Lefties Ruin Student Unions for all?

Racisim, bigotry, and good old fashioned cotrived left vs right pig-headedness all met in the firey inferno of UCLU’s AGM on the 5^th and resulted in the kind of divisive outcome that has led generations of students to dismiss their unions as nothing more than crazy demagogues whose internecine bickering serves no purpose other than to warm chairs.

 

The debacle followed on from the very heated ULU senate meeting where ULU Presiden Jen heuesman was taken apart for her initial refusual to fulfil the most basic task of a union president, represntation of member. Having realised that the room was clear in wanting a letter condeming condemnation of OTC and other service groups, Jen constantly reiterated waffle about ‘cultural and spiritual reasons’ for not wanting to sign her name on the basis of ‘generations of pacifisim’. But this argument was swiflty dispatched by an OTC group leader who pointed out that these students groups in no war particiapted in any kind of hostile activites so the pacifism argument was a non-sequiter and entirely irrelevant to the argument.

 

In the end, and despite some desperate squeaks about ‘checking equal ops policy’ on jens part, the vote was a clear cut demand for the ‘part-time’ President of ULU to actualy do her job, the only dissent being ‘usual suspect’ SOAS. The UCL delegate to senate, Andy Fernando, was pleased to be able to bring the news of success of this motion to the AGM the following day, and was emboldedn by the near unanimity of other UL colleges supporting the pro-OTC motion.

 

So what when wrong at UCLU? In scenes reminisent of NUS conference, or the happenngs of some dysfunctional polytechnic Student Union, lies, ignorance and fear-mungering half-truths were flung around to irritte and agitate. Students on both sides of the argument were made to feel like their union was riding rough-shod over their views, and was deliberately picking a marmite issue to stir up bad blood between students.

 

The result was a tense and worked up AGM where no-one present was there to hear the issues discussed and to vote according to the arguments made. Everyone there knew how they were going to vote before they arrived. Any neutral student would be bewildered as the major component of the debating was slagging off the other side. The AGM had little to do with finding out about what students felt and how their union could represent them, and more to do with which group could mobilise the most angry people to turn up and vote their way.

The resulting mess is what drives students up and down the country from feeling that their union is there to work for them and to represent their views. It’s what makes it easy for the people we try to lobby to dismiss student unions as nothing more than frivillious and unreprentative. It’s what makes it hard to convince students to come to us with their problems. It’s what destroys a student unions sole source of ligitamacy, the trust of it’s students.

 

Maybe someday student unions will move away from dablling in geo-political issues like israel-palestine, maybe someday student unions will find the issues that unite students around a common cause, not divissive issues and minority pet projects. Someday, student unions will be the defining positive expereince of a student’s career at university, and have the prestige and legitimacy they deserve.

Nus Extra or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Card (part 3)

So having lulled you into slumber, will i actually make a point, well yes, hopefully, here it is.

I have come to find meaning and significance to NUS extra. It shocked me as i sat daydreaming on the train home to suddenly find a more inspiring raison d’etre for the much maligned NUS Extra card.

My epiphany was simple. the NUS Extra card was a way of strengthening the bongs between the NUS and it’s constituent student unions, and between the NUS and it’s disparate apathetic students. I suddenly realised that innumerate fools who have driven the NUS to the brink of collapse may have been the mere finger of fate, allowing the NUS Extra card it’s fiery birth.The card turns metaphysical whispers of a common success into a tactile experience.

Put simply it shows starkly how the success of the NUS, and the success of student unions are bonded together. It sells the idea of shared future, of a shared success, or of the potential for shared failure. It rekindles a sense of togetherness by acknowledging the failure past, and forges the identity of a shared future.

That the student unions share in the finical benefits of the card gives them a stake in its, and through that the NUS’s, success. The end user, the student, can quantify to themselves the benefits of the NUS, can see how that only a functioning NUS can continue to deliver benefits, and only an NUS of decent individuals can extend the discounts further.

A part of me will always hate NUS Extra cards, seeing them as mortgaging the crown jewels of the NUS to satisfy creditors at the gates. But a larger part of me hopes that since history is written by the victor, we can retcon the story of NUS extra to contain chapter and verse about finding the idea that inspires every member to see that everyone has a stake in a shared future. Hopefully a future of success.

