academic freedom. VU management has the confidence that history will not judge them, and pretends it has no taskmaster from outside, since who really cares that VU historically found Apartheid states good bedfellows, be it South African or the Israeli one!
Diverse perspectives
The joke of Agora is that VU presents itself as a community of equals who are entitled to speak before an audience of equals, while we know that the entitlement is extended to a select few. The joke of Agora, especially under the auspices of the current rector, who proudly mentioned to me his understanding of intersectionality, is far beyond VU instrumentalizing of academic freedom to side with apartheid states. The joke of Agora was on full display in 2024 when more than 20 organizations asked VU to avoid uncritically providing a stage for speakers who propagate misinformation and transphobia. The joke of Agora is VU, including experts’ views that push dehumanizing and transphobic views in the name of bringing ‘diverse perspectives to engage in a broad, balanced, and scientific discussion’.
The joke of Agora is that VU management conveniently fails to understand that exclusion can also be used to dismantle dehumanization and those who would perpetuate domination. Why else, a noticeable number of VU students and staff call for cutting ties and boycotting Israeli universities? Exclusion—of those who dominate and dehumanize, such as those who harass women, sexual plus racialized minorities, misgender peoples, and oil the Zionist war machine—maintains an inclusive space.
VU management plays the joke of Agora, hosts the 7th May symposium to remind its staff and students that academic freedom at VU is the celebration of pernicious academics who serve wars, violence, and the taskmasters of inhumanity. After 7th May 2026, and following the siege of VU Agora, academic freedom at VU is the joke of Agora.