Today I am writing to you, the apathetic faceless student.  First a history lesson, in 1947, after looking over his life’s work and his artistic stand against the Holocaust, W.H Auden lamented that “not one poem saved one Jewish life”. In the same year George Orwell wrote that being a socialist is somewhat like being a doctor treating a terminally ill patient. As I doctor you have a duty of care and you will have sworn to fight for the life of your patient, as a scientist you know his cause is hopeless. These men dedicated their lives to raising awareness of horror, tyranny and oppression. They both fought in the Spanish civil war, they both wrote against the rise of Hitler and warned against future despotism, they also both died broken and disillusioned men.

When considering student politics Orwell was almost right, the only difference is that the student body is not dying, merely drunk and the issues facing students today are not going to go away if you continue to ignore them. The question of apathy is never far away. It is the perennial excuse of the poor organiser. In my mind a student is only apathetic if they know an issue, understand an issue and still do not care. Indeed this is the paradox of student politics; on the one hand the age of information has ushered in an era where thousand of causes lie at our finger tips. With an appropriately placed double click you have access to a world of information. Never before has it been so easy to discover the plight of murdered Columbian trade unionists, to understand the oppression of the Burmese people or to comprehend war crimes in Lebanon, Palestine or Iraq.  Yet as a mass you’d rather spend time drinking, playing guitar hero and living up to the crude stereotype of student hood then attend a protest, or campaign on a war in some far flung foreign field which is all too likely to become forever England.  Perhaps it is understandable that you choose not to inconvenience yourselves for those you have never met in parts of the world you will never visit. However, worse still it would appear that your general state of indifference also applies to yourselves.

Trying to raise awareness of crucial issues, such as climate change or student fees, to the sleeping student body often resembles attempting to climb Everest with a tooth pick, not entirely impossible but an endless struggle where endless determination, immoveable belief and delusional optimism are essential.  It must be recognised that student politics is a reflection of wider society. What is felt on the corridors of campus soon reverberates down the corridors of power. If something is debated, and held to be true in our educational institutions then it is a microcosm of sentiment held in pubs, offices and homes across the country. The student body is a political litmus test for the rest of the population, save the students and you save the world. For generations students have been on the front lines of society shaping protests. Students led the way in standing against the war in Vietnam, in calling to ban the bomb, student demonstrations even brought even brought down the government of Charles De Gaulle in 1960’s France. Sadly it appears clear that Portsmouth 2008 is not 1960’s France.

Student politics has always been a demoralising past time. How many meetings have I been too where the attendance can be counted on one hand? How many national conferences have I attended where the turn out is tallied in the dozens not hundreds? How many action days have I taken part in where students tell me that would sign the petition but – insert generic reason here. Too many. Far too many.  For three years, first as student and now as sabb I have organised campaigns and awareness raising events ranging from Palestinian human rights, to top up fees. I’ve done so without political agenda or with the intention of converting you, but merely as it was the right thing to do. For three years I have witnessed your indifference and your spectacular inability to care. For three years I have endeavoured to provide opportunities, opportunities to understand, to learn, to make a difference. Opportunities you have spurned.   

It would of  course be wrong of me to right you all off, since I have been here I’ve witnessed and worked with small, dedicated groups of students ranging from People & Planet, Socialist Students, Respect and Labour societies who have been fighting the good fight and continue to bravely face the uphill struggle of “smashing apathy”. We all owe them a great debt. This open letter is not a self righteous rant, or a defeatist moan, it is merely a sober assessment, a final warning. A call for you to awake before it is too late.  As my three years of student campaigning comes to a close, I leave you to wallow in your apathy, to be consumed by your indifference and to be victims of the fate that awaits you for your inactions. Issues such as Student Fees and the creeping barrage against our civil liberties will not disappear merely because you ignore them, and people will continue to die, horribly and partly due to our own inaction as you choose to look the other way.