Nus Extra or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Card (part 2)

pro scribo, The following does not pretend, nor intend, to be some historical treatise or analysis of a hugely complex and nuanced affair, but it serves a purpose and is a simplified opinion

Tony Blair has his faults. People could toss out events such as Iraq, shameful acts like not calling for a ceasefire in Iraq, and the dreadful inaction over Darfur. Some people might point to ’sofa-government’, style over spin, Alistair Campbell. But perhaps selfishly i will always admire him for working with Clinton to bring an end to the struggle in Northern Ireland.

Since the Creation of the Irish Free State, the progenitor of the modern republic, there has been an open wound to many Irish, both those in Eire, and those in the province. The iniquitous solution to an unenviable problem of a divided population in the 6 counties, would always ferment trouble, and over the course of the 20th century the victims of British pride have been various, a multitude of innocent civilians on both sides, the innocence of civilians who were stuck in a wretched and inhumane system, and the ideals of Liberté, égalité, fraternité were conscientiously thrown away in favour of control, iniquity, and divide and rule.

By handing control to one religious group to the complete exclusion of another, there was created a sense of divided, diverse futures. You knew if you were born into a catholic job, there were far far fewer jobs that were open to you, based solely on your religion. Whilst those born into a protestant family had the confidence of having the establishment on their side.

This created the insipid pandemic of disparate futures that occurs in every occupation vs occupier, entrenched majority vs oppressed minority, fat cat boss vs factory floor peon. The creation of the sentiment of two communities, two futures, the reconcilable differences were ignored and grew a suffix. With no shared stakes in success, it seemed to be more beneficial to close down, retract into enclaves and islands, and put up fences. And if you barely share a single street cobble with the other side, where can you see benifit in compromise? all you see is an ever more divided past, present and future.

The spark of genius, the golden thread running through the 1990’s negotiations was presenting the narrative of a bonding of futures. The idea that sharing a bond of any kind, to the respective hated enemy of either side was enough to make many balk. But slowly and surely, both sides came to see that since they shared the same space, and were inflicting the same wounds on each other, they did indeed share things, not least of which was a future.

Realising that neither side could unilaterally succeed by very definition of the conflict, the vision of the shared future, prosperity and peace was what ultimately brought the troubles to an end. And peace in Northern Ireland has been (hopefully) found. A pax Blairus.

So strong is the pull of buying in to a shared success that it can eventually lead to then end of a protracted, endemic, aged conflict between two very different and divided groups. This yearning for success, when harnessed, can be amazingly productive.

And success is all the easier when every one plays a part, and knows the dividend shared is the dividend desired

part 3, actually turning all this parable-ised preamble into a point, is really just a click away. If you’ve hung in thus far, the pay-off is a-coming

Nus Extra or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Card (part 1)

Cast your minds back to the heady days of early 2005. We had all become catching fleeting glimpses of those telltale white earbuds that marked someone out as an Apple Acolyte, as a proud owner of the much desired iPod. It seems odd to many of us now, but a mere two years ago There was only one iPod. No mini, no nano, no shuffle. But what an iPod? Colour screen, photo displaying, 30gb. Though the iPod had been around for 4 years by this point, they were still highly desirable, and with features and style that no-one else seemed to be able to match, Apple was printing money.

But not everyone had iPods, starting at $349 for the 30gb, that amazing style and Apple ethos was out of the reach of most non-working people, and a healthy majority of those who did work. It still seems slightly ludicrous when you say it out-loud, but who pays hundreds of pounds for a simple music player?

At this point in time, even with the iPod at dizzying heights apple spotted a gap. They had securely locked down the market for affluent enough people who didn’t mind shelling out considerable abouts of money for a music player that had 3 times more space that many audiophiles required. But there was still the vast market of people to whom the idea of spending so much on something so seemingly frivolous made them nauseous. These were the people stuck with the many many flash-based mp3 players.

These little things are still around today, normally in pound shops and the like. You know the things i mean. plasticy clunky, cheap little 256mb slightly enhanced usb sticks. Just enough to fill up for that morning commute. But cheaply made, lacking in design, no value added.

