As first reported in the Telegraph, FSU member and University College London (UCL) academic Michelle Shipworth has been banned from teaching her own course, after a Chinese student complained that discussing modern slavery in China was too “provocative”. Incredibly, UCL sided with students who said they were “distressed” by her handling of the topic, and imposed a raft of restrictions on Michelle in order to ensure their courses remained “commercially viable” to Chinese students.
Michelle Shipworth is an Associate Professor at UCL’s Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources, and has taught at the institution since 2009.
Michelle found herself under investigation after a seminar last October examining data from the Global Slavery Index 2014. The seminar forms part of her ‘Data Detectives’ training module, and is designed to prepare students for an assignment which external examiners have described as “particularly innovative” and “excellent”, and her Faculty’s teaching lead has previously stated is worthy of a teaching award.
This line of “argumentation” reminds strongly of reactionary US states and their recent bans on discussing slavery, racism and gender issues at schools.
If you think the conservative and reactionary politicians would stand against Chinas economic power, let this be a wakeup call. If there is money to be made with subjecting people to forced labor, political opression and inhumane living conditions, they will work together with governments like in China. If you think the step further, you will see this in a time, where the UK is shunend for enabling forced labor through denying victims of forced labor access to courts and protection and where “conservatives” in Germany suggest forced labor for asylum seekers at less than 7% of the minimum wage.
There is movements in the European “conservative” politics to enable and further exploitation and forced labor of immigrants and refugees. Talking about how the situation in China is specifically, how European companies are making nice profits with forced labor there, and how the proposed structures in Europe could bear many similiarities to China, is a danger to this “conservative” movement.
The current EU proposal for more strict regulation of imports from forced labour are mainly furthered by the parliament and the EPP group (conservatives) has voiced many criticisms, trying to water the regulation down.
I think we need a different word for ‘conservative’. Because you get liberal-ish, constitution-respecting conservatives, and then you get authoritarian, corrupt ‘conservatives’ – and those are two completely different things. I can give an example.
Conservative is used to imply right wing. Much of their rhetorical techniques use conservative mindsets (things were better in the past, change won’t improve things, ‘great’ again etc).
Conservatives have been sidelined since Ragan and Thatcher. Neoliberalism displaced conservatives. With the left taking up liberalism as well the right hand to shift to distinguish itself. Now they are fiscal libertarians and right wing populists. These terms are not liked because they are deluded or extreme. So they still call themselves conservatives, because when you say right wing populist we think of fascists or Roman emperors that inspired fascists.
Authoritarian is my go-to because it encompasses all of their common politics: forcing unpopular laws and initiatives, establishing and abusive a subset of the minority population, silencing dissent, and a constant push against broad social safety nets because they would interfere with the ruling class self interests.
