Category Archives: Guild Politics

I’m getting tired of this, but not in a personal way

by maxattacks

Last night I thought I’d be incredibly sad and watch as much as I could of the final Guild Council of the academic year being streamed from GuildTV. I missed most of the first half of the meeting (most of the motions and preamble) due to work. What I did catch was primarily the Guild Officers leaving speeches and I’ll say this now. After listening to the speeches I respect all the Guild Officers so much more (but no change on actual agree and disagreement with them). Probably the most thought provoking and even moving speech was the outgoing Guild President’s, Mark Harrop. I do believe he will have a fair fewer ‘haters’ after last night. Though there was one area of the speech that I did find a problem with, the not so ever present “silent majority”.

I’d like to nip this in the bud now. To say this is a personal attack on Mark (as some short-sighted individuals claimed my tweet from last night regarding this claimed to be) would be hugely misleading and would be over-flattering of our outgoing Guild President. There’s a very small select group of individuals I feel comfortable attacking personally and Mark certainly doesn’t feature as one. As someone who genuinely cares in determining what is true I find it entirely comfortable criticising absolutely any idea. I find it entirely reasonable to point out to individuals when they believe the wrong ideas (given the right circumstances) they are then able to recognise their mistakes, because we are all stupid on issues at some point in our lives. I’m incredibly stupid when it comes to understanding cricket, art, pop culture references and popular music. As I’ve already said, I have a great deal more respect for the outgoing President and all the other outgoing Sabbs after last night. Mentioning Mark in my tweet and this post is not a personal attack as some individuals may claim, it is an attempt to make him and many others realise the flaws in the idea of the “silent majority”.

Moving on, the “silent majority” idea invokes my own personal love/hate fallacy of argumentum ad populum. In a nutshell, the level of popular support has absolutely no bearing on what is right or wrong, true or false. If we’d always bend to the will of the “silent majority” homosexuality would not have been decriminalised in the UK in the 1960s and desegregation in Southern US Schools in the 1950s would have also never have happened. Or at least without it, introduced both far too sooner.

You may ask how this is relevant to the wider Labour party, NOLS and BULS. Sadly far too much. Too often do I hear 60% believe x, 80% support y. So what?! This has no absolutely no bearing on the truth! This personal distaste for argumentum ad populum has been particularly tested over the Diamond Jubilee and to be honest, I’m becoming incredibly tired of hearing it. More often than not, the “silent majority” fallacy is too often produced to legitimise truly false or morally wrong policies and ideas. As someone who cares about the truth and its ultimate pursuit, I hope we would all speak out against such basic yet widespread fallacies.

Max

No confidence

by maxattacks

This is just a quick post before bed (IMF, economists and the wider economy tomorrow, don’t worry). But unless I have been completely mislead, the Universities Minister, David Willetts has suffered a motion of ‘No confidence’ against him in Guild Council today.

Oh no! Not the University of Birmingham Guild of Students (ever so slightly sarcastically) you might say. But, do not underestimate the power of collective action. Moves against Willetts are happening all over the county with even his former University tutor following suit. So here we have it, a year into the Tory-lead Coalition and already two Ministers of suffered votes of ‘No confidence’ from influential organisations (correct me if I’m wrong on that particular point) with Willetts soon to follow.

It seems Vince Cable was right, the Coalition is clearly being too Moaist.

Max

To AV or not to AV? That’s not the Question…

by labourluke

 

So the eagerly awaited and oh-so exciting AV referendum is now in sight, with Ed Miliband today setting out the Labour leadership’s opinion on one side, and many other Labour MPs and party members saying why they will be rejecting the proposal on the other. It does seem that the party is split down the middle – not a great position for an opposition party reassembling itself after electoral defeat. Incidentally, it is perhaps not the most shining example of ‘new politics’ or maturity when our leader refuses to unite with Nick Clegg because of his new status as Public Enemy Number One – surely there would be less cynicism in the electorate if we as an opposition party took each issue exclusively, instead of pointing the finger at the Tuition Fees Bogeyman.

The arguments for or against the Alternative Vote aside (I’m personally in the ‘Yes’ camp for want of something marginally further down the road to Proportional Representation), what strikes me the most after the disheartening advertising tactics of the ‘No’ camp (I’m sure you’ve seen the baby-in-incubator and soldier billboards) is the lack of interest amongst the wider electorate. Today I asked a friend of mine whether he had yet considered which way he would vote, and the reply was that it would make no difference to the political scene, so why should he bother? I wanted to answer his rebuttal, but found to my horror that I couldn’t. Whether or not we stick with First Past the Post or adopt AV will have little bearing on electoral outcomes on a national scale, only at constituency level (where AV would make elections far more interesting, as those who witnessed the Guild election results will testify), therefore the best we can hope for is the lesser of two evils, while those running for office continue to make vacuous or downright deceptive pledges in their election manifestos e.g. the marketisation of the NHS and tuition fees.

The real question on the ballot paper should not be ‘AV vs FPTP’, nor even the far more deomcratic ‘AV vs FPTP vs AV+ vs STV vs AMS…’, but something which reads less like a mathematical formula and more like a choice between two fundamental democratic frameworks that disillusioned voters can really get their teeth into. We need a choice over whether or not we want to overhaul the House of Lords (a process which has thus far taken a century); whether or not we want to de-throne and de-robe the monarchy; whether or not we want to reduce the stranglehold of the elites over our economy; in short, whether or not we want a new constitution. That is not to say the previous government had a gleaming record on constitutional affairs, although devolution and removal of hereditary peers were a good start. But by throwing a bone for the Lib Dem poodle in the form of a paltry referendum on AV, the Tories have got away with it again, whichever way we vote on May 5th.

