SOAS Students' Union

Infobox Students Union
name = SOAS Students' Union
established = c. 1920
institution = School of Oriental and African Studies
location = Russell Square, London, UK| members = c.4,500
affiliated = National Union of Students, British Universities Sports Association, ULU, National Postgraduate Committee
homepage = http://www.soasunion.org

SOAS Students' Union is the students' union for the School of Oriental and African Studies. Its officers are elected democratically on an annual basis, and it is the official representative body of students at SOAS.

Within the students' movement SOAS Students' Union is known for being the most radically left wing student union in the UK. It has for a long time campaigned on progressive causes such as Palestine and human rights in the War on Terror.

Its controversial political stance has also caught the attention of Israeli and UK media, with its stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sometimes resulting in accusations of anti-Semitism.

SOAS Students' Union and Goldsmiths Students' Union were believed to be the only students' unions that engaged in occupations of their buildings when tuition fees were introduced by the UK Government in 1999.

Its Honorary President for the academic year beginning 2006, is Aung San Suu Kyi, who succeeds Ken Livingstone.

The students' Union also runs the school's bar, a number of societies, including political parties of all spectrums, human rights groups, environmental groups, drama and leisure groups such as the Politics, Port and Stilton society, and sport societies ranging from Basketball, to Polo, to Climbing and Mountaineering.

Union Aims

The aims and objectives of the Union are:
* to act as an official organisation promoting the interests of its members, and in particular to
**develop, foster and promote the cultural, intellectual, social and athletic recreation of its members;
**develop, foster and promote the education, welfare and general interests of its members;
**act as a channel of communication between, and represent the interests of, its members to the School and to any other bodies which may affect its members;
*endeavour to provide such non-commercial services as may from time to time be`required by its members;
*develop and foster among its members the formation of clubs

Union Organisation

The Union has two layers of decision making the executive and the UGM

The Executive Committee consists of 3 sabbatical Co-Presidents and 16 part time officers. The executive officers are elected annually in the beginning of March.

The supreme policy making body of the Union is the Union General Meeting or UGM. On this body all students have the vote. The Union must hold at least one meeting every term.

Union Executive 2008/2009

Co- President Finance and Communications: Nizam Uddin

Co- President Welfare and Education: Marya Ahmed

Co- President Sports and Societies: Ben Sellers

Union Services

The union has its headquarters at the main Russell Square campus, with welfare support and clubs and society support. The same campus also contains the bar and the Union shops. It also runs the Junior Common Room and the Senior Common Room.

At Vernon Square it runs a common room and rooms for society events.

Union History and controversies

Established in the 1920s, the Union has played a vital role in SOAS life. The left-wing politics of the Union curiously first developed during the Second World War, when SOAS became a training ground for the army.

In 1957 the Union raised funds to support Hungarian refugees from the Hungarian uprising against the Soviets. In 1968, during the height of conflict on campuses across Europe and America, the union successfully managed to boycott the School catering services over the price of tea, resulting in the School capitulating to the protestors’ demands.

In 1971-72 it was discovered that the Union Treasurer had been embezzling funds. This resulted in court action with the Treasurer being sentenced to a short term in prison. Also in 1971-72 the Union appointed its first Sabbatical Officer, which led to a degree of stability with the union being given membership of a number of committees.

The 1970s national fees debate led to an occupation of the Registry. SOAS took out a legal injunction on 32 students, and the Students' Union Secretary, Patricia Singh. Three students and Patricia were subsequently charged with breach of the injunctions and faced imprisonment. All charges were eventually dismissed in court.

Towards the end of the 1970s the SOAS Students' Union became arguably London's leading Reggae venue. The resurgence in popularity of reggae during the 1980s was reflected in the Union’s events during this decade.

The Union also hosted American New Wave Rock acts such as Tad, Soundgarden, and Nirvana, who held their first ever London performance at the School. The School discontinued these events, apparently due to the untidy state that the facilities were left in after the gigs. It was said that revellers had urinated in the main corridor on more than one occasion.

In 1988 the Suudents Union elected Winston Silcott an honorary life member of the Union. A black British man, he was wrongly convicted of the murder of a policeman during the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot in London. His conviction was quashed in 1991 after forensic tests suggested that confessions by Silcott and other members of the Tottenham 3 had been fabricated.

