Facilitated small-group discussions can help ease tensions on campus

With the horrors in the Middle East only escalating, I approach this academic year with mounting trepidation.

Last year, strong feelings on campuses in the UK and elsewhere about events in the Middle East led to angry protest, including ill-considered sloganeering, which felt threatening to some.  This process was amplified through social media and chat groups.  Identities were weaponised as “good” or “bad” and common humanity drowned out by polarisation. More than one group expressed feeling unsafe, threatened and shut down.

This is, of course, understandable. We all react to horrifying events at least as much with our emotions as our thoughts. I vividly recall the shock of 7 October 2023. As a Jew – and as a human being – I was cut to my soul by the rape, filmed torture, mutilation, abduction and slaughter in Hamas’ attacks on Jewish, Palestinian and Bedouin Israelis. It hurt when, just days later, some acquaintances here in London glorified these behaviours as admirable deeds on the road to “decolonisation”. And footage of the subsequent death, displacement and suffering in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon is equally distressing.

In the wake of 7 October, the Israeli historian and Sapiens author Yuval Harari told The Guardian that “the job of intellectuals, artists and scholars is to try and go deeper. [It is] to try and see the complexity of reality, especially in today’s climate of post-truth. It feels intellectually and emotionally lazy to just pick a side.” But on the same day, a Guardian article by trauma psychologist Ahona Guha noted that “when we experience strong trauma and it is triggering, we instinctively move into a fight, flight or freeze response to protect ourselves. We form in groups and out groups, and we quickly dehumanise those in our out groups. A response or emotional expression by one can be seen by the other as an attack.”

No wonder conciliatory discussion is difficult. The images on our screens from horrendous war can be traumatising, especially if we are personally impacted. But I found some comfort at last December’s Together For Humanity silent vigil outside Downing Street, in which those of many faiths and none stood silently mourning lives lost in Israel and Palestine and uniting in grief and in opposition to hatred. The organiser, Brendan Cox, well understood the dangers of polarisation from the murder of his wife, the MP Jo Cox, by a far-right extremist in 2016. 

I also draw hope from the survivors committed to work for peace across divides and people role-modelling how to discuss such difficult issues at home. Solutions not Sides is an NGO working to support thoughtful and sensitive discussions on the Middle East in UK schools.

Whatever happens in the Middle East, we must also learn how to minimise harm when discussing such emotive topics on university campuses. Indeed, higher education institutions have an important part to play in reducing polarisation and amplifying a focus on our shared humanity, fostering cultures of critical thinking, tolerance and empathy.

We can do this by sharpening our curiosity about what we don’t know and strengthening our human capacity to think, manage dualities and consider opposing viewpoints based on the best available evidence. In so doing, we can contribute to the enrichment of societies, including the reduction of prejudice and discrimination and the dangerous illusions of simplistic answers to complex problems. 

Well-facilitated, informed and structured small-group campus discussions between students and staff with a range of views may support respectful dialogue. In so doing it may improve feelings of safety on campus by helping people gain more understanding of the “other”. A small number of US universities have started such restorative practice work, but we in the UK are only getting started.

It would be counterproductive, in my view, to make attendance mandatory, not least because appropriate facilitators do not grow on trees – but a mixture of internal volunteers and external (paid) experts could boost capacity. US experience suggests that voluntary participation can build over time.

Clearly, this measure would not be a panacea. But given the likely disruption on campuses and more emotionally charged protest, university leaders need to move from reactive to proactive mode. This is one idea of how to do so. Do you have a better one?

Emma Davies is senior lecturer in the psychology department at Goldsmiths, University of London.