‘The screw in the [moral] compass that allows the needle to move.’ That is the way I characterized academics, and legal historians in particular, in my contribution to a Liber Amicorum a few years ago. This was written when the UK had already voted to leave the EU, but had not yet left. Crimea was already annexed by Russia, but the rest of Ukraine was still relatively unscathed. Trump was serving his first term as US president, but up to then his presidency was primarily viewed with head shakes and snorts. And although radical right-wing parties were represented in the Dutch parliament, our government could still be classified as a regular right-wing, conservative government. ‘An academic law programme is about social engagement’, two colleagues had remarked, when interviewed for the 2017 Faculty Anniversary Book, ‘if only to compensate for all the “waffle on the internet”’.

It’s 2025 now, the waffle has only increased and unfortunately, has lost its innocence. What, then, is our task as academics? Should we stick to our academic discussions and refrain from politics? But what use does academia have, when what we read, write and think about has no connection with reality? Contrary to what some might believe, academics do not live in an ivory tower. This is evident when we e.g. look at medical research and the way these findings are used to actually help patients. We don’t do research just for the sake of doing research. My job is no occupational therapy, thank you very much.

I was presented with this dilemma a couple of weeks ago, when I wrote a blog for Law Blogs Maastricht about the question whether politicians like Trump and Wilders can be regarded as fascists. My blog was refused for publication, arguably because my definition of ‘fascism’ was too ambiguous. As an academic, you have to have your facts and definitions straight, that requires no explanation. However, in my blog I explicitly concurred with the definition and characteristics of fascism as described by a colleague from another faculty without repeating what he had said. Additionally, I linked to an article by Umberto Eco, in which he extensively described and defined fascism. That was partly done because I was only allowed to use 650 words for my blog, but primarily because I did not see the need to redo what my colleague had already done with so much eloquence. Whether that is sufficient enough for a blog might of course be called into question, although I still believe it is entirely defendable. It is, in any case, a technicality. The definition exists, it was just not repeated by me.

Whether I am right on that account or not, whether the person who blocked my blog was right or not, is, however, irrelevant. What happened was that a blog that raised a very topical issue, that was written from an academic background by a researcher who had spent years doing research in the field of fascism, that was written on the basis of facts with links to sources, that tried to function as the screw in the moral compass, was silenced, on the basis of a technicality. In no way do I harbour the illusion that a single blog of 650 words will solve the world’s problems and stop the ‘waffle’. You might even question whether history in the sense of memory can serve as a remedy for evil at all, like Tzvetan Todorov argues. You may disagree with my assessment that academics have a role to play as part of a moral compass. One thing, however, is clear: I became a legal historian, because I like history, i.e. I like to study the past. I became an academic, because I want to contribute to the world I live in with the knowledge and insights I acquire. And since the past that I studied seems to become the future with alarming speed, I hereby urge academics, including myself, to not stay silent. Share your findings, your insights, your analyses. It is not us who turn them into politics, but it is us who can compensate for the waffle.

And that is what you may expect from me. Blogs about my research, my questions, my findings and my analyses. But also about the application of academic research to reality and the interpretation of it. Because I don’t live in an ivory tower, but in a regular house, in a regular town, in a regular country, that as of last year has a radical right-wing government.

And ow, on my own website I can use as many words as I want.