Perhaps Auden and Orwell were right; perhaps fighting the good fight against forces far outside of our own control is a doomed enterprise or perhaps we shouldn’t look to the disillusioned, but rather towards  Margaret Mead who famously wrote,

“You should never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, and that, indeed, it's the only thing that ever has”

Yours sincerely,

Ben Norman

Student Activities and Development Officer

In a change to the schedule I will be holding the next Society Executive elections BEFORE next year. So, the election will not be held at Presidents Day at the start of next year, but at a date to be decided in May. (Most likely 16th May). This is an oppotunity for all outgoing and incoming society commitees to be involved in the election and to stand. It will ensure new students know who are exec are before the year starts and it ensures some stabillity for the year ahead when I will not be here. So.. currently there are 6 positions...

Chair Person

 Hobbies Rep

 Activites Rep

 Political Rep

Cultural Rep

Religious Rep

The Exec are the main contact point between the Union and socieites, importantly they HOLD THE SABB OFFICER TO ACCOUNT making sure they do their job .. important for the year ahead. They organise inter-society events such as the carnival, they make sure that societes are represented in the highest levels of the Unions' democracy and have regular contributions to Union and Wider Media. So its a key job, and we need 6 good people to do it. To lead, to support, to represent socieites and to ensure that they grow and maintain their integral position within UPSU. P

lease E-mail me, if you are interested or one of your society members is interested and I'll will send out some more info.

Many thanks,

Ben Norman

Our Vice-Chancellor John Craven will be at hand, in a tuxedo-ed Dumbledore like fashion, to present five catagories of society awards and the individual bronze, silver and gold VIP awards.

This year the catagories are:

Best New Society
Overall contribution to the Union
Must Organised Society
Most Improved Society
Society of the Year
The One World Award

There will also be individual awards which will be presented to those students who have gone above and beyond to make UPSU the Union it is today.

To nominate yourselves or someone you think dseserves acknlowadgement then you can either submit a 300 word "Why I deserve this award..." to Ben.norman@port.ac.uk or Download the packs from the Society "info and help" page and nominate yourself or yoursociety now!
( http://www.upsu.net/getinvolved/societies/info )

Either way make sure you submit your nomination to me by the end of April.

Tickets for the event will also be avaliable to purchase after the Easter Break.

Good Luck,

Ben

Ben Norman, Aldermaston

If you were to look up Aldermaston on a map then you’ll see a quaint middle class village which more then likely calls itself home to people with names such as Gerald or Audrey. What you wouldn’t see on the map is Aldermaston’s worst kept secret. It is the home of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, AWE, the secret facility which researches, builds and maintains Britain ’s nuclear arsenal. Within this seemingly sleepy village, less then twenty minutes from Reading , there are weapons which could consign millions of people to nuclear inferno at the push of a button. This was why on a rain soaked bank holiday Monday thousands of protestors descended on Aldermaston to stand against the Government’s decision to re-new the Trident missile system, at a cost of £70 Billion pounds.

 

 Monday the 24^th March 2008 was a landmark day as it not only marked fifty years since the first Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CND, march in 1958 but was also in direct violation of recently passed Ministry of Defence by-laws which prohibit the right to protest and public assembly outside of the base. This protest was a continuation of the fifty year campaign against Nuclear weapons but also a mass statement of defiance against the constant erosion of our civil liberties. Both CND and Police spokesman approximated that 5,000 protesters attended the demonstration. They came from over fifty locations around the United Kingdom from the Scottish highlands of Aberdeen and Farslane, to Sheffield , London , Penzance and Portsmouth . The geographical diversity of the protesters was outshone only by the sheer range of groups from which they heralded. Christen Action Aid, Black Flag Anarchists, Socialist party members, Stop the war peace protesters and many more stood together against the continued construction of nuclear weapons. In 1958 10,000 people made the original march when the British Government first starting building the so called “deterrent weapon”.

