Teachers Against Occupation

Feature

Teachers Against Occupation joins a long list of signatories expressing disappointment in Amitav Ghosh’s decision to accept the Dan David Prize. –Read the full letter here–

Dear Amitav Ghosh,

We wish to express our deep disappointment in your decision to accept the Dan David prize, administered by Tel Aviv University and to be awarded by the President of Israel. As a writer whose work has dwelled consistently on histories of colonialism and displacement, your refusal to take stance on the colonial question in the case of Israel and the occupation of Palestine has provoked deep dismay, frustration, and puzzlement among readers and fans of your work around the world. Many admired your principled stand, and respected your decision not to accept the Commonwealth Writers Prize in rejection of the colonialist framework it represented.

As scholars, writers, and activists of South Asian origin and those working on South Asia and on anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-imperial politics at large, based largely in the United States like you, but also in South Asia, we think this is an important moment to consider the reasons why South Asians should take a principled stand, along with others, in refusing to legitimize a state guilty of war crimes and illegal occupation and instead joining the growing movement for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. Supporters of Israel have used a number of arguments to oppose the boycott, which unfortunately seem to be part of your rationale for accepting the prize as well. It is also time to consider why those who have taken a principled stand in other cases, as in the boycott and divestment movement for South Africa, find it difficult to take the same stand in the case of Israel…read the full letter