Dear colleagues,
I share a statement by Bulgarian scholars on censorship in academia in Bulgaria. The colleagues in Bulgaria need all the support they can get. Also below a draft letter that institutions can send on behalf of the Bulgarian colleagues.
Sebastian
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Dear colleagues,
We would like to inform you that our project "Forum for gender balanced model at school: the Bulgarian case", nominated in the first phase of UNESCO's Participation Programme 2018-2019 was blocked by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), after political pressure from government officials (Ministry of Education and Sciences) and the media. ๔he project imposes "gender ideology" and will never run through BAS, the vice deputy of BAS, Vasil Nikolov, said. Since the project promotes "gender ideology" it is incompatible with the Bulgarian Constitution, the allegations continued. Indeed, a few weeks ago the Bulgarian Constitutional Court declared the Istanbul Convention "unconstitutional" as it "imposes a view that there is sex different than the biological sex". We are sending you our official Statement in response to these violent attacks. This Statement is published in Bulgarian and English.
Inspired by the so called "anti-gender campaigns", precisely investigated in the book "Anti-gender campaigns in Europe" (2017), the anti-gender campaigners are targeting social activists and scholars who deal with gender and LGBTQI issues, labelling them as "foreign agents", " servants of evil", "liberal paid traitors" to name a few. This context puts the value of social sciences and, particularly, gender disciplines in serious danger. The work of the German writer Gabriele Kuby, "The global sexual revolution" is now cited as the only credible scientific source of information. Replacing credible sources of scientific literature with clearly ideological and religiously driven books seriously undermines the efforts of many scholars and the scientific tradition across the globe. In this situation we are calling now for solidarity and cooperation in order to overcome these challenges.
Right now, we really need you support. Please, inform the relevant sections in your institutions and share with your networks. Furthermore, we would highly appreciate if you can support us with an official statement addressed to the Bulgarian Ministry of Education, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (addresses below) and media outlets, confirming that gender studies are a legitimate field of science and indeed a very important one nowadays. We really hope the situation in Bulgaria in both fields - gender equality and academic freedom - will be discussed and made public in order to prevent further dangerous actions as those in Hungary, where the current government proposed to ban gender studies programs at the universities. Lastly, please do not refer to our names regarding the sources of this information as we have been under a very harsh pressure coming from conservative media and colleagues who share the views of the "anti-gender campaigners".
I remain at your disposal for any further information concerning this issue.
Sincerely yours, Dr Shaban Darakchi
**
Addresses for letters:
Prof. Julian Revalski
President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Mr. Krasimir Valchev
Minister of Education and Science
Republic of Bulgaria
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
STATEMENT
We, the authors of the project "Forum for gender balanced model at school: the Bulgarian case", which was nominated in the first phase of UNESCO's Participation Programme 2018-2019, hereby declare:
Over the last few days our project proposal and we personally as its authors became target of media campaign following the unlawful leakage of the project concept note. The goals of the project were misrepresented, the project accused of peddling "gender ideology", of attempting to propagate a "third sex", to "brainwash children" etc.
As social scientists and outstanding researchers in their field, we are compelled to reply to these accusations in good faith. The goal of our project is to research teacher competence and motivation to uphold and instil in their students the principle of gender equality. We were led by the conviction that knowledge of the everyday problems faced by educators is necessary when implementing working strategies in the spirit of UNESCO's Gender Equality Action Plan 2014-2021 and its Major Programme 2 "Education". These goals are in sync with Bulgaria's National Strategy for Encouraging Equality between Men and Women 2016-2020 and the Law on Equality between Women and Men as published in the State Gazette, issue 33, 26.04.2016. It follows that they should also be in sync with the policies of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Sciences.
The slanderous media campaign has terminated our participation in the programme competition and the fact was declared a "success" by the authors of this shameful action.
Obviously, as on previous occasions, the term "gender" is the scarecrow meant to mobilize popular support. It is a globally accepted scientific term for everyone studying the relations between men and women. In the course of the past few months, the term was presented to Bulgarian society in a manipulative way. Does this all mean that from now on everyone who dares to research gender themes such as equality, discrimination, violence, unequal pay, etc., will be ostracized?
In our view this is a very serious case of censorship, where academic freedom is brutally suppressed. At a time when we speak of "Science and education for smart growth", we were presented as a mortal threat to Bulgaria's schools, as "gender agents" endangering Bulgarian children.
As members of the academic community we believe that we must defend our freedom to select research fields in compliance with academic standards, ethical norms and current legislation. We must resist being victimized and subjected to witch hunts.
The attack on our project has provided a new opportunity to proclaim the scientists at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences as redundant and expendable. We wonder who it is that stands to benefit from all this.
Sofia, 3 August 2018
Miladina Monova, Ana Luleva, Albena Nakova, Shaban Darakchi
DRAFt LETTER
September,
Prof. Julian Revalski
President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Mr. Krasimir Valchev
Minister of Education and Science
Republic of Bulgaria
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Dear Prof. Revalski, Dear Mr Valchev,
It has come to or attention that a project prepared by Bulgarian colleagues entitled "Forum for gender balanced model at school: the Bulgarian case", which was nominated in the first phase of UNESCO's Participation Programme 2018-2019, was banned by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Education and Science in early August 2018 without consultations with the project team. As a result of this our colleagues were publically humiliated by certain media.
As we understand that there might be some misunderstanding regarding the project we would like to express our support for the research team, guaranteeing that gender research explore the social aspects of masculinity and femininity in society paying attention to different social, cultural, political and economic forces which influence the social attitudes and notions towards men and women. Gender studies is a credible scientific field in the world and it has produced valuable research results tackling different forms of oppression, discrimination and violence in the societies.
Having in mind the ongoing attacks against academic research and scholars dealing with gender studies in Europe and beyond we are concern about the academic freedom and the right of our colleagues to investigate significant topics related to gender. Hereby, based on the research done we declare that the term "gender ideology" is a made-up concept without any scientific value aiming to sabotage women and LGBT rights and it is used manipulatively in many campaigns.
(The name of the platform you would like to use) is.......(consist of...members) and we are devoted to investigate and analyze the ..... and we encourage you to initiate a dialogue with the project team about their activities which hopefully will produce further initiatives and produce knowledge needed for the Bulgarian public policies and contribute to the social sciences on a global level.
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Sebastian Mohr
Senior Lecturer
Centre for Gender Studies
Karlstad University
65188 Karlstad
Sweden
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
While most people address me with the pronouns he/him/his, I am thankful for communication that goes beyond a gender binary.
I will do my best to meet accomodation needs in communication and personal meetings, so please approach me directly in regard to accessibility.
Being a Sperm Donor: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Biosociality in Denmark
https://berghahnbooks.com/title/MohrBeing
[cid:image001.png@01D454FB.D0B786C0]
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