I report here some excerpts from a brilliant post appeared on Stefan Popenici’s blog. It questions the role of academies and the European tradition of public intellectuals in the face of the claims that “we are living in the best possible world” (you decide whether for good or for bad). Notable, what is the role of European public intellectuals and universities when it comes to the migrations that are trying to reach the Schengen continent?

<<It is fair to assume that the great tradition of European public intellectuals that gathered in universities to start revolutions now plays again an important role to rebalance the system. The truth is that most European universities are numb and mostly mediocre, sliding with serenity over reality with a stubborn refusal to accept any serious critique and change for their own good. Old slogans serve as Potemkin screens, in a complex web of power, fear, guilt and promises that are trapping thinking and imagination. No new Dadaism is creatively squished together in a university cafe, and no new original and subversive idea is worrying any Volkswagenisers of the system.>>

<<Not that there are other major challenges for Europe’s intellectuals. Youth marginalisation, worrying rates of unemployment and underemployment, a constant rise of extremist political parties, an increasing intolerance for difference, a refugee crisis that reveals how abysmal is the amnesia across Europe about what happened there in the last 80 years… Trains with desperate people, prison camps surrounded by guards, barbed wire fences where children, women and men are sprayed by soldiers with irritating gas or the image of a scared man carrying a child intentionally tripped by a local women (a journalist) left European citizens passive, even when the prime minister of Hungary publicly said that his government is defending the European Christianity against the Muslim threat. The disturbing rhetoric and imagery is doubled by real evolutions: Austrian election resulted in a swing to the extreme right and across the EU is currently recorded a spike in anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic incidents and violence (even if there is evidence of massive under-reporting). There are just too many worrying developments, but nothing is shaking the halls, or the old structures preserved by respected academic pillars of salt (always well cited).>>

<<This impressive coalition of universities plays the ‘scholarship donation’  game while the prime minister of the UK (and so many others) continue to use a xenophobic discourse. Just months ago, British PM David Cameron was publicly describing refugees as a ‘swarm’ invading Great Britain. No word from academia, no coalition of universities (or academics) to react against a dangerous slide of public discourse towards extremism and intolerance. These universities may now be accused that their initiative is just a 13 scholarships PR stunt when hundreds of thousands are in need. Or that a small number of scholarships are used simply to tick that box of “social responsibility”, just to increase departmental chances to access EU funds for research. […] The courage to address xenophobia and racism, intolerance to the idea of diversity and the ‘other’ is much more important than ten scholarships for a lottery in a twisted form of real-life ‘hunger games’. Speaking truth to power […], presenting the risk and possible effects of political demagoguery, taking courageous stands, bringing new ideas in a genuine empathetic dialogue may help more those who fled death and destruction, in search for some peace and a chance to start a new and decent life.>>