Guild Council March 2011

By Kelly Rogers

5 hours ago I left Guild Council Chambers disgusted and angry. As a constituent, I felt entirely misrepresented by my elected Guild Officer Team who led a Council epitomised by an infringement of democracy, Guild cliques, favouritism and a partial Chairperson (Rob Sassoon). Such failures has led me to send an email to the Guild Council Team outlining the reasons for my discontent, which I shall explain here.

First of all, I would like to discuss the occurrence of a motion being voted on without an opposition speech being put forward or debated. The Chair claimed that this was ‘democratic’ because it was voted through. However this meant any opposition was denied any platform to speak, aside from proposing amendments, which clearly runs counter to the democratic values the Guild represents. I would question why the Chair deemed it appropriate to accept the proposal to skip straight to a vote in the first place. It is the Chair’s job, after all, to ensure the Council runs according to Guild procedure, but also in a just manner; something evident considering the Chair’s insistence on intervening in many other matters by vetoing amendments claiming that they propose ‘too substantive a change to the motion’.

This brings me to my second point, the Chair’s clear partiality. The point was brought up by a present Sabbatical Officer that there was a ‘perceived conflict of interest’ and that he wished the Chair to step down for that particular motion. I agreed completely with this call because I saw a Chair repeatedly veto amendments to topics which posed ‘too substantive a change to the motion’, not putting it out to vote but using his ultimate authority to override often fair amendments. Moreover, these challenges were aimed at solely those in favour of challenging or dropping the EUMC definition or retaining the ability to condemn human rights abuses – a seemingly anti-Palestinian approach considering the groups largely making up the parties proposing and opposing the ammendments (Friends of Palestine and Joseph Moses and co. of JSoc respectively). In contrast, when a highly contentious decision to completely eliminate an opposition speaker on the ‘no-policy policy’, the Chair had no qualms at all. In my mind, this shows favouritism. Furthermore, if a Chair is removed from his position because of a ‘perceived conflict of interest’, does it not seem prudent for the Chair to remain removed from this position until the entire motion has been debated and voted upon? This was not the case, and the Chairperson was quickly reinstated.

Thirdly, it was also mentioned by an attendee at the Council that the Chair often gave preference to people he was ‘on first name terms with’, namely sabbatical and non-sabbatical officers. Suggestions that ‘Guild cliques’ exist are not unheard of, and as an observer I also felt greater preference was given to certain people in the Council; although this may of course have been accidental.

While the style of Guild Council itself was detestable in itself, nothing quite matched the policies passed through towards the end of the session. A clear contradiction in two motions passed through Guild Council arose. First, in the Council in question the ‘No-policy policy’ passed claiming the Guild can have no stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including  (as ascertained by the refusal to accept an amendment saying as such) a refusal to assert that both Palestinian and Israeli people have the ‘right to exist’ and to a nation state. If considered in context with the motion passed in the Council held April 2010, ‘EUMC Definition of Anti-Semitism’, and the subsequent use of the definition as a ‘guide’ by the Guild this makes no sense. The EUMC definition includes the statement,

‘Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:

Denying the Jewish people right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor’.

So, our Guild advocates having no stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, or accepting either’s right to self-determination (because of the contentiousness of the issue and, as the proposition of today’s ‘no-policy policy’ put it, ‘the Guild is not the place for such a debate’), except for when it comes to Jewish people’s right to self-determination. This is a clear contradiction in policy.

Moreover, the 'No-policy policy' itself is an absolute atrocity. The proposition of this motion argued that the Israel-Palestine conflict was a controversial issue that had 'no place in Guild Council' because it did not directly effect students as issues such as cuts to education by the Coalition government might. As three Muslim students sitting behind me asserted, such a claim is ridiculous. To the people that associate themselves with either country involved in the conflict, this very much effects them at a very deep level. For the Union representing them to adamently refuse to acknowledge human rights abuses if and when they occur is a massive failure to represent these constituents. It is this argument which I was forming when waiting for the chance for questions, following the opposition speech - an opportunity that never came. 

The motion titled 'It doesn't matter if you're black or white' argued for a greater weight to be given to existing values adopted by the Guild, concerning racism, homophobia, sexism and most pointedly, anti-semitism. This involved the EUMC 'working definition' of antisemitism, which is currently used as a 'guide' by the Guild when assessing external speakers and the actions of societies. The proposition wanted to avoid the 'hurt' that can be inflicted by speakers which actively 'victimise' minority groups and the societies that 'applaud' such actions; not so subtely implying the Mike Prysner incident regarding Friends of Palestine, and complaints coming from JSocs direction. The main issue I have with the passing of this motion, amongst many, is exactly what the proposition denied - that societies will not be threatened or risk unfair punishment when it comes to speakers expressing offensive opinions. However, as the opposition stated; many respected academics would contravene the EUMC definition; Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Edward Said and even Albert Einstein. Furthermore, this denial came with the caveat that the society actively denounced the views, removed the speaker and apologised for any offence - as if stopping a event mid-way, asking a respected speaker (previously accepted by Guild speaker-request procedure) to leave and apologising to potentially hundreds of attendees who had come and paid to enjoy said speaker was normal behaviour. Finally, as a (somewhat casual I'm afraid to say) member of Friends of Palestine and participant in their online forum, I understood that a great deal of their membership felt threatened with derecognition of the society. As newly-elected Chair of Birmingham Student Broad Left, it worries me that societies might face such punishment for potentially 'controversial' speakers when this is what a society like ours encourages in order to promote debate, eduacation and a widening of our perceptions of the world. This is a sad day for free speech at the University of Birmingham. Intellectual progress is not possible without controversy, and it seems controversy is no longer welcome here.

I shall finish on a brighter note. Whilst I left angry and disappointed on the whole from Guild Council, the success of the day should not be forgotten. It is no small thing that the Guild has committed itself to support the UCU strike next week, on the behalf of our students. As the proposition eloquently argued, the UCU has supported us through our struggles when it came to fighting cuts to education and EMA, this is our opportunity to reciprocate. In the face of a University management who recently gave themselves a 11% rise to their already inflated pay, amounting to sum equal to that saved from axeing UoB's sociology department, and who are now cutting jobs, real wages and prospects of our valuable university staff this is a priceless success. Every cloud...