Guild Council 16/3/11 Support HET Motion

by bulsonline

Why this BULS member will be supporting the Holocaust Educational Trust motion to Guild Council – A response to Max Ramsey’s blog.

I empathise with the difficult task faced by anti semitism activists on campus. They are fighting a kind of discrimination that is at first hard to recognise unless you experience it and harder still to teach others to recognise.

 It’s manifestations are numerous, coloured by thousands of years of oppression. Whether this is the overtly offensive comparison of Israel to the Nazi’s designed to invoke the pain of memories only as old as some people’s grandmothers. Or the much older still references to stingy money lenders, a product of Christians not being allowed to lend to each other with interest, or even simply the old standards of being hairy and big nosed. Recognition of antisemitism and understanding of antisemitism often rests on good historical education. Recognition of the racism involved rests on recognising a semitic race apart from others when their numbers are so few in the UK.

I empathise with the task of these activists but it’s not to say that I will ever truly know their experience of antisemitism. I am a firm believer that we cannot know other’s true experience of their own oppression.

You may or may not know what it feels like to be a 23 year old lesbian in Britain today, you can learn a lot about it, but you either experience it or you don’t.

From the moment I leave my house in the morning to the moment I return my experience of life is coloured in many thousands of ways by this identity. Some of these the non-lesbian reader will be able to recognise, more of these people who suffer similar discrimination might recognise (such as black or disabled people), more I will recognise, but still there will be decisions about my character made by others, jobs I won’t apply for or bars I wait just that little bit longer to be served in, things that I won’t even notice. All things that impact on me simply because I’m a lesbian.

Discrimination is a hard thing to pin down for yourself let alone trying to educate others to recognise it.

As an activist on campus then you have some difficult choices to make. There are types of discrimination that better education has led to better recognition of, however homophobia and anti semitism are two categories of discrimination that we are far behind on. Most people today could point to a limp wristed gesture at a gay man as homophobia, however they may struggle to pinpoint the problem with straight women saying they don’t mind lesbians as long as they don’t fancy them.

Similarly most people can understand the antisemitism in stereotypes about big noses, but many fail to see the latent antisemitism in referring to Jewish activists as secretive, sneaky Zionist lobbyists.

The delicate choice is what particular piece of discrimination do I choose to target first.

How much is too much to soon? What will blow up in my face? If I raise this particular issue will the retaliative discrimination be too much for me personally? Will my actions backfire on my already too reticent community? Will I cope? Is it worth it anyway?

But you have to be brave.

Max’s question about why we should pay for one type of education over another is misplaced. When chair of the LGBTQ I had many an argument with various guild officers about getting funding for various kinds of training for LGBTQ activists. On one occasion I spent 3 hours arguing for a one day course that literally cost £10. The prevailing argument against my efforts was what would they do if BEMA, women’s, disabled, international, home etc…students came along and asked for the same. But they weren’t asking and no one was giving. This is because the guild has no proactive plan for furthering equality and diversity on campus. We can therefore in the very least actually react when discrimination presents itself and we have an opportunity to act.

 I had a conversation with a guild officer recently about how I never go to Fab’n'Fresh (the guild’s club night) apart from for results nights. I calmly explained to a shocked officer how every time I go I am aggressively verbally abused by people only too keen to get up in my personal space and point out to me I am a lesbian. This happens every time I go without fail. This is something I have told guild officers many times over the years and every time they tell me it’s a disgrace. And every time they do nothing.

This week I am at NUS Women’s Conference as our LGBT rep paid for by money raised by the Women’s Association’s doughnut sale. My varying experiences of hate because of gender and because of my sexuality apparently aren’t even worth £50 of the Guild’s money.

The motion in question asks for a lot of funding, but frankly it’s needed. Last year alone 639 incidents of antisemitism were recorded by the Community Security Trust, which when you consider the British Jewish community is estimated to be a population of no more than 350 000 and just how much hate crime is never reported, is a considerable amount. Come to think of it, I have never reported a hate crime against myself to any official recording body. The most important thing to note here though is that antisemitism is on the rise, both 2009 and 2010 were record highs since the records of the CST began in 1984.

This is not a kind of discrimination that is quietly stagnating whilst we do nothing about it, it is getting bigger and it is coming to campus.

The Holocaust Education Trust provides numerous and different approaches in it’s educational programmes. It possesses masses of resources on contemporary genocide not just the Holocaust. It plays an integral role in areas of the UK affected by racial tension seeking to educate against all kinds of racial hatred not just antisemitism.

I think also the point about paying particular attention to the Holocaust on occasion is not due to it’s proximity to the UK as Max suggested, but because there is simply no comparable example of genocide on that scale, because it was mechanised and systematic and because it was the defining and damning event of the last century.

We spend more time scrutinising every possible opportunity for progress in finding equality on campus till we end up doing nothing at all.

We stop numerous initiatives by individuals and groups in favour of a better, more multilateral, more equitable option that nobody ever offers instead. Equality will not be achieved by all, in equal measures, at the same time. This is a nice idea in theory but it is fantasy none the less.

The proposers of this motion are giving us a chance to put our money where our mouth is and be proactive, if we choose to wait for the ‘better’ proposal or for when we all think it’s ‘worth’ the expenditure, we will be waiting for something degrading, disgusting and downright dangerous to happen on campus before we do anything. That is shameful.

If you want to be part of a Guild that takes real action on equality support this motion at Guild Council.

By Emma O’Dwyer – BULS Member