Ooh-Aah Malia!
NUS Black Students’ Officer Malia Bouattia whipped up a storm of con- troversy recently when she led a bloc at NUS’s National Executive Committee which defeated a motion to condemn terror group ISIS. Reportedly, Bouattia was concerned that “condemnation of ISIS appears to have become a justifica- tion for war and blatant Islamaphobia”.
Bouattia personally condemned ISIS, and resolved to put forward a motion at the next meeting of the NEC which will officially condemn ISIS, but “will in no way pander to Western imperialistic in- tervention or the demonisation of Mus- lim peoples.” Despite this, and following the reporting of the story in several sig- nificant publications, such as The Daily Mail and The Independent, as well as The Tab, Bouattia received a torrent of online abuse, including rape and death threats on Twitter.
In response to this abuse, several stu- dent unions, including UCLU, have come out in support of Malia, and have condemned the treatment she’s received. BME officer Hajera Begum drew fur- ther ire by tweeting “#istandwithmalia because she represents me and my Black brothers and sisters. NOT you white lefties.”
Bello, and Welcome.
This year’s UCLU Welcome General Assembly failed to reach quoracy, in ac- cordance with a long tradition of failed General Assemblies. The last time a suf- ficient number of Union members both- ered to congregate up was in 2011 (CG 31) at an Emergency General Meeting to discuss blockbuster controversial motions on abortion, Israel & Pales- tine, and a proposal to No Confidence the then Provost Malcom Grant. This time, however, it seems that a motion on “Palestine – Israel: building solidarity”, as well as motions on free education, housing, and a last minute Bello-related proposal made by David Dahlborn (in- cluding several low-quality puns), were not enough to attract even 0.5% of the university’s students.
Even grassroots efforts by attendees to go around campus, asking students if they cared about the Israel-Palestine conflict didn’t bear fruit. In the end, the meeting was about 20 people short of reaching the required attendance leav- ing the more than 140 people who had turned up with a distinct feeling that there might have been better ways for them to spend the evening.
After last year’s failed WGA, the De- mocracy and Communications Officer at the time, Dan Warham, called off all General Meetings for the rest of the year (CG 43), presumably to avoid further embarrassment at failing one of the most visible roles of his job. His successor Hannah Sketchley has told The Cheese Grater that “this was probably the worst possible outcome, but instead of cancel- ling the next one, I’ll just build it more.”
Democracy Inaction
The Autumn Elections were held earlier this month, to little fanfare. The union boasted a ‘record’ turnout of 6.1%, with 1,968 students casting 2,919 ballots. This marks an improvement of more than 700 voters over last year’s even paltrier turnout.
There were 64 positions on offer, mostly unimportant faculty rep posi- tions - 18 of which went unfilled and many others went unopposed. A special mention is deserved for the Faculty of Arts & Humanities postgraduate rep, who earned the honour of being elected with just 4 votes, the least of any candi- date. The most popular positions on of- fer were the vaguely responsible Student Trustees and NUS delegates, gaining over a third of all votes cast.
It seems many candidates might have stood for election simply for the £100 campaign budget. On a Monday in Phineas, that could get you a hundred 275ml bottles of Tuborg, which by our reckoning is quite a lot of beer.
The union ran a series of events for potential election candidates titled ‘Thinking of Standing?’ Given the lack of interest displayed, it seems that stu- dents would rather remain sitting down.