The outpouring of grief accompanying the death of Professor Jason Arday testifies to the magnitude of his contribution both as a scholar and as a human being. Yet it is also grief propelled by a profound collective guilt of inaction.
Why did so many of us fail to intervene? Why didn’t we co-ordinate a counterattack, attempt to derail or at least to arrest the torrent of abuse that rained unrelentingly on him? Were we caught off-guard or found napping in the summer exeunt? Were we naïve to or wilfully disbelieving of the sophistication of the attacks and the precision of their sponsors? Were we unnerved by the supposed severity of the claims or the unbridled ferocity and velocity of those prosecuting them? Were we dumbstruck by disgraced scholars, crackpots and right-wing hate pedlars and their monopoly of airtime and claims to credibility? Were we likewise confounded by the insertion of marathons and charity work into the discourse of his demonisation? Did we think it was a storm in a teacup and that it would blow over; an aberration of August news; and that institutional process would see things right? Or did we shy away because we saw the attacks on Jason as symbolic of our own acute vulnerability and grasped silence as shelter from the baying mob?
Whatever the reasons for our collective inaction, its consequence is vast. A colleague and friend to many of us has fallen defenceless to a relentless assault by a bloodthirsty media, ‘academic’ malcontents and conspiracists, who sought not justice in the public interest but the expunging of an individual who embodied all they dread and revile. Such an event cannot pass without redress.
For the very many of us working in and outside of UK academia and around the world who knew Jason, our experience was uniformly and unambiguously that of an infinitely warm, gentle, generous, humble, trusting, courageous and of course entirely flawed human being – who of us is not that? – who lived and breathed the pursuit of social justice. Jason’s gift was not just in the articles and books he authored, the research he led or the students he inspired but the deeds which these inspired. He gave us not only a necessary intellectual programme but collegiality and kinship. He was carved from stardust yet radiated deep humanity.
And though the present hurt is great, an open wound of collective grief will heal and its pain subside. But the scars of meekness in the face of the crushing hostility Jason encountered alone over previous weeks should never fade and remain instead an ever- present reminder of our responsibility towards each other. We must commit to the example Jason professed. We must relearn compassion and tolerance. We must relearn kindness. We must relearn decency and humility. We must relearn how to care for each other and find strength from each other through better understanding rather than idle judgement. We must be better accountable to each other. We must accommodate our differences and resist the temptation to let these divide us. We must find and practice togetherness. Then we will keep alight the flame Jason lit and dispel the darkness that threatens to envelop us and repel those that seek to break us.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to all of Jason’s family, his friends, his colleagues, his students, and all those who feel the pain of his departure.
We promise in future to do better with and for each other.
Provided on behalf of the Council for the Defence of British Universities by Professor Richard Watermeyer.