Letters Page
So discussing international issues makes NUS irrelevant? This is rich coming from a newspaper which devotes its front page to the theft of a college cat and its editorial to its editors' loves lives. It is also just not true. What makes NUS irrelevant is its leadership's refusal to fight for students' interests. Where OUSU and many other student unions, for instance, call for free education and a non-means-tested grant to be funded through progressive taxation, Owain James and his mates are happy, nay eager to settle for a graduate tax. They see their job not as placing student demands on the government, but as balancing between the two. If the leaked story of a split between the Treasury and the DfES over means-testing had been followed by an effective NUS media campaign calling for a non-means-tested grant, imagine the impact it would have had. But even this would have been too radical for the so-called leaders of our national union. With regards to international issues, the student movement has a long tradition of international solidarity - from opposing the Vietnam war to campaigning against apartheid in South Africa - and it would be a great shame if this was not continued. In any case, rather than disaffiliating from NUS, Oxford JCRs should get more involved, and fight for an NUS leadership that puts students' interests first.
Lee Sergent, ex-New College and NUS National Executive Officer
Dear Editors,
I am writing in reference to your "Newsfight" column. Self-proclaimed "Tory Bigot" Anatole Pang regularly uses the piece to exude his own particular brand of belligerent inflammatory ignorance. But I feel that now both he and you, as editors, have wholly overstepped the mark. I understand that in your 7th February edition you were forced to censor Mr. Pang's original submission. Well if you kept him on the leash in that issue, then you certainly did not in your last edition. I take particular issue with his assertion that "of course we want the skills of certain migrants, such as owning and running of takeaways and corner-shops". I won't even bother explaining to you the problems I have with this remark. I am well aware that the column is supposed to provoke a response, so this is what I will give you.
I have no problem with the equal and unbiased reporting of all opinions in a student newspaper, no matter how unpalatable. However by giving Mr. Pang a regular platform to propagate his xenophobic rants you are effectively endorsing his opinions as acceptable opinions to regularly publish in your newspaper.
Maybe the column is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek and you only print Mr. Pang's opinions so they may be ridiculed. But these opinions seem to genuinely be the opinions of Mr. Pang and it is difficult to take his comments in good humour whilst knowing that they are sincerely meant.
It is even more ironic that all of this comes on the back of OUSU diversity week. I'm sure you think it's oh-so-wonderfully-daring and oh-so-marvellously-audacious to publish such a risqué column. But it's not. It's not big, it's not clever, and quite frankly, as editors you should know better.
Yours Sincerely,
Don Ratnayaka New College
Dear Sir/Madam
Whilst I am aware that university social events may be of some vague interest to those people reading the Oxford Student cover to cover in a desperate attempt to avoid their impending essay crisis, I was disappointed by the inclusion in your otherwise excellent paper of a lengthy column about one poxy drinks party hosted by the Christ Church Cardinals. Who cares if the event was under-attended? I was curious to know why the OxStu included rare coverage of a frankly unexceptionable social event; I haven't noticed any coverage of, say, O.U.R.F.C. Captain's Cocktails, nor, for that matter, other random events such as Vinnie's Cocktails, European Affairs Society Cocktails, L.G.B. Cocktails, or any old piss-up at the Union on a Thursday night. Then I realised its purpose in being there: Amanda Plimmer's paragraph-length advertisement for next term's Cardinals Cocktails. Is Ms. Plimmer gaining a cut of the profitsfor her product-placement?
Yours,
Anna Brunskill St. Cross College
The author of the best letter will receive a pair of free tickets to see the film of their choice at the Phoenix.
21st Feb 2002