Earlier today, Brian posted about Malia Bouattia, the newly elected President of the National Union of Students in the UK.
At the same NUS conference, students applauded motions not to commemorate the Holocaust.
But in the darkness comes this speech by non-Jewish student Olly Hudson of Cambridge, speaking out against antisemitism.
Olly has followed up with this Facebook post:
https://www.facebook.com/olly.hudson/posts/10206212003280972
This morning I had the chance to speak at NUS Conference on the motions for the NUS to recognise and condemn anti-Semitism in the student movement and to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. I’m not Jewish, but I wanted to offer a voice of support as an ally after a number of delegates called for the NUS *not* to commemorate HMD on the basis that it would be ignoring all other genocides. Let’s be clear. Arguing that oppression takes place in a zero sum framework is nonsense. By saying that we cannot recognise the struggles of one group until all other struggles have been overcome is the same derailing argument as the “all lives matter” response to the Black Lives Matter campaign. Anti-Semitism is the scourge of the student movement and the willingness of some to speak over the lived experiences of Jewish students in the most powerful forum of student democracy has both shocked and scared me. You see this stuff from Twitter trolls, but hearing it on stage at national conference is something else altogether.
