Siena foreign universities, teaching suspended due to the end of Ramadan. More controversy over Normale di Pisa

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The University for Foreigners of Siena suspends teaching on April 10, “as a sign of sharing” for the end of Ramadan celebration. Among the reasons, as stated in the act of the rector Tommaso Montanari, is to give a «visible sign of solidarity with the Palestinian population of Gaza, largely Muslim, subjected to an incessant, unprecedented massacre». The decision, Montanari then explains, is accompanied by the “intention to suspend” teaching also “on Friday 11 October, Kippur, one year following the massacre of 7 October. Our statutory mission is to build multiculturalism and contribute to peaceful coexistence between peoples.”

The university: promoting meeting, dialogue and mediation

The rector’s decree refers to the University statute, where “it is stated” among other things that the University promotes and encourages “the processes of meeting, dialogue, mediation between people with different languages ​​and cultures, with the aim of promoting the civil and peaceful coexistence that arises from mutual recognition and mutual respect” and that therefore the University is committed “to the diffusion of multilingualism and multiculturalism in harmony with the lines dictated by the European institutions and the UN”.

It then explains that «one of the objectives of the rectoral mandate is the construction of relations and relationships beyond diplomatic channels, beyond the logic of belonging and beyond colonialist or promotional strategies to build global citizenship, practicing a multiculturalism in which identity does not it is closure, but encounter” and there is talk of the “need to give a visible sign of solidarity with the Palestinian population of Gaza”. For these reasons, having also heard the favorable opinion of the director of the department of humanistic studies and of the general director, in her role also as head of the educational management and Urp area, the rector decrees «the suspension of teaching activities for 10 April 2024 , as a sign of sharing for the day of ‘Id al-fitr’, the great Islamic festival of breaking the fast of Ramad”.

Montanari then declares today that the decision “would have been (and in any case will be) the subject of a press release” from the University “immediately following Easter” and that “it is accompanied by our intention to also suspend teaching activities for Friday 11 October 2024, Kippur, one year following the October 7 massacre. Our statutory mission is to build multiculturalism and contribute to peaceful coexistence between peoples: this seems to us to be a particularly urgent mission today.”