The Pillar, Cofnas, Ghent – the battle for the institutions

In 2018, I published Churchgoers and Pillar-Builders. The crux of the matter was not a ‘culture war’ slogan, but an institutional diagnosis: the left has a network of ‘quadrants’ – culture, media, education, NGOs, advisory councils – where people can temporarily find refuge if an election goes against them. These are institutional resting places and refuelling stations behind the publicly visible part of power. Left-wing politicians and activists are parked in such positions, and this explains why the academic Bouke de Vries has now written an article entitled: ‘Nowhere have I experienced such an oppressive ideological climate as at Ghent University.’

The right does not have such safe havens. Those who lose power there often fall into economic oblivion. This explains the obsession with jobs on the right, right up to the recent debate surrounding Mona Keijzer: once you lose visibility, you immediately lose your income too – exactly what Fleur Agema is now experiencing; once the right-hand woman of Geert Wilders, she is now unemployed. The Guardian article of 30 August 2026 on Nathan Cofnas and Jason Arday brings this institutional analysis to the fore in a groundbreaking way, and does so in the very place where ‘Churchgoers and Pillar-Builders’ was once presented in Flanders: Ghent.

The thesis of ‘Churchgoers and Pillar-Builders’

In the aforementioned book, I analyse the ‘left-wing establishment,’ not as a conspiracy of individuals but as a pillar: a network of institutions, careers and moral taboos. Anyone belonging to that milieu can be ‘sidelined’ following an electoral defeat or a political embarrassment: a post in the cultural sector, a role in the environmental movement, a column, a research professorship, or a think tank. A prime example of this is John Leerdam. He once torpedoed his career as a PvdA (Labour) Member of Parliament with foolish remarks in an interview; now he has been given a job as director of a slavery museum.

The net result of this approach is that the ideology in question continues to be perpetuated, one’s income remains secure and one’s network stays intact. Sander Loones (New Flemish Alliance), who was Belgium’s Minister of Defence around the same time, put it bluntly at the book launch in Ghent: social pillars, ranks and classes are still important. Traditional parties, education networks, healthcare umbrella organisations, ‘constructive journalism’ and international bodies together form a superstructure that does not coincide with the ballot box.

The academic Matthias Storme spoke that same evening. The venue happened to be Ghent and, as mentioned, this is now less of a coincidence; we shall return to this in the controversy surrounding Cofnas, for whom the US Ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, has come to the defence to prevent Cofnas’ academic destruction.

Why was that intervention necessary? Because the right cannot provide this defined safety net. There is no comparable density of editorial offices, foundations, university posts, cultural institutions or ‘neutral’ advisory bodies. Anyone who thinks right-wing and loses their political or academic post usually has no fallback option. Hence the dilemma: hold on to a political job or face economic ruin. The Dutch debate about Mona Keijzer fits into this pattern – not as an isolated anecdote, but as a symptom of a missing counter-pillar.

Back then, in early 2019, Loones warned that a new pillar need not be a copy of the old one, and certainly not a replica of the ‘left-wing establishment’. Rather, he envisaged an organisational principle: a place where dissenting opinions do not immediately pose a risk under employment law. A home for thinkers and doers alike. Wout Willemsen, who reviewed the book for The Daily Standard, summarised it as a safe space for ideas that must subsequently withstand the heat of debate. Paul Cliteur described the book as cultural criticism with an institutional focus: identity politics is not merely an opinion; it takes root on campuses and in law schools. What begins as left-wing identity jargon is soon adopted by right-wing institutions.

Why the Cofnas/Arday case fits into this

The affair surrounding Nathan Cofnas and the late Cambridge professor Jason Arday is usually portrayed as a moral drama: plagiarism, race, suicide, cancellation versus counter-cancellation. Against this backdrop, Chris Osuh’s Guardian article (30 August 2026) does something that has not happened so far in this storm. It reveals the institutional machinery at work, rather than merely applying labels based on moral outrage and panic.

Here are the facts, as presented in the article. Cofnas, a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at Ghent University, published allegations of plagiarism and doubts about Arday’s biographical claims in July. There were strong indications that he was a fabulist, a fantasist, but he had been placed above all criticism and had acquired a sort of ‘halo of sanctity’ in the light of positive discrimination, or ‘DEI’ – Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. For an academic, such a position is, of course, disastrous in the long run.

When this ball started rolling, Arday resigned and was found dead on 14 August. Ghent University suspended Cofnas as a precautionary measure. This was followed by disciplinary action: a three-month ban on teaching, mandatory remote working, and research restricted to the topic for which he had been appointed (“The Future of Liberalism”). Vice-Chancellor Petra De Sutter continues to formally take the lead on disciplinary matters. Cofnas thanks her for allowing him to remain.

Meanwhile, the US Ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, has intervened in this storm. He described the suspension as unacceptable and threatened to review relations with Ghent University. Shortly afterwards, he stated on social media that he had saved Belgium from a media crisis. Cofnas thanked White and the State Department: he said it was beyond his “wildest imagination” that an ambassador would take an interest in the fate of a postdoc. That is not a footnote. It is the crux of the matter.

The true significance of all this

A university disciplinary case becomes a diplomatic affair, and one can only interpret this properly by taking into account the full context of the culture war, the ideology mills, the compartmentalisation of society and the ideological quadrants. The myth that research is purely meritocratic – the best paper wins – does not hold water. Who receives what protection depends on networks: the department, the vice-chancellor, petitions, embassies, the media, donors. At last, the political reality behind the meritocratic lie is being exposed – this is why The Guardian’s article marks a genuine turning point, even one that could be called revolutionary.