What someone clever at apple realised is that there were literally millions of people who desperately wanted to buy into the Apple image. The smooth, round corners, the super cool silhouette adverts, the whiteness.

A simple man would have designed and built the iPod Shuffle (the first device that turned a lack of control into a selling point), and put roughly the same margin on as it’s big brother. But the true genius at apple was the man who said, “No”, for he had true insight. Sure the iPod only cost $30 dollars to make, but people weren’t going to buy it for what it was, but what it represented.

It represented all that was holy with Apple, and people wanted to buy in to that vision. They wanted so badly to buy in to apple that they were prepared to pay over the odds for that apple brand. Apple had found success, and pretty soon 10million people bought into that sense of success by buying iPod Shuffles.

part 2, where we start to tangentially approach the point, coming right up

p.s. the tittle is of course a reference to Dr. Strangelove in case you were confused

RON for ULU President!

When the student union movement was talking it’s first stumbling steps out into the world it was lauded as a fine example of the power of democracy. It was hoped that future leaders would vie with each other to take up the mantle of student representation and leadership. The students themselves would have a plethora of very fine, articulate candidates from which to choose, since the brightest and the best would fight for their chance to test their mettle, and cut their teeth, in the world of politics. This cream of the crop would represent the very best we as students had to offer.

If this is still true today, then we have become a very strange bunch, as today’s cream is distinctly manky and many of us suspect it is more like some foul and rotting cheese. For the brightest and the best of the 100,000+ students of the venerable University of London appear to have been dredged up from the deepes darkest pits of the slop bucket from the equally venerable HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

It is at this point that the law students inform me of the defense of “fair comment” and how it is important not to defame anyone too much.

That said, the two candidates for ULU President represent everything wrong with student politics and it is my opinion that they will be utter unabashed disasters.

Ishmail Malik, President (ish) of Birbeck. I say ‘ish’ because his SU council is doing it’s best to remove him from office due to his sheer lack of aptitude for the role. He does not seem to possess the honor to amicably suspend himself from his role until he is assured of either a mandate from his students, or lack thereof. He has also been caught in the act of fraud, in that he forged the signature of a KCLSU sabbatical officer on his nomination paper. He was caught serendipitously as the officer he impersonated happened to be particularly involved with ULU. This is combined with his rather extreme personal politics, which will instantly divide the student body between those unbalanced acolytes of the ‘RESPECT’ bunch, and the rest of us healthy intelligent students who enjoy freedom of thought. This is a candidate who explicitly does not seek to represent all of us, but simply panders to mob.

Jennifer Hausman, President of Goldsmiths. Should you ever have the opportunity to hear Jennifer at a hustings, here is a handy cut-and-keep checklist as to exactly what her first sentence will contain, without fail:

I am:
1) An international student
2) a mature student
3) a post-graduate
4) a female
5) a disabled student
6) a student of mixed ethnic background

I challenge you to test this out as for the past 4 speeches she has made at NUS have all started the exact same way. And it just plain and simply pisses me off. First thing she is being disingenuous as she is simply a whining American with a few too many session’s with her therapist under her belt, who seems to think the way to the ballot box is to ensure you tick as many minority/diversity boxes as possible. I think she genuinely believes students are as stupid as to think “Oh I’m a woman/of mixed ethnic background, I will surely vote for this person regardless of any other factor”. Thankfully the only place her tactic has worked so far appears to have been Goldsmiths. I would also point out that despite NUS policy on self-defining as an ethnic minority, she appears to be the most un-ethnicly diverse white American ever (but i am open to hearing about these diverse origins).

All this aside, I am simply upset that ULU has failed so badly at attracting the kind of candidates it desperately needs if it is to survive. This year is the first year in 5 that the ULU budget shows a surplus, not a £500,000 deficit, and that is down to the under-congratulated work of Jim Hunkin, VP finance, who has been so successful in rescuing ULU from financial catastrophe, that some on the ULU council felt it necessary to try and use a ‘no-confidence’ vote to get him out of office. If that is how leadership, vision, and success are rewarded at ULU, it is no wonder that the cream has gone distinctly cheesy.

I urge you to Vote RON in the upcoming ULU Presidential Elections