In 1991 the Union gained another Sabbatical Officer. The first of the 1990s occupations occurred in 1990 with a 24 hour occupation called the night before a demonstration against Student Loans. In 1993 the Library was occupied over book shortages and library fines. After three nights the School capitulated. Fines were, however, reinstated in 1996

In 1994 the Union ran several highly successful open meetings with representatives from Palestine and the Irish Nationalist movement Sinn Féin.

1997 saw the Union demanded more money from the School, while the SOAS authorities forced the Union to replace a sabbatical officer with a member of staff (who now has the title ‘General Manager’). The Union also suffered a credibility blow amongst students, with an attempted no-confidence vote against the Finance Co-President. The School refused to release funds without going through the School's finance department. Later that year there was another library occupation. This time it concerned the School refusing to buy Senate House library tickets for students. A compromise was reached after court orders had been obtained. An Indian student who participated in the protests wrote a memorable piece on the occupation for New Left Review journal. [http://newleftreview.org/?getpdf=NLR22311]

In 1999 the last of the occupations occurred in the administration offices, this time over tuition fees. This occupation was not fully supported by the majority of students. With only just enough students in the Union General Meeting (UGM) to constitute a quorum (50), the occupation ended when the organisers decided to have a party to swell numbers. The School discovered their plans, and shrewdly sent in the bailiffs to remove them at the end of the party when everyone was seemingly too drunk or tired to resist. The following UGM had over 400 students attending and had to be held outside. They voted against an occupation. This resulted in the School breaking the Union's pattern of occupations, with SOAS witnessing no more occupations since that time.

Since 2000, relations with the School have improved somewhat, with occasional tensions. In 2001 the Union was given voting rights on the School's governing body.

In 2005 the Union was engulfed in anti-Semitism allegations by the media over its views on Israel. This was strongly denied by the Union, who claimed that legitimate criticism of the State of Israel was being wrongly labeled as racist by a small number of students for political purposes. The then leader of the Jewish Society, Gavin Gross, was criticized for using his contacts in the Press to attempt to portray the School as institutionally biased against Jews (Curtis, 2005). Bengal Brown identified this to be a tactic used by aggrieved Jewish students against the University of Sussex more recently.

This sparked a row over free speech in the school, which was further inflamed by the censure of an Islamic student for defending the use of violence by Palestinians against the Israeli people as a whole. However most students remained uninvolved in these controversies. The union invited some sections of the media to visit to see the school for themselves. When they did, the union said they found the students were not anti-Semitic, but the papers failed to print it.

The Union and academic staff also claimed that Muslim students who expressed criticism of Israel were being singled out, hounded and castigated as ‘extremists’ and anti-Semitic, in a general media frenzy which was Islamophobic in origin.

On 18th July 2007, Ed Husain, a former SOAS student and author of "The Islamist", criticised the SOAS Union on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme for failing to act against the 'Open Mind Society', which he claimed was a front for the group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The SOAS Bar

The SOAS bar was for some considerable time one of the most famous students' union bars in the country due to frequent incidents of drug use within it. Control has passed between the school and the union a number of times. It was finally handed back to the union in August 2001.

The rate of drug use in the bar resulted in raids by the police a number of times during the 1990s. The issue came to a head in 2005 when the government introduced a new licensing law that gave local authorities new power over alcohol sales. Fearing that the licence could be potentially withdrawn, the Students' Union decided to make the bar smoke free. Another factor causative of this was school management’s new requirement to make all of SOAS smoke free.

The SOAS Students' Union has recently opened its new Smoking Area, after 2 years of planning/constructing mayhem, with access straight from the bar.

Clubs and Societies

The union boasts some 106 clubs and societies, a rather large range considering the small size of the School. It has, however, far more non-sporting clubs than sporting clubs. There are only 4 competitive SOAS sports clubs. The teams compete in BUSA and in the University of London leagues.

References

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* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4323575.stm BBC News: Mayor Ken Livingstone elected honorary president]
*cite episode
title = Ed Hussain, former member of a radical Islamic group and author of "The Islamist" has been looking into new methods being employed by radical Islamic groups to recruit university students.
episodelink =
series = Today Programme (BBC Radio 4)
serieslink = Today_programme
airdate = 2007-07-18, 07:32
season =
number =