What Is Education For, Then?

The OCCUPATION is OVER:
GAZA is STILL the ISSUE
CAMBRIDGE GAZA SOLIDARITY – OPEN MEETING
THURSDAY 19th FEBRUARY
7.45 – 9.45pm
LATIMER ROOM, CLARE COLLEGE, OLD COURT

You saw/read/heard about the Law Faculty occupation a few weeks ago.

This is your opportunity to find out more about this important campaign to advance education in, and dialogue with, Gaza, reaching far beyond the Law Faculty. The meeting will involve discussion around the future direction and campaigns of Cambridge Gaza Solidarity.

Find out what has been happening since the student occupation finished,
ask questions,
get involved.
This IS a student issue.
We want to hear from YOU.
SPEAKERS include:
Dr Christina Devecchi – on ‘What is Education For, Then?’
Prof. Priyamvada Gopal – on ‘Student and Academic Responsibility’
Franck Magennis – Student Activist, LSE, on the national movement
And more
PLUS speakers from Cambridge Gaza Solidarity
FOLLOWED BY an open discussion on our actions as students to aid those in Gaza and the future direction of Cambridge Gaza Solidarity.

cambridgegazasolidarity.blogspot.com
cambridgeoccupation@live.com
Facebook: OCCUPATION CAMBRIDGE

National Demonstration for Free Education

National Demonstration for
Free Education

This year will see threats to lift the cap on tuition fees. Student unions and activists from around the country have come together to march on a national demonstration in London against all fees.

Join us in the fight
for free education!

- SCRAP ALL FEES
- FREE EDUCATION FOR ALL- A LIVING GRANT FOR EVERY STUDENT
- EDUCATION, NOT PROFIT

Speakers:
- Tariq Ali
- John McDonnell
- Student activists from across Britain and Europe
- Representatives from NUT, UCU and RMT

Coach leaves Cambridge at 10am from Parker’s Piece, Returning at around 6.30pm
Tickets £5 each
email: he-funding@cusu.cam.ac.uk

If you're coming from somewhere other than Cambridge, Meet 12 noon, Wednesday 25 February, outside University of London Union, Malet Street.

Free education is more worth fighting for than ever before: clearly, the costs of marketised education are going to keep going up and up if we keep accepting it at all.

Israel-Palestine

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7890977.stm

http://www.bicom.org.uk/news

http://www.ynetnews.com/home/1,7340,L-3341,00.html?SearchType=TopNav&criteria=&sog=&keyword=&hdnSearchTrajectory=&txtSearchString=hamas&q=&client=pub-5997776081861329&forid=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en&txtChanID=3083&select1=Site

http://english.aljazeera.net/Services/Search/Default.aspx

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2001/israel_and_the_palestinians/profiles/1654510.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7818022.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7818022.stm

I've Been Thinking

Never a good sign, I know. BUT. Some basic facts about the world have been bothering me:

- People are not equal, either in terms of opportunity to gain resources or in allocation of those resources;

- People frequently get killed in large numbers for stupid reasons;

- There is immense suffering in the world affecting millions of people RIGHT now, due to inequality, conflict, historic developments, bureaucratic blunders, greed, power struggles, etc.

- A minority of the world has loads and loads of benefits, but a really high rate of depression and other mental health problems.

-We are in the midst of perfectly avoidable economic and environmental crises; Britain alone is embroiled in two perfectly avoidable wars; Britain and America seem to have decided that their role in the Arab-Israeli conflict is to make sure that Israel can do whatever the hell it wants, but that nothing constructive actually gets done to achieve peace FOR BOTH SIDES.

- Some of the people I know care about the above listed facts. Some of them are even trying to do something about them. But the vast majority seem either not to have noticed, not to care, to like the world as it is, or to feel that they have no right/responsibility/ability to do anything about any of it.

- It seems quite standard for people to randomly identify ethnic groups as responsible for some or all of the above, rather than noticing that it's a question of basic inequality, unsustainability and injustice worked into the very fabric of society at local, national and international level.

Anyone got any ideas on how to make sense of/do something about any or all of the above???

Those Thoughts on Nationalism

OK, I'm angry now. How have we managed to create a situation where the Israel-Palestine conflict is so 'sensitive' that, no matter how many people get killed, you get villified if you don't remain neutral??? Why is condemnation of the actions of the Israeli government seen as implicit support for Hamas? Hamas is unfairly and disgracefully firing rockets at innocent people, so Israel decides to unfairly and disgracefully bomb the group of people they've trapped inside the most densely populated scrap of land in the world, and it's all Hamas' fault? It's anti-semitic to expect Israel to take responsibility for her actions, and not just point the finger at the nasty terrorists? What's the big distinction between Jews and Palestinians in the first place? Am I meant to care more when Israelis die than I do when Palestinians die? Dead Palestinians are collateral damage, dead Israelis are unforgivable crimes that justify lots of dead Palestinians, is that the idea? I'm a bad Jew because I think this whole thing is intolerable? Oh, wait, I'm not quite Jewish, am I? Not practising, not quite pureblood, so who am I to say that, as a Jew, I don't want this to be happening in my name? Am I allowed to say that, as a student, I don't want my unions and my university acting as if everything's fine, and it's just bad luck that the violence keeps escalating, and escalating, and escalating, but just mentioning the word Hamas makes everything Israel does OK???

Or should I just put my head down, get on with my studies, and ignore the fact that if I was in Gaza my university would have just been bombed and attempts to send aid being blocked by the claim that it would just fuel Hamas' terrorism??? Should I pretend that a 'Jewish state' is a perfectly reasonable thing for a persecuted people to want, and not racist? Am I not allowed to criticise my own government and other governments and expect the world to do better than a murderous, bloody apartheid situation?

A Song

http://www.seizetheday.org/music.cfm?trackID=43&albumID=3&alphabet

Listen to the words. Comment with song recommendations of your own. xx