It has been a fairly long and tiring day (as Mondays usually are) and having declared our occupation a no-alcohol zone, quite a few people have departed for the pub for a long-overdue pint before the boycott discussion this evening. We are all very excited about it: we have an excellent line-up of panel speakers including (confirmed today) Alana Lentin from Sussex sociology department and a representative from Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Please come along to Arts A2 at 7pm to join in the debate.
A detailed and positive response was received from management this afternoon following a meeting with occupation representatives this morning. We will be discussing this in depth at our general meeting at 9pm tonight following the boycott discussion.
Petition signatures from faculty and students are being totalled up and support looks to be pretty overwhelming: several hundred signatures had been counted at the time of this post. We also have 889 current members on our facebook group: thanks for your support!
In less positive news today, the Sussex student newspaper 'The Badger' ran several predictably atrocious articles on the public talk last Tuesday with Dr. Azzam Tamimi at which the occupation was launched, linking the negative and biased perceptions of the authors more or less explicitly with the occupation (another article on the same page condemning Hamas). The only positive article in connection with the occupation was one concerning the current national UK wave, with LSE named in the headline. In fact this echoes reports from LSE of slanderous coverage of the occupation in their student newsaper. For anyone who was present at the talk on Tuesday or who has visited our occupation over the course of the week the unrepresentative and one-sided and unrepresentative nature of these viewpoints will be self-evident and we encourage those who feel betrayed or misrepresented by their own student media to post their own comments on the website to give a fairer picture.
Finally, a delegate from Sussex visited the Cambridge and King's occupation yesterday, and a write-up can be viewed on the Cambridge occupation blog. We have also heard of negative tactics and hostility today from the Cambridge administration and we offer our solidarity and urge you to keep strong. Another update to follow this evening...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"Petition signatures from faculty and students are being totalled up and support looks to be pretty overwhelming: several hundred signatures had been counted ..."
ReplyDeleteExactly how "overwhelming" is that, given the size of Sussex University's potential audience + friends & family?
On BBC bias against Palestine, just have a read of this old news and spread it around - the Head of the BBC is happy to jump into bed with the child-murderer behind the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla:
ReplyDeleteBBC chief holds peace talks in Jerusalem with Ariel Sharon
By Guy Adams
Tuesday, 29 November 2005
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/pandora/bbc-chief-holds-peace-talks-in-jerusalem-with-ariel-sharon-517400.html
"In less positive news today, the Sussex student newspaper 'The Badger' ran several predictably atrocious articles on the public talk last Tuesday with Dr. Azzam Tamimi at which the occupation was launched"
ReplyDeleteIf it was so 'predictable' for you, then you should have written a comment piece in support of the occupation. The comment pages of the Badger will only be representative of those who can be bothered to write for them. Because they're comment pages.
I only recently found out about the occupation and went along to a meeting over the weekend, and to the debate yesterday. While I know there are students who are irritated by all this, I just feel like there have been too many instances of students losing perspective when they make observational comments about the group from outside. I mean, this scathing attack on whether or not they're making donations, or writing for the comment pages, or organising perfectly diplomatic speakers... I've played organisational roles in pro-abortion movements of a similar size, and guys, it really isn't that easy to get everything right. They're trying - they have a lot of these meetings late a night, and despite the minor 'failings' i've just mentioned, I think most people have been pretty impressed by their ability to organise and commit to democractic process despite how ardurous it is. Can people not try to be a little less whingey and a bit more reasonable with their criticisms of the organisation itself?
ReplyDelete