No Confidence in No Confidence

Well if we thought that LSE students were non-committal before, the batch of no confidence votes at today’s UGM can only serve to further illustrate that unfortunate trait of ours. The UGM this afternoon, while significantly less jam-packed than last weeks, was nevertheless a busy one, they even managed to reach a quorum!

Things moved quickly out of the gate, with UGM Chair Joe Meadway kicking it off by announcing his decision to allow the contested vote on the Make Apartheid History motion to stand. He said he accepted that the procedure was imperfect, but decided that no procedure was likely to satisfy everyone and that it would keep the SU stuck in a virtue-less circle if he had annulled the vote and called for a new one. He did invite the proponents of the measure to submit it again, if they chose. So perhaps we can call an end to the apartheid saga and get on with our lives?

Not so fast! Just about as quickly as could be expected, there was a motion of no confidence in C&S coming from the Athletics Union sector of the Old Theater, which triggered an interesting chain of events. First, the favoured son of the AU went on stage and rambled on for a bit about the ‘disgrace’ of the various conflicts of interest among the C&S officers. Next, surprisingly, even those arguing against the motion allowed that there were failures on the part of C&S. They did, however, appeal for stability and argued that nothing would ever be accomplished if they had to keep on reelecting people to C&S. After the debate was briefly suspended due to a barrage of paper missiles, the motion was voted on and failed to achieve the 2/3 majority required to pass.

Quickly on the heels of the defended assault on C&S was a no confidence motion in the chair, initiated by Mature and Part Time Students officer Ziyaad Lunat, who declared that the chair had abused his power and was not meant to make decisions regarding the vote at all, but simply to facilitate the UGM. Meadway defended himself, and didn’t seem terribly concerned about losing his position. He needn’t have, as the motion easily failed to carry.

And so, with a lot of thunder and no lightning, the meeting delved into the usual string of dull reports and sterile business motions (the motion on updating the methods of electronic campaigning was tabled until next week, however a motion mandating the General Secretary to petition the university to improve computing facilities passed in an amended form). Even when it comes to booting out officers, the SU is non-committal.

At the UGM: A New Approach to IT?

Although the agenda today is meant to be one of daily business and housekeeping (including votes on motions that are considerably more dull – if necessary – than controversial), one can only presume that there will be a lot of discussion about both last week’s vote against the motion Make Apartheid History and the subsequent annulling of the vote by C&S this week. The final decision now sits with the Chair, Joe Meadway, who will certainly face pressures at the meeting this afternoon. It shall be interesting to see what attendance looks like in the aftermath of last weeks over-full UGM.

The main motion to be considered today is related to election and campaigning procedures, and it contains an effort to update the rules and procedures for the use of electronic means to campaign in next month’s election. It notes that allowing candidates to use Facebook status updates would be an ‘unobtrusive’ means of indicating their candidacy, but still contains considerable restrictions on electronic campaigning, most notably a ban on non-SU controlled websites and mass emails soliciting votes. We’d be interested to learn more about why such measures have been adopted in the past, and continue to be upheld now – why don’t you chime in on the comments?

Maybe it has to do with the general ineptitude of the IT efforts of the Students Union itself, with poorly designed and often abandoned websites littering the field. Hilariously, one of the other motions to be considered today would mandate the General Secretary to criticize the LSE for its own supposed IT failures! Granted, there is an important difference to be noted here, which is that the complaints have more to do with the lack of available computer terminals and printing facilities, however given their track record when it comes to computer technology and internet savvy, one can only imagine how much worse the problem could be if the SU were running computer labs.

“A Narrative That Has No End”

No, the title does not refer to the ongoing Make Apartheid History saga, but is instead a choice quote from last nights Polis panel discussion on the McCann’s and the Media. Charlie Beckett has a lengthy post on his blog covering some of the highlights from the event, including the above quote which was offered by Roger Graef, the producer of a Channel 4 documentary about the disappearance of young Madeline, when referring to why the story continues to dominate headlines. Others also offered a ruthless economic incentive: daily sales were said to increase by an average of 3% on days when ‘Maddy’ was on the front page.

Clarence Mitchell, the spokesman for the McCann family, also attracted some press coverage today by declaring at the panel that the McCann family were not under suspicion and that British police were instead treating the case as a “rare stranger abduction.” Meanwhile, the Mirror reported that the Portuguese police were dropping inquiries into men said to resemble the presumed stranger drawn in a sketch based on the description of a witness.

The overall themes presented by the panel led Beckett to extract several points that he expounded on in his blog post, most significantly that the McCanns took a gamble in launching the public relations campaign that they did, which first led to immense sympathy and support for the family, only to result in the public turning on the family in spectacular fashion. As Beckett put it: “The media initially swamped them with support and then finally drowned them in bile.” Thanks for that image, Charlie.

