5. Be(com)ing Antifascist: On Students’ Most Sacred Mission

Abstract

<?page nr="97"?>Abstract What should students be, and be becoming, in the university of the future? In this paper, I take my cue from the 1946 Charter of Grenoble in exploring the possibility of conceptualizing students as both workers and workers-in-training called to engage in a very particular kind of work: that of defending freedom from oppression. First, I address the relationship between oppression, freedom, and violence, and consider what it might mean to understand involvement in anti-oppression work as a central component of student identity rather than merely an extra-curricular activity, or something that some students choose to do in addition to studying. Second, I discuss a particular configuration of desire that works to further oppression, namely fascism, which I argue that students have a duty to oppose. Finally, I examine the political philosophy of antifascism as the historically most effective antidote to fascism, and consider the specific role that students might be called to play in antifascist work. I conclude with a brief exploration of the place of place in determining how students should be—and be becoming—antifascist, especially in terms of commitments to Indigenous knowledges and worldviews for those of us in colonial and post-colonial contexts.