Islamists team up with trots to make Ken president of SOAS

soas student | 04.03.2005 16:04 | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles | London

The SWP and a group of Islamists managed to force through a motion in SOAS student union today to make ken livingstone honourary president of SOAS.

In spite of the fact that Vanunu was proposed as an alternative, on the grounds that it would bring greater publicity to Palestine issues and his detention by Israel...trots and islamists used every trot trick in the book to force through the motion.

At the end of the aggresive discussion, they changed the constitution from needing a 2/3 majority to make Ken President, to a 50% majority, because they were worried they'd lose the vote. (Which they clearly would have done)

Jewish members of the Student Union who supported the motion to make Vanunu President, and who also campaign for Palestinian rights, were shouted down and heckled.

maybe the trots think that if they do ken a favour, he'll give them more government money for some trot event or other.

Fuck wits, the lots of 'em. Viva viva Anarchy!

soas student

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04.03.2005 16:38

I find this report hard to believe as the SWP are not particular fans of Ken Livingstone and would see no reason for him to be a good candidate for honorary president, I suspect that this post is bullshit as probably both Islamists and trotskyists would rather Vanunu be president

Antonius Cliffus Jnr.

???

04.03.2005 18:50

What the fuck is up with IM at the moment, lods of bullshit posts that take time to prove wrong. It seemed like just the usual trolling at first but there is more and more. Spooks ?

IM user

On a quick search i found...

04.03.2005 20:20

that there indeed was a motion, see:

EUGM 4th March 2005: PROPOSED MOTION: TO APPOINT KEN LIVINGSTONE AS SU HONORARY PRESIDENT
(

http://www.soasunion.org/main/yourunion/ugm?#Element1292)

the proposer was: "Jamal El-shayyal", and there is a member of FOSIS of this name, see an example mention here:

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=4672&mid=&grp=7&cat=31
(FOSIS, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, is the premier Muslim Student representative body.)

the seconder was: "Henna Malik" - there is a person of this name who is from the "School Students Against War" (see:

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/glastonbury.asp), who is also mentioned on the swp site at:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=3996

at present this sort of backs up the original post. having said that, their is no mention of Vanunu, or the outcome of the motion on the soas su web site yet.

Nothing Bettertodo

Maybe they did Maybe they didnt...

04.03.2005 21:31

Who gives a toss!!

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that swp students did anything though.

So let's see who can confirm this then? Or does anyone care?

????

why not

04.03.2005 23:58

given how close to livingstone the swp slept in the esf and their electoral ambitions, i wouldn't be too surprised.

sarah

load of tosh

05.03.2005 13:41

my guess that this has been posted by Alliance workers liberty.the the AWL hates the fact that the STWC teamed up with muslims and they were against this formation from the start. the AWL have nothing to do with the STWC due to their position , the AWL are really fucked by this and in-fighting and bitterness has arised in within their small fraction.

it would be highly unlikely that swp would make any efforts to support livingston, he is not particularly liked person in the world , most recently he denounced underground strikers which no swper would support and would not like to be identified with him. more evidence is required.

in the know

LOL

05.03.2005 13:52

lol.... noone cares!

Always remember - it was the spooooooooks and the Jooooooooz wot dunnit!

Wicksy

Stupiditiy is just typical of students

05.03.2005 14:42

Stupidity is just typical of students! That is until they graduate and grow up. It should be remembered that people like Jack Sraw was once one such stupid student who campaigned against the Vietnam War. But when he left he grew up and got into real politics and eventually became one of the leading members of the Labour Party, which is proof that people do get wiser and grow out of their childish ways as they get older.

Students should also remember that they are there at the tax payers expense and are their to study so that when they leave they can do important jobs that need to be done. They should realise that they are not at a holiday camp, though the amount of partying that goes on these days at universities many must think so. They should either get involved in serious party politics or else leave politics alone altogether until they have left university!

ex student

Why we did it

12.03.2005 20:01

Hello! man, i used to love coming on IM as a relief from the disgustingly bias news that surrounds us, now all i ever seem to read about is how much everyone hates the SWP. I know they piss a lot of people off including myself, but i think we need to realise who our real enemy is! and currently its not the SWP but those making the lives of billions around the world an absolute misery! And id like to hear more Blair bashing, Bush bashing, Chirac bashing, Putin bashing and so on!

anyway to the point as one of the students involved in the Ken campaign and a close friend of Henna - the seconder, i can tell you the SWP, which she is a member of but not really active in anymore, were not backing the idea at all! they wanted Vanunu, who she has met and endlessly talks about! but the prob was timing. If Vanunu was suggested before, it is 99% certain he would have been elected! but by the time the EUGM came about it was too late! people were convinced we needed to stand up for him as our so-called representative body the NUS had shunned him! it became a kind of battle against the zionist who claimed he was a anti-semite and fought for Nelson to be made Pres, and the vanunu suggestion came after that fierce battle, from which most people had decided to support ken. I have talked to some of the students and we were thinking of making our first campign of the year focused on getting Vanunu elected as joint Honourary pres!

so to round off, it wasnt a coalition of 'islamists and trots' but more a coalition of students pissed off with the right wing medias constant attack on those who dont conform to murdochs belifs!

peace.

Insider