Out from under the cover of COVID

Jeannie Rea, Immediate Past President

Since March, my colleagues and students in international community development have been discussing the impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic upon communities’ capacity to organise to mitigate the pandemic health risks whilst also trying to hold onto achievements in making sustainable, equitable and healthy communities.

Many international stories are of governments and their agents using the cover of COVID-19 to introduce or implement harsh and repressive regulations and laws, as well as acting illegally.

Not surprisingly for people in these situations, the cooperation of the people of Victoria in adhering to ‘lockdown’ restrictions, is seen as quite strange. In general Victorians were scared enough of the virus and trustful enough of government to go along, albeit with much complaining.

The State Premier controlled the mediation of the Government’s position by fronting a televised media conference every day. In arguing about when and what restrictions should be relieved, the underlying understanding was/is that they will end.

Then we deal with the aftermath from increased poverty and the many still reliant on food handouts, the reduced household incomes, decimated businesses, the exacerbation of domestic violence, deterioration in physical and mental health, and starting to restore the improvements now eroded in gender and other areas of equity.

However, confidence in the Andrews Government was severely betrayed with the felling of the Djab Wurrung sacred Directions Tree under a State of Disaster when protests were banned, as well as travel further than 25km. Through this act, the Government’s commitment to making treaties with First Nations’ communities, which had been tentatively welcomed, was thrown asunder. Reported around the world, this fitted with the more general perception that governments are not to be trusted even in their public health responses to the pandemic. At a time when people are simultaneously calling upon governments for leadership and action.

‘Under the cover of COVID’ has become an almost standard clause when reporting

upon government actions in curtailing freedoms of speech and movement beyond what seems necessary and temporary, and which impact more harshly upon the very communities that bear the brunt of the virus and mitigation measures.

Australia’s isolation and relative prosperity and confidence in government has made these minor issues for most, but they are catastrophic in many parts of the world, noisily evident in the deeply politically, economically and racially divided United States. But stories in our region also talk of fear of ongoing consequences of government actions even where there is relief that the virus has been contained.

The critics, including the intellectual critics come from the right and left, taking up usual positions on rights and freedoms and coalescing around individual or collective philosophical manoeuvres.

What then should universities be doing in this time? Fearlessly and courageously speak truth to power. I suggest that they/ we come up wanting – and I am not referring to Australia alone. The university sector has much to say about the financial impact of the closed borders on the international student ‘market’ and the difficulties in shifting to digitally remote learning delivery.

There is much discourse about the stresses and strains of working from home amongst people still in secure jobs. There is rightly anger at jobs and courses being cut and very reasonable presumption that ‘under the cover of COVID’ university managements are continuing to pursue the neoliberal restructuring and job smashing agendas. But there is limited support for acting in resistance. Governments have used the opportunity to again cut funding and increase students fees and, in Australia, undermine the Humanities, while also putting the onus on universities to deliver ‘job ready’ graduates.

In Australia, universities are also adopting what most see to be the unnecessary recommendations of the French Inquiry into freedom of speech, prompted by some right-wing commentators claiming their voices are not being heard on campuses. The irony is that implementing these requirements has made academic freedom and freedom of speech in the workplace and amongst students live issues again which I doubt was the intent.

I would suggest we ramp up exercising the space and duty we have in universities, where we have intellectual freedom to speak out and with and even for those denied access and opportunity in Australia and internationally. There is opportunity in this disruptive time of crisis to demand more intellectual and critical space.

Self-censoring by academics in the hope that this may keep us out of the next firing line has not worked, nor has being acquiescent and rolling with the constant change and erosion of staff working conditions and students learning conditions.

There have been far more opportunities than usual for university people to be heard and be listened to, in the public domain from the epidemiologists and immunologists; to the feminist researchers analysing the weight of the burden upon women of managing COVID while government recovery programs purposefully favour men; to the health specialists, psychologists and sociologists monitoring and at the same time helping people cope; to the planners and engineers and economists developing models of how we can do things differently; and the environmental experts warning climate change is still the bigger problem.

Students are both disengaged because they have so much to cope with – and more engaged as they want their university education to equip them for global citizenship in a changing world. Over 1200 academics signed an open letter calling upon the Victorian Government to stop the roadwork and protect the remaining Djab Wurrung trees and land (see link at end of this article).

Universities should be acting in the public interest for the public good. We need to be intervening in public life, and encouraging raging debate inside universities. It is our responsibility to get past the bizarre notion that facts and science and evidence are merely a different opinion. And those opinions become truth if you shout louder.

How about a shout-out instead for education and learning and research and listening and asking questions? Let’s remind ourselves and others why universities do matter. And why we in Australia have to speak out and stand up for our colleagues in other countries who are facing more and more repression – and Coronavirus. ◆