UCL Union Welcoming General Meeting 2004

I went to UCL Union's Welcoming General Meeting today. It's like an AGM, but is at the start of the year and is aimed at freshers.

Aside from the fairly unremarkable introduction to the Union, there were three motions discussed at the meeting. The first was a simple motion urging UCL Union to support, in some vague sense, London's 2012 Olympic bid. I thought this would be uncontroversial, but there were objections from various people that a) the UK is rubbish at running big events, and they end up costing loads (Wembley Stadium, Millennium Dome, etc), b) that the North should be hosting it as we're already too London-centric and c) that the Olympics is too commercial and corporate (with a dubious quote that in one Olympics, spectators weren't allowed to wear Pepsi baseball caps as it was sponsored by Coca-Cola). So, the motion sadly fell (though it was fairly tight).

Up second was a motion condemning Professor Honderich for publishing a web page entitled Terrorism For Humanity on his UCL webspace. The article discusses the moralities surrounding suicide-bombing, and the harming and targeting of civilians, concluding that not all terrorism is immoral. The motion called for UCL Union demands that the UCL Provost to distance himself from this view, and for UCL Union to demand 'clear guidelines' on the use of personal web space from the IT department.

Like most of the people there, I strongly disagreed with the motion. It's important to allow academics, particularly philosophers, to publish their work and ideas, however controversial their opinions may be. The only exception would be if such work was illegal, eg by counting as 'inciting racial hatred'. Even in this case though, it would be down to the police to take action (or UCL to take pre-emptive action or legal advice). Not really an issue for student unions. The proposer was a Jewish student, who couldn't attend because of a Jewish holiday, so there wasn't much of a debate with him (other than an e-mail which he had passed on to be read out). The motion fell.

The final motion was for UCL Union to publicise the European Social Forum, which is happening in London soon (partly on the UCL Campus). It was made clear that UCL Union would not be supporting the aims or objectives of the event, but simply publicising it as an interesting event which students might like to get involved in. There was a bit of discussion (and some tedious procedural motions) on the different mandates (to send a mass e-mail, approve a banner to be hung up, and approve distribution of flyers) - but in the end the motion was passed in its entirety.