Exeter student - Exeposé - University of Exeter

12
Features
Columba Achilleos-Sarll & Anna-Marie Linnell - features@exepose.com
march 7 2011 Exeposé
Love thy neighbour
Samuel Lambert poses the question: is English society really out of the homophobic closet
FLYERS recently appeared near
Shoreditch, East London, outside a
school and on a High Street. They
carried the message “Arise and warn.
Gay free zone. Verily Allah is severe
in punishment.”
To take this statement at its face
value would be a mistake, there is no
evidence that any particular religious
group is behind this, and the deliberate
inclusion of “Allah” does little to
qualify this. Furthermore, tensions in
the East London community are not
restricted to religion and other motivations
should not be overlooked.
We must attempt as a society to
understand and prevent the cause of
such ill-feeling en masse. To focus too
closely on the tension between homosexuality
and religion would be neither
productive nor successful and ignorant
of the real worry here. What is the motivation
of such strong hatred and how
can society work with the necessary
authorities to prevent it taking hold
The decision to flyer outside a
school bears strong significance. During
school years an individual will be
at their most susceptible to influence;
the information they are given can potentially
ingrain beliefs that will follow
them through life. It is often assumed
that younger generations are becoming
more accepting, but society should not
become complacent and rest on its laurels.
To do so could lead to generations
where a significant number of people
are led into a way of thinking that is
derived more from propaganda than
individual judgment.
The recent BBC3 documentary
‘The World’s Worst Place to be Gay’,
presented by Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills,
was an exposé of rising homophobic
attitudes in Uganda. Much of the content
was shocking, as could be expected.
The most sobering part of the programme,
though, was Mills’ interview
with a group of youths. The young
Ugandans were entirely against homosexuality
in their country and saw it as
a by-product of Western influence, and
therefore outside their own culture. In
pushing members of their own society
into a different ‘culture’ they distance
themselves from them and avoid any
sense of guilt in the hatred in which
they participate.
Making the discriminated part of
an ‘other’ grouping unifies the suppressors
and is a method that was
evident in other sociological divides,
recent and past. When asked to justify
their views, the young Ugandans did
not hide their influence, from the people
they look up to, such as parents,
teachers and the church. They were
vague when identifying exactly what
tells them homosexuality is wrong, a
somewhat ironic uncertainty from a
crowd which is so fixated on one line
of argument.
These young Ugandan people have
been taught to believe views so strong
they do not even question their source.
If this interview could have been reasoned
as an insight into the future,
it is little wonder that Mills was left
frustrated and disappointed as a result
of the interview. It shows exactly the
complacency and expectation we must
not have in the upcoming generations.
In the London community affected
by the flyers, eight friends set out to
either destroy or deface them. They instead
left the messages “love” or “help
yourself to love” and have little interest
in pointing the blame to any particular
religious group. Their choice to
ignore the obvious direction from the
message is exactly the attitude which
prevents the hatred intended; they realise
they are unlikely to locate the
people responsible and do not make
broad assumptions of the groups responsible.
While their blameless attitude prevents
the sort of hatred these messages
try to ensure, their decision to retaliate
is not ideal. There are the necessary
bodies within the police, such as Gay
Liaison Officers, who communicate
with the community. The police should
be trusted to find those responsible and
deal with situations such as this flyer
posting. However, such a relationship
works only with mutual respect and
the community should, in turn, expect
the police to make clear how they are
dealing with incidents.
Sufficient channels of communication
exist today, with multi-media
platforms, which are essential to inform
societies and build trust between
departments of authority and the populace.
Once suspects are identified,
work can begin to understand their
motivation and, in turn, move towards
the prevention of future incidents.
Only then will we be able to continue
progress towards a stronger, more unified
society.
Short and all too sweet
James Crouch discusses the life, and death, of Aaron Porter’s leadership of the National Union of Students.
SUFFERING abuse and criticism from
all sides, leader of the National Union of
Students, Aaron Porter is standing down
from his position. He will leave behind a
legacy of controversy, along with one simple
question: was his leadership really the
failure that many now will assume it has
been
The reaction of many NUS members,
if not the vocal ones, to his departure
seems to be “good riddance.” Once the
fee increases were signed, it appears, so
was Aaron Porter’s death warrant. Many
now heckle him on sight. In their eyes, he
failed. Full stop.
Although I admit that Porter appears
to be greasier than one well-known metaphoric
pole, let’s not consign him to the
dustbin of political history yet. There’s actually
much to be said for him.
For a start, Porter was key to getting
the Liberal Democrats to sign a promise
to not raise tuition fees (back when Clegg
was still every student’s political pin up).
Yes, I know, what good did that do anyone
But every single shout of “traitors”
and “back-stabbers” now thrown at the
Lib Dems relies on this piece of paper for
justification. The written promise has been
an effective and deadly sledgehammer to
knock the Coalition sideways ever since
the fees issue was raised.
You could argue that Porter found
the rush of activism overwhelming and
that he became a backseat driver once the
large-scale campaign got under way. But
much of this criticism has more of a basis
in understandably frustration than in truth.
Some parts of the student protests were, to
say the least, unedifying, to say the worst:
horrifying. The violence and vandalism
were rightly condemned by the NUS leader.
Yet for the minority of students who
seemed to think that the ends of the protest
justified any means, Porter’s reluctance to
support violence was seen as a betrayal or
a lack of support for the cause. In short,
some of his critics appear to be trained in
the “you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us”
school of thought.
If Porter had suggested “Fine, let’s
smash up the Treasury building... the NUS
can deal with that later” the whole student
campaign could have been written
off by the Government as organised by
law breakers and vandals. The campaign
would not just have lost ‘the fight’, as it
has done, it would have lost the moral high
ground too! Instead, Porter did not let the
NUS become inextricably linked with violence
and so it remained a legitimate organization
in many peoples’ eyes.
Nevertheless, once the initial ‘fight’
was lost, and the fees increase was passed
through Parliament, the knives were truly
out. Porter is vilified now for the simple
fact he couldn’t stop the Government from
getting its legislation through. According
to some people, the Government’s success
was due to a lacklustre campaign by Porter.
But, short of invading the chamber and
marching the MPs down the right lobby,
what more could he have done His job
was to mobilise public opinion and that’s
what he did.
I think the NUS is now taking the right
steps by admitting that there is a new phase
in this fight – the fees might be here, but
universities have yet to deliver their side of
the bargain. I’m somewhat ambivalent to
the fees rise itself, as it won’t really affect
me. But, now this has been put in place,
I care that universities don’t just carry on
as normal while their students’ debt triples.
Being proactive and doing what they
actually can to deliver better services for
students is a far more sensible option than
just banging on about the fees rise that will
now come, whether we like it or not.
This appears to be Aaron Porter’s
view too, though he’ll take stick for it. One
thing is for certain: a new stage has come
for Higher Education and, to Porter’s credit,
he has recognised it. Despite my defence
of his actions, I’m not about to beg him to
stay. The past few months have been internally
traumatic for the NUS, and Porter
will always be linked with that. Hopefully
the anger and resentment within the student
body towards its own leadership will
go with him. Because this new fight for
higher standards will be lost as well if the
boil is not lanced and the National Union
of Students cannot get past this exciting, if
challenging, episode in its history.