The Oxford Student
The University's Muslim community has good reason to feel hard done by this week. Chapels and churches dominate this city, often an integral part of the academic institutions of which we are part.
Those who adhere to Christianity, now obviously a small proportion compared to when many colleges were established, have virtually endless options for worship in chapels and churches across the city, yet our fellow students who are Muslims do not enjoy this privilege.
As our article on page three shows, Muslim students are forced to resort to praying in each other's rooms, with facilities in the city centre barely adequate, and the closest mosque on St Clements. In April this year Eton College saw fit to appoint an Imam, to help "increase awareness of the Islamic world" and it is about time the University followed suit. There would then be due cause to allowed the new figure the facility of a central prayer room.
The University is in danger of leaving itself open to allegations that it is failing to show such awareness and simply must wake up to the fact that it not only has a diverse student body (which it has already done admirably), but that this diverse student body has specific needs.
There is no excuse for Oxford not to provide a centralised facility that meets the spiritual needs of the University's growing Muslim community. It should listen to what the Islamic Society has to say, and ensure that it does not shirk from its duty of equal provision for all religions.
Boycotting the Saïd Business School will achieve precisely nothing. A petition over its foundation signed by 10,000 students when the facility was built was misguided then and Matt Sellwood's motion over holding events there is misguided now.
Wafic Saïd has consistently denied being an arms dealer. Whether he is or not is of no concern to this newspaper, although we do not, of course, advocate arms dealing. The fact remains that a world-class facility exists for students of this university and the donation of £20m would be as welcome from Saïd now as it was then.
The university is in such a dire financial position that money offered to extend the reach and quality of it's education should be welcomed, provided the University is confident its integrity is not compromised.
The Business School is a facility all students should be proud of, not a building for boycott, especially three years after its opening. Rent-a-quote Matt Sellwood's campaign, prompted by the fact that an OUSU-organised RAG conference is being held there (it still will be anyhow), seems nonsensical beyond petty sabre-rattling.
18th Nov 2004