A message to all professional thinkers — we either hang together or we hang separately

“Seventy years ago this month, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established to protect Western Europe and the freedoms of its inhabitants from the threat of Soviet communism. It has become clear to me that we now need a similar organization to protect Western intellectuals from a growing threat to academic freedom.

The North Atlantic Treaty, signed by 12 governments in Washington, D.C., on April 4, 1949, was a treaty of mutual defense “to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.” Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states “that an armed attack against one or more of [the signatories] . . . shall be considered an attack against them all.”’