LSE Students Non-Committal on Facebook

Taking a break from various divisive issues in the school for the moment, let’s try a lighter look at the LSE community. With nearly 20,000 members, the LSE students have certainly taken to their Facebook network with glee – indeed, the school itself encourages new students to sign up for Facebook to engage with their new classmates in their admittance packets. There are even some prominent faculty members signed up including the head of the Media & Communication department, Robin Mansell (who wisely makes heavy use of FB’s security settings). Still, despite the presence of several members of the London network bearing his name, it would appear that Howard Davies has not picked up the Facebook Fever (despite his new media credentials).

So what kind of information have LSE users added to their profiles? Although FB keeps a lot of its raw data close to its chest, it does share some information about networks with members of those networks, and the main conclusion we can glean about the data on the LSE network is that we are a non-committal bunch. Perhaps the biggest surprise is in political affiliations, where one might be forgiven for expecting that a large portion of the student body identifies as liberal. In fact, only 13% of students have listed themselves as liberal (and 4% as very liberal), with a silent supermajority of 62% not identifying with any political affiliation. One might suggest that these people are just apathetic, and that likely accounts for the lack of at least some peoples’ having supplied a political orientation, but oddly there are 2% of students are consider themselves to be apathetic, but in an ironically active way apparently.

And apart from our non-committal politics, nearly a quarter of LSE students are also non-committal about their gender! Although FB doesn’t ask for users sexual orientations, we need not necessarily imagine hordes of the third-sexed (or ungendered) shacking up with each other, at least based on the provided information, as more than one half of the students are non-committal about their relationship status. That, however, may be much more easy to understand. People have complicated relationships (and ‘It’s Complicated’ is a choice, although only 1% of students hold it according to Facebook), but one thing is for sure: it’s not a real relationship until it’s been established on Facebook for all to see.

What’s On

It’s like deja vu all over again. We could have sworn that this event was happening last week, but according to fliers around campus and the event’s website itself, it is in fact tonight. In any case, the POLIS lecture on McCann’s and the Media looks to be quite interesting and is worth a look.

When, Where: Tonight at 6:30pm in the New Theater

Not to be outdone by last weeks Timeless show, the Global Show will feature folk music, dances and even martial arts. Although the description of the event says that it is free, peculiarly it is a ticketed event, and tickets for students are 3 pounds. Funny, that. Anyways, it also promises a performance by LSE Director Howard Davies!

When, Where: Thursday, 7:30pm in the Old Theater, Friday 6pm, Old Theater (Ticketed event)

The Chinese Student and Scholar Society is hosting a Chinese New Year show this weekend, which promises to feature dragon dances, firecracker and, if you’re lucky,  a little red envelope full of money!

When, Where: Sunday, 8pm in the Old Theater (Ticketed event)

Make Apartheid History Redux?

According to Hack Attack, the Constitution and Steering committee has voted to annul the controversial vote on the Make Apartheid History motion at last week’s UGM. This advisory decision is said to leave the question up to Joe Meadway, the chair of the UGM, to make the final decision. It’s not immediately obvious what would happen should he decide to sustain the decision of C&S, but it seems that a revote on the motion may well be a possibility. We wouldn’t much relish being in Meadway’s position round about now.

Like we said before: this thing just will not die.

LSE May Pay Government for International Students

A report in todays Guardian finds that British universities may have to satisfy a new raft of requirements to admit most foreign students to post-graduate degrees in 41 “sensitive” subjects beginning in November. The goal of the program, according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, is to “stop the spread of knowledge and skills that could be used in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery.” For a school like the LSE with thousands of international students, the fees associated with the program could add up to hundreds of thousands of pounds, according to a spokesperson from the LSE quoted in the Guardian story. This is because the government has yet to announce the size of the fees, however it is known that the university will have to certify all of its international students who come from countries outside of the European Economic Area and Switzerland.

Allegations have been leveled against an already-existing program for vetting foreign students that it is discriminatory towards students from certain countries, and it is suggested that this new program, which includes an online questionnaire filled out by the applicant regarding their family history and their reason for their chosen field of study, may extend discriminatory practices to some students. The program could also cause further hardships for foreign students in getting their visas and introduce further costs to applying to British universities.

The list of 41 disciplines under this program contains mostly bio-sciences and physics programs, although some degrees, such as in mathematics and computer science, apply to the LSE. At any rate, due to the volume of foreign students studying at the LSE, it could certainly result in a significant financial burden upon the school. This, of course, also ties into concerns related to schools being asked by the government to report ‘suspicious’ students that has had Students Unions up in arms over the past months.