For it is evident that, in the academic world, something like ‘the pursuit of truth’ ought to take priority; so when an academic puts forward propositions, criticism and discussion must be possible. Someone is elevated beyond their station, faces the threat of being unmasked, chooses to take the bull by the horns and ends their life before the research can be completed and the controversy can blow over. Surely it makes no sense whatsoever that the academic who raised these myths should subsequently be belittled? But that, of course, has everything to do with ideological alignments: Cofnas was seen as a maverick, as too right-wing for the progressive academic monoculture. Without the intervention of the US ambassador, he would have been completely wiped out. Because that’s how it goes – I speak from personal experience.

The Guardian then deliberately frames Cofnas’s position in institutional terms, not merely moral ones. The Ghent philosophy department had already stated in May that he had “very limited expertise” for the liberalism project and was said to be serving a “far-right agenda”. He is associated with controversial writings on group differences in intelligence. At the same time, the newspaper quotes Cofnas speaking out against Trump and MAGA: the Republican Party has “degenerated into a low-IQ cult of personality”; the right lacks sufficient “human capital” to retake institutions; and the most intelligent, stable Americans will remain on the left and ‘woke’.

The relevance of the quadrants

These institutional facts paint a backdrop in which Cofnas is protected by a Trump ambassador whilst a Green rector imposes disciplinary restrictions on him. The higher echelons are not neutral arbiters. A report in Politico dated 21 August 2026 reveals the same structure from the other side: White threatens to review collaborative arrangements; Ghent University receives American research grants; Cofnas calls himself a scapegoat because his ideas on race are “controversial and easily misunderstood”. Cambridge had previously dismissed him from Emmanuel College; Cambridge initially protected Arday and only later launched an investigation. Two standards, two safety nets.

The fact that all this is taking place in Ghent is more than just ‘local colour’. In February 2019, Loones and Storme were there at the launch of ‘Churchgoers and Pillar Builders’ Loones’ article on Doorbraak was entitled: “We need a new pillar to counterbalance the left-wing establishment”. He spoke of exclusion from the labour market, of the ‘long march through the institutions’, of the media confusing framing with reporting, and of judges as catalysts for a dominant, culturally relativist consensus.

Eight years on, the analyses in the book have proved true, and the question now is whether we continue to view the Cofnas affair as a Twitter row about moral monsters, or as what Loones was already offering back then: an analysis of who controls the parking spaces. The Left – broadly speaking: the cultural and academic sectors, the NGO world, the mainstream media – can isolate or protect a controversial figure, depending on the moral framing. The right – broadly speaking: political parties (some of which do not even have members), hardly any think tanks, and embassies under a friendly government – relies on political power in a very narrow sense. Hence White. Hence, too, in the Netherlands, the reflex to keep people like Keijzer in the political circuit, because there is no equivalent ‘second tier’.

Cofnas, from his American perspective, puts it almost too bluntly: the right would be unable to recapture the institutions because the human capital lies elsewhere. You do not need to adopt his choice of words to see the institutional problem. Universities, editorial offices and funding bodies are not a free market of arguments. They are labour markets with gatekeepers.

What might a ‘new pillar’ be?

A counter-pillar that is merely a reverse inquisition – different taboos, the same career penalty – is not what I personally advocate. The point I wanted to put on the agenda with this book was: space to reflect on an idea without the risk of dismissal, without people attacking the man rather than the ball. The focus in 2026 must not be: canonising Cofnas because an ambassador is covering for him, or reducing Arday to mere evidence in a culture war. Here are two considerations:

[1] This is not a heroic tale. Arday is dead. Cofnas remains ‘controversial’. White has a political agenda. Ghent University is an employer with disciplinary powers. Each of them represents a fragment of power. A healthy society ensures that these powers keep each other in check, rather than degenerating into a postmodern progressive monoculture, against which the right can only achieve short-term gains through the use of brute force.

[2] No importing of ‘race realism’ as a programme. One must be able to distinguish the academic value of Cofnas’s work from statements he made in other contexts. The left also gets away with everything: just think back to Harry Petit. Or the lecturer at Utrecht University who thought Baudet should be shot. Both were protected by the institution.

If we compare the Cofnas case with Kerkgangers and Zuilenbouwers, it becomes clear that whoever wins the ballot box but loses the institutions must continue to improvise with embassies, party jobs and Substack. Whoever wins the institutions but loses the ballot box can wait for the storm to subside. That is the unequal geometry of the superstructure.

In conclusion

‘Churchgoers and Pillar-Builders’ was a Flemish-Dutch attempt to say: freedom of expression is meaningless if visibility, income and appointments are unevenly distributed. The Guardian article on Cofnas is significant because it no longer frames this inequality solely in terms of ‘woke’ or ‘racism’, but identifies the administrative power network: rector, academic department, disciplinary action, ambassador, research grant, party membership.

Ghent 2019 called for a counterbalance to the left-wing establishment. Ghent 2026 shows what happens when that counterbalance is lacking and the only remaining lever is foreign political power. This is no triumph for the right; it proves the validity of the analyses made at the time. Now, the next step is not to ask who the scapegoat is, but rather: who will build institutions in which research, criticism and earning a living do not coincide with a single moral camp? As long as that answer remains elusive, the left will continue to be pigeonholed into ideological quadrants and the right will remain fixated on jobs.