Week in Review

RAG week looks to have been a great success, and although there was no hard-won battle of endurance for the flat screen TV (which would be a great place to watch some of the LooSE film entries), we can all rest assured that LSE students have done their part in raising money for worthy causes.

The LSE played host to several eminent Bangladeshi entrepreneurs and financiers, Muhammad Yunus (who is speaking tonight) and Iqbal Quadir (who spoke last night) who have played major roles in delivering opportunities, communication and investment to a broader swathe of society.

And of course the Students Union had another busy week, with nominations for elections opening (they close on Monday) and the logistical challenge of the UGM this week where a lopsided vote has mandated the SU to lobby the LSE and the NUS to divest from Israel and companies that contribute to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

A “Misplaced Deference to ‘Multi-Culturalism’”?

An LSE professor co-authored a report that was revealed today suggesting that the United Kingdom presented a ’soft target’ for terrorism, at least partly because of its ‘post-Christian’ identity crisis. One might not expect such a conclusion that is critical of multi-culturalism to come from within the bosom of our multi-cultural institution, but nevertheless, professor Gwyn Prins has also penned this commentary in the Telegraph summarizing the report.

This report is quite timely, of course, as there have been numerous related discussions going on within the British public sphere, most recently in relation to the false controversy of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s remarks on Sharia law in the UK. But if you thought that this was the most controversial suggestion by an LSE professor this week, you’d be wrong: Julian Le Grand has proposed that British smokers be required to attain a license to purchase cigarettes. Oh dear – maybe we’ll need those security gates after all to keep the angry hordes of smokers at bay.

Picking Over the Remains of the Vote

The ballots have been counted, and as many of you may well already know (or have presumed for some time now), the Motion on Divestment has passed by a resounding margin of 339 to 46, with 16 abstentions. The number of votes in favour of the motion represents a good growth in support from the previous motion on divestment, which failed to carry with only 285 voting in favour compared to 292 against at that time.

With about 400 votes cast, it would appear that there were actually fewer people voting on this motion than did on the controversial Motion on Apartheid, even though that ballot had been called into question when students were said to have been barred from voting after the Old Theater filled up. Obviously, the absence of the Jewish and Israeli Societies from the voting yesterday is an important element of the lower number of votes cast, but they will possibly be able to point to the smaller electorate of this vote as indicating its inferiority to the larger vote that rejected the Motion on Apartheid two weeks ago. The proponents of the motion, for their part, can point to the significant increase in their numbers as demonstrating that the revised motion addressed the divisive issues from the earlier motion and was able to lure many voters who had previously voted against the motion to come to their side.

The method of voting, which required students to be stamped at the UGM and then cast paper ballots in the Quad throughout the afternoon, could have put off some of the potential voters, as clearly there were a lot of people present in the UGM (which was simulcast to a group in the New Theater, as well as taking place in a packed-to-the-gills Old Theater) who failed to cast a vote. It’s hard to imagine that these people didn’t care about the vote, as they had bothered to show up and even sit in the New Theater and watch the proceedings on a screen, but this volume of leakage is rather interesting to consider.

So, have we finally put an end to this subject once and for all? Frustratingly, your Observer has his doubts.