Sander Otte
Columnist
Sander Otte is Professor of Atomic Quantum Engineering. He regularly speaks out as a scientist in the climate debate and protests together with Extinction Rebellion.
The Rotterdam university magazine Erasmus Magazine has won two ‘Kring Awards’, for an ‘excellent piece of education journalism’ and a column with ‘fine observations’. Delta columnist Sander Otte was awarded with the third prize.
While, until recently, the term dual-use set alarm bells ringing, TU Delft and the Ministry of Defence praise it as something positive, notes Sander Otte. But dual-use is far from harmless, he says.
Sander Otte observes that there are very few situations in which false symmetry takes on such grotesque forms as in the Israel-Palestine conflict. By facilitating a lecture by the Zionist Gil Troy and framing this as ‘freedom of expression’, he argues that the TU is perpetuating inequality.
Who would dare to speak out critically when there is a risk that your university might pass your name on to the police? In times of democratic erosion, universities should not go along with the status quo but should resist, argues Sander Otte.
In his first column for Delta, Sander Otte sees a similarity between the unclaimed stench action and the presence of fossil fuel companies at the Delft Career Days: both are ill-considered and indefensible.
Quantum professor and climate activist Sander Otte attended a conference where defence research was a major topic of discussion. He advocates caution, because amid all the geopolitical and military tensions, we must not lose sight of the backdrop against which these developments are taking place: the ever-escalating climate and ecological crisis.
