During the Covid-19 pandemic, we all became used to people wearing masks and covering their faces to protect society. By now these masks are off and we can clearly see everyone’s faces; we can read their lips and can understand their expressions and gestures. Words, however, are not coming freely from these mouths. The war on Gaza is just the last example of how questions of how to talk and what can be said permeate the academic community, undermining the essence of being a researcher, teacher and scholar. We, the editors of pariss felt that we should not remain silent on this topic, which affects all of us, albeit in rather different ways. Therefore, we decided to write a collective article in which we could combine voices of various experiences, creating a patchwork of insights on how dilemmas of academic freedom appear in different guises in our experiences.