As it was history which was being both marked and created it was fitting that history should be given a voice. Joining the protestors were a group of Japanese veterans who had survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Their presence and the speeches they gave to the assembled protestors brought home the key and often forgotten point. The issue of nuclear weapons is not an abstract idea it is not an argument detached from reality and the cost of such weapons is not only measured in sterling but in lives. There will always be arguments from those limited to yet well versed in the traditional narrative of history that the Atomic bomb was vital to the Japanese surrender and the end of the Second World War. Those more astute in history will know that Japan was on the verge of surrender anyway due to the horror of General Curtis LeMay’s devastating firebombing campaign. Hiroshima and Nagasaki shall be written into the pages of history as the first shots of the Cold War rather then the last of the Second World War, a macabre message to Moscow.  What is beyond doubt is that these weapons have been used, to devastating effect resulting in the murder of thousands of innocent civilians and there is no guarantee that they would not be used again today. Joining the veterans was John McDonald. McDonald, who recently challenged Gordon Brown in the leadership elections of the Labour party, stood upon the podium mounted onto a truck touring the base and told the protestors that they were the “conscience of the nation.” He also quoted fellow Labour renegade and CND stalwart Tony Benn, defiantly declaring that “Parliament is the past; the future is on the streets.” It was with fiery rhetoric that McDonald told the assembled protestors that if he had been elected as party leader then the Aldermaston facility would have been closed long ago. As it stands he challenged Gordon Brown to fulfil Britain ’s pledge to the nuclear non-proliferation by de-commissioning the war heads.

The case against the renewal of Trident is as conclusive as it is damming. Is there a need for such a weapon? Why is it deemed necessary for the United Kingdom of Great Britain to be able to consign millions of people to nuclear hell at the push of a button? There is of course the current international situation, those in favour of the weapon point to nations such as Iran or the phantom Al-queda threat and argue that a nuclear weapon is the only deterrent we have from being attacked. Obviously this is not true. Our nuclear deterrent did not deter the suicide bombers of 7/7 any more then the nuclear capability of the United States deterred the hijackers on September 11^th 2001. Even if terrorism is a clear and present threat to our security, the bomb is not the way to defeat it. Indeed it is the sheer indiscrimination of the weapon which makes it so barbarous. The bomb is not like a stray cruise missile or a misguided bullet where an innocent civilian can be deemed “collateral” damage by the Orwellian military spokesman. The bombs inability to distinguish military from civilian is inherent. If a British built mushroom cloud ever rises over an inferno in Tehran, Kabul or Riyadh then it would be a war crime without parallel and it would give rise to a new generation of terrorism. Those fearful eyes looking towards Tehran need to look closer to home. The threat of nuclear war does not come from nations who want the bomb, it does not come from nations who aspire to own the bomb, it comes from nations who have the bomb and have proved they can use it.  If America and Britain truly wish to win the hearts and minds of the world then they must fight the true enemies of the 21^st century such as global poverty and the climate change. You can not fight these wars with Cold War thinking and Cold War weaponry. Second to this is the sheer financial burden of developing such a weapon. It has been estimated that the government will spend over £70 billion pounds of taxpayer’s money over the next thirty years to build, install and maintain the weapon of mass destruction. It almost goes without saying that this money could be better spent. The Scandinavian nations invest just fewer than five billion euros a year for which they receive a free education system from nursery to University, all this while students in the United Kingdom collectively find themselves in millions of pounds worth of debt. This government needs to readjust its moral compass and revalue its priorities.  

Armed with these arguments and with just cause the five thousand protestors gathered together in defiance of the rain and sleet, they joined hands and formed a human cordon around perimeter fence of the fence, which spans five square miles. The protestors then returned to blockading the five entrances to the base for the rest of the day. Whilst the protest at Aldermaston was heralded as a success by CND organisers, not only for commemorating 1958, not only for the numbers of people in attendance, not only for the inter-party and inter-faith solidarity shown but also as a stand for all of our civil liberties. Whilst the protest was all of these things the campaign will not end there. CND and all those who believe that a better world is not only a possibility but a necessity, all those who stand indignant when their tax is being spent on the ability to massacre, as long as there are those who refuse to be silent in the face of crimes. As long as these people remain, and they will remain, then the sleepy town of Aldermaston will witness these events again and again, even if it takes another fifty years.   

The Union is on the verge of greatness, however, the future truly lies in your hands and in the choices you make this week in the sabbatical elections.

I want to see a better Union . I want to see a Union which stands for the Students, with the students. I want to see a Union which organises students, