Shame on you, Hegemon Students

I just remembered something that made me toweringly angry yesterday. I went to the anti-racist demonstration yesterday with several of my colleagues, representing my branch of UCU, the Universities and Colleges Union, having voted unanimously that fascism is a threat to our communal values. 


Notably absent was any representation of the student body. The Hegemon's black and other ethnic minority students make up 37.3% of the total - way bigger than most universities. Being in a classroom reminds me, daily, that the multicultural society works, and enriches the lives of us all. 17% of students are from overseas.


So I was depressingly unsurprised to learn that our Students' Union declined to participate on the grounds that racism and fascism don't 'affect the education of students'. Really? I'm used to our SU being intellectually vacuous, idle and under total control by the institution, but the idea that university life in a poor, ethnically mixed town would be unaffected by far-right politics is utterly insane. 


So pathetic are they that the SU's statement on the demonstration is headed by the logo of the West Midlands Police and includes these contradictory and illiterate gems:

While the Students’ Union encourages students to stand up against fascism and racism, we advise all of our students to think about their actions and any protests they engage with.

we have decided it would be in the best interests of students to not attended this event. The Union feels that students can have a greater impact upon fighting fascism and racism in a number of other ways which can include casting your vote in elections or attending Love Music Hate Racism events. As a union we feel Students do not have to put themselves at risk to stop these groups.

The union would like to state that, we are still in support of United Against Fascism and its activities but, an event like this is something we will not part take in as the welfare and safety of our students is our priority.

So well done. Were Rosa Parks a student at The Hegemon, she'd be advised to get off that bus. Gandhi would be told to stick to his Playstation and Sophie Scholl would have passed all her modules and quietly gone on to work for Nazi victory. 


Student 'welfare' is here so narrowly defined that we'd rather they didn't stand in a car park miles from the fascists than stand up and be counted. What price Welfare when minority students start getting hassled on their way to university, or even on campus itself? I can't quite work out what 'stand up' and 'support' mean in this small-minded and petty statement. 


Amazingly, the SU has shown itself to be even more passive and undemocratic than the police: the statement links to a letter from the police which declares: 'the right to protest peacefully is a sign of a healthy democracy and we have a positive duty to facilitate that right': a right the SU has decided to abandon. 


I'm ashamed of our SU. Maybe it's because I went to a small but vibrant university (Bangor) in which the SU was the centre of my life. There were loads of clubs, two newspapers (Seren in English, which I wrote for and edited, and Y Ddraenen in Welsh, which I helped out on sometimes - about to be replaced by Y Llef), political groups, demos to attend every other week, and above all, a student body which had strong, clear opinions. Here, we get almost total disengagement and short-sighted, consumerist nonsense.


So, black and Asian students (including those who come from overseas and pay massive fees which keep us afloat): if you want a corporate pub crawl and a hilarious Facebook page, come to the Students' Union. If you want collective defence against the forces which consider you to be inferior and repulsive because of your skin colour - try somewhere else. 


Over to you, students. SU's used to be at the heart of civil and political progressiveness. The tide can still be turned.