With two weeks to go until the start of the new academic year and the inauguration of the new University Council, we're looking look back on the past year. In this blog, we share contributions from council members in which they describe their experiences of council work. This time: Thereza Langeler, a member of the Science Faction, reflects on safety and resilience. This speech dates from March 2026.

I’ve been thinking about Anda Kerkhoven a lot lately.

Her name has been a prominent feature of Groningen’s streetscape for a few years now, as the UG has named a brand-new building after her. I regularly cycle past the Anda Kerkhoven Centre. But that’s not the reason she’s been on my mind.

Anda Kerkhoven studied medicine in Groningen, and she did so during turbulent times. She enrolled at the university in 1938, the year of the Anschluss and Kristallnacht, of the threat of war, rising fascism and increasing militarisation.

A year later, the Second World War was the dominant topic of public debate within Groningen’s academic community. And Anda made her voice heard loud and clear in that debate. ‘War or no war,’ she wrote in the student magazine *Der Clercke Cronike*, ‘mobilisation or no mobilisation, one thing is unchanging and eternal, and that is Justice.’ By this she meant that violence was not permitted, never permitted, not against people, not against animals, not in times of peace and not in times of war. Anda Kerkhoven was a pacifist and remained so, in the face of the threat of war and militarism, and against the prevailing opinion among her fellow students, who called her stupid, naïve, even a traitor to the people.

In that same piece in *Der Clercke Cronike*, she wrote: ‘I love freedom, more than many a patriot. (...) No tyrant will be able to force me to obey him, nor to commit moral suicide by using methods of combat against him or his slaves that I abhor.’

Anda joined a pacifist resistance group in the city, and distributed ration cards and forged identity papers. But she did not live to see the end of the war. In late 1944, she was betrayed and arrested; on 19 March 1945, exactly 71 years ago today, SD officers shot her dead.

I think of Anda Kerkhoven when I read that our government is taking billions away from healthcare and social security to invest in defence, and when our prime minister ‘understands’ the US and Israeli bombing of Iran. I read in the coalition agreement that we must move ‘from peace dividend to combat power’ (whatever that may mean) and that the Dutch defence industry must have more room for growth, and I think of Anda Kerkhoven.

Today we are discussing existing and potential new links between the Ministry of Defence and the UG. Just as in Anda’s student days, we are now once again facing war and the threat of war. Just as then, it now seems as though we can only go in one direction: that of more weapons, more equipment and people joining the army, more military power – because after all, ‘the enemy’ is doing the same, and if we fall behind, we will be overrun. Against this backdrop, the UG is training reservists and working on a ‘Security Campus’ where the question is not so much whether, but how, it will provide service to the Ministry of Defence.

All of this, says the Board of the University, is our ‘societal role as a knowledge institution’ in these times. And however much I understand that reflex, given the political climate, the threat of war, and the budget cuts we are facing – thinking of Anda Kerkhoven, I believe that the UG must primarily do something quite different for society. Precisely as a university, we must dare to look beyond the initial reflex, the political pressure and the financial opportunities.

I do not mean to suggest that all possible collaborations with the Ministry of Defence should be categorically and at all times off-limits – if only because I am almost never certain enough to speak of such matters in such absolute terms. My appeal is this: let us seek a social role for the UG that contributes not to more militarism, but to more pacifism.

That means: actively and critically questioning militaristic rhetoric, which seeks to make us believe that war is the only path to peace. When ‘security’ and ‘resilience’ are equated with greater military power, let the UG have the courage to question this, to propose alternatives.

Let us actively contribute, through our teaching and research, to a form of peace that does not hang by a thread depending on which country has the most weapons.

Let us not place ourselves at the service of a ‘resilient’ Netherlands, but of freedom and security for everyone, everywhere.

A Security Campus where the UG promotes and pursues those principles – that is where I would very much like to see the Executive Board’s vision. It seems to me a fitting tribute to our brave alumna Anda Kerkhoven. I suspect she would be happier with that than with her name on a building in Groningen. Thank you.