An open letter to the SJTG and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG): The War on Gaza, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), and a Palestinian literary event

Abstract

Mindful that the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (SJTG) has previously declared that ‘the SJTG hopes to publish more scholarship on the past, present and future geographies of decolonization and the decolonization of geography. We encourage submissions…that advance these agendas.’ (Sidaway et al., 2021: 6) we hope that the SJTG will publish this open letter, as a public and permanent record.

During the first week of Israel's war on Gaza, the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) took the decision to cancel its hosting of a Palestinian literary event. ‘Nakba – A Century of Resistance and Solidarity’ had been due to take place on 27 October 2023 as part of the 10th edition of Palfest, an annual event that celebrates Palestinian culture and ‘the creation of language and ideas for combating colonialism in the 21st century’. Thankfully, Palfest organizers were able to find an alternative venue at short notice, but the Society's decision has not gone unnoticed. It came at a time when calls for an end to Israeli occupation (or even for a ceasefire) faced censorship in many corners of academia¹ and official political discourses in the UK, where the RGS-IBG is based, were skewed such that to stand with Israel has become the terrifying norm, at whatever cost to Palestinians. It was in this context, on 13 October, as Israel's war crimes in Gaza were evident (including censure from the United Nations Secretary General), that the RGS-IBG informed PalFest that this was not the time to talk about Palestine. The Society refused to host the event.

The geographical community responded with critical force. Following discussions on social media and a list serve (the critical geography forum, which is archived at crit-geog-forum@jiscmail.ac.uk), and a letter to the Society bearing nearly 500 signatures, an official response came. The RGS-IBG issued a press statement on 27 October; the decision was not taken ‘lightly or hastily’ but was based on an assessment of risk. The statement did not, we note, use the word ‘Palestine’ once. In a subsequent videocall with the RGS-IBG, we were left unconvinced by the account of the cancellation as one based on risk, especially as the Society has the experience to receive all kinds of high-profile audiences at Lowther Lodge in Kensington. If the security detail of a royal visitor can be accommodated, then why not a discussion about literature and Palestine? Why is one of our most important professional bodies marginalizing a colonized population? These are questions at the centre of a letter we co-authored that was signed by almost 500 members of the geography community and delivered to the Society on 7 November. We took it as a sign of productive engagement that the RGS responded just two days later with a letter that apologized for not either moving the event online or making it invitation-only. The response also expressed a commitment ‘to convene an open forum which will give space and time for dialogue … with geographers working on Palestine, Israel and conflict, as well as to hear directly from UK-based geographers from Palestine and Israel’. Both our original letter with a list of signatories and the RGS response are included below as a form of permanent public record.

We publish the exchange here with this open letter because the RGS, while it did agree to publish the texts, did so in a way that (in our view) detracts from the issue. It is not insignificant detail that the letters were appended to the bottom of the page of an already-dated link in PDF form that requires download. Why is this topic not deemed important enough for a new URL? Why was the text not formatted in HTML, as is customary for RGS-IBG press statements and news items? Why didn’t RGS-IBG media feeds share the exchange? And why, very importantly, is the concern of 500 geographers downplayed as ‘some members of the geographical community worked together to compose a letter’? As we made clear in our latest email to the RGS Director: ‘this is precisely how to go about making sure information reaches as few people as possible’. Such a strategy signals a refusal to take the specific issue seriously and maintains a certain geographical tradition that many have challenged in recent years.

The Society has a long colonial history that it has never fully committed to address. Its colonial beginnings are well-documented (Driver, 2001), as are its connected histories of complicity with militarism (Heffernan, 1996) and extractive capital (Gbadegesin, 1999; Gilbert et al., 1999). The Society played an integral role in Britain's ‘Empire of Science’, providing the intellectual justifications and expertise for exploitation overseas. In the formative years of British and Zionist colonization, for example, Society Fellows worked with the Royal Air Force to produce reconnaissance maps of Palestine (Hamshaw Thomas, 1920), and grappled with telling questions of the day: ‘is Palestine a land suited for the peoples from the temperate climes to colonise?’ (Masterman, 1917: 16); could it be ‘restored to prosperity by a civilised Government’? (Bryce et al., 1917: 28). The RGS, it should not be forgotten, was established partly as a successor of the Palestine Association (est. 1805) that sought to bring the Holy Land into the knowledge spaces of British Empire (Kark & Goren, 2011). This material and epistemic colonial relationship with Palestine and the Middle East has been critiqued as a ‘parasitical’ for the ways that benefits accrue to Western institutions and academics while local knowledges and ethical stances are dismissed or diminished.² We should recall the long-established critiques of such colonial geographies (e.g., Noxolo et al., 2012; Jazeel, 2014) as well as calls to carefully refigure relations between geography and the ‘Middle East’ (Mills & Hammond, 2016; Sidaway, 2023). Events such as PalFest promise to deliver a more ethical relationship in this respect and thus should be welcomed by geographers.

As the letter to the RGS demonstrated, such events are in fact welcomed by geographers (almost 500 of them). This is not in itself notable. What is notable and a source of real concern is that such an event was cancelled by the Society that represents geography and geographers in the UK. We are the geographical society. What is a representative body if not representative of its members? The RGS-IBG must effect the change that geographers call for—and have called for over many years. Some progress has been made in terms of the (belated) moves to recognize women's roles in the RGS 100+ initiative in 2013 (see also Bell & McEwan, 1996); a tentative (and contested) decolonizing agenda (Radcliffe, 2017; c/f Esson et al., 2017); and productive student engagement (Jazeel et al., 2022) with critique of colonialists in the RGS Collection (Driver, 2013; Griffiths & Baker, 2019). But the de-platforming of Palestinian voices returns to the Society's roots. It is not for us—merely five geographers among many—to set a tone for debate but it is too obvious a point to ignore that the proposal to convene ‘geographers working on Palestine, Israel and conflict’ in an ‘open forum’ is wide of any remedial mark. The Society thereby mistakenly assumes that Palestine or Palestinian culture, history and art cannot be discussed in and of itself but should be framed and located in relation to Israel and conflict. It substitutes a Palestinian-led forum on expulsion and exile for one of false symmetry or balance—a ‘conflict’ but never a regime of military occupation, settler colonialism, or apartheid. We are surely, at this point, in any estimation, beyond fuelling the idea that this is a ‘conflict’.

If our inboxes are anything to go by, this is not a closed matter. Many intend to (or have already) re-consider engagement with the Society by cancelling memberships and fellowships, withdrawing from speaking events and roles in affiliated research groups and journals. We are not involved in co-ordinating such actions and so cannot speak to their multiple (and potentially serious) consequences, but we would like to emphasize one that has been recurrent in our communications with colleagues across the discipline. For many student members, and especially those of marginalized backgrounds (including many on study/work visas), what does the de-platforming say to them? As they familiarize themselves with geography and geographical institutions, can they identify with this version of the Society? One whose reflex is to shut down the discussions that are at the heart of contemporary spatial struggles. The Society seems to forget that geographers are committed to justice, to speaking truth to power, to interrogating colonialism and colonial legacies. These weeks are spent on petitions, teach-ins, lobbying MPs, media appearances, and the important work of supporting family, friends, and colleagues through this terrible attack on Palestinians in Gaza and across Palestine. As we contest a largely right-wing, belligerent, and colonial media and political mindset, it is extremely dispiriting to have to turn our critical energies to confront our own professional society. We present the letters here for permanent public record and renew the call for the RGS-IBG to take meaningful remedial action.