Enough with the PC (Personal Capacity)

Taking a break from the coverage of the Make Apartheid History fallout for the moment (but don’t worry – or do, depending on your opinion – we’ll return to it later), one can only shake their head and chuckle at the continued prevalence of letters signed in ‘personal capacity’ by officers of the SU in the Beaver. While there has been a serious dust up (and finally, an apology – as well as an op-ed explanation) over the signing of a endorsement for Ken Livingstone by SU General Secretary Fadhil Bakeer-Markar and Education & Welfare officer Ruhana Ali, despite their protestations that they made the endorsements in their personal capacity, we are still seeing such letters within our own student newspaper. The award for the most hilarious juxtaposition had to be the letter of condemnation against said endorsement by a number of SU officers in last week’s Beaver with its own ironic twist of (Pers Caps) at the end! And now, this week, we have one more PC letter being filed in regards to the apartheid motion by Environment & Ethics officer Aled Dilwyn Fisher.

Why can’t these people simply sign a letter without referring to their titles? If it’s a good letter, then it will get published. If it’s not, then it shouldn’t be published simply because of an official title that is supposedly not associated with the opinions they have expressed. And anyways, how is a reader supposed to disassociate the relationship between a title staring them in the face and the (personal capacity) tucked away in parenthesis? One can only imagine that this is because of some silly SU rule, probably related to the patently ridiculous rule requiring opinion articles by election candidates to be anonymous – what in the world is the use of that?

Oh, but that’s grist for another post – one that perhaps we’ll return to in the coming weeks once those anonymous op-eds begin to appear.

The Second Round of Debate

Following the narrow – and contested – defeat of the Make Apartheid History motion in last weeks UGM, two of the primary proponents, Emiliano Huet-Vaughn and Ziyaad Lunat wrote a opinion piece for C&A defending the labeling of Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state. As we wrote before, the use of the term ‘apartheid‘ is at the heart of the disagreement, as none of the speakers at the UGM last week seemed eager to be seen supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

In their opinion piece, Huet-Vaughn and Lunat provide justification for labeling Israel with apartheid by again referring to their sources – various statements and reports from numerous reputable international agencies and organizations – and especially to comments that are attributed to prominent South Africans who fought against apartheid in that nation, including Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. These figures, we are told in the article, “know better than us, better than anyone, what apartheid looked like and may look like elsewhere.” The implication here is that students would be foolish, or worse, to disagree with the assessments of Mandela and Tutu. Clearly these celebrated heroes both have an intimate understanding of the meaning of apartheid, and obviously their weighing in on the discussion merits careful consideration. But are Huet-Vaughn and Lunat really suggesting that because Mandela and Tutu have made these statements there can be no further conversation? This strikes us as an effort to stifle discussion and head off any disagreement, hardly something that a responsible democratic body such as the Students Union should encourage.

By all means, the statements of Mandela, Tutu and others are relevant and significant. Students should hear what these figures have had to say about the subject. But that should serve as the beginning, not the end, of a discussion in the Students Union on the merits of a motion such as this. As the two authors write, “good students … refer to the experts on the topic.” Indeed, they do. And then, good students draw their own conclusions.

Return of the UGM

The Beaver leads today with full coverage of last weeks UGM vote on the ‘Make Apartheid History’ motion. There is some well-rounded coverage, as well as additional insight through C&A and editorials that warrant further exploration through today. But the first thing that came to the Observer’s mind when it began to digest the material was ‘oh no, not again!’  The Beaver is reporting that there may well be a re-run of the vote at this week’s UGM or sometime in the near future, to account for at least one hundred students that the Beaver counted who were unable to attend the meeting and cast votes on the motion. There were other challenges as well, including allegations of non-LSE students submitting votes on the motion and the prospect of some students voting multiple times.

Certainly it is important for students to have faith in the veracity of their Students Union voting processes, and if there were irregularities they ought to be investigated. Perhaps one outcome of this will be the banning of paper balloting, which was itself highly unusual for a UGM motion vote, but similarly there has been criticism of the Constitution & Steering committee for bungling in their charge of facilitating the smooth running of voting and the clearing of motions for the UGM, as well as providing facilities for an overflow of students (as has been done in previous high-attendance UGMs).

This motion is like a zombie – it just won’t die! I only wish that student interest could be mobilized in such numbers and enthusiasm for issues of more direct relevance to the needs and concerns of ordinary students, rather than complicated and nuanced international affairs – issues over which the SU as a body has little (if any) influence.