Students Threaten To Leave NUS Over Malia Bouattia Appointment
In a decision marred with controversy, Malia Bouattia has been elected president of the National Union Of Students in the U.K.
I first learned the name Malia Bouattia when she prevented a motion to condemn global terrorist organisation ISIS on the grounds of 'Islamophobia'. As reported by Douglas Murray in The Spectator:
…the Black Students officer Malia Bouattia declared that the condemnation of Isis consisted of ‘blatant Islamophobia’, and was a shill for ‘pro USA intervention’ to boot.
In fact the motion – which you can read in full here – is absurdly weakly worded, and rather typically over-heavy on its anti-Americanism. But not enough so for Ms Bouattia and the Black Students section of the NUS, who have now succeeded in stopping any condemnation of the most racist, sectarian group of our time.
Jewish groups and students alike have also voiced their concerns about anti-Semitism based on comments made by Bouattia. She had previously warned of ‘mainstream Zionist-led media outlets’ and described Birmingham University as ‘a Zionist outpost in British higher education’.
It’s also a cause for concern that her appointment was met with such glowing endorsement by a member of MPAC:
MPAC is actually banned from speaking at Universities due to their track record of anti-Semitism. Some of you may remember Reza Nadim for his inability to condemn stoning people to death and his claim that ‘Israel is 100% worse than ISIS’.
You may also remember the leader of the group, Asghar Bukhari once claim that his missing shoe was best explained by way of 'Zionist' thieves.
Malia thanked Nadim for his support, but would later claim to have no knowledge of his association with MPAC.
As the BBC reported today, students from a number of universities are threatening to dissociate from the NUS over the appointment of Bouattia and the failures of the NUS in general.
The mission statement of the the NUS is as follows:
“We promote, defend and extend student rights. We fight discrimination, isolation and injustice.”
I imagine many will be keeping a close eye on Bouattia to make sure she makes good on that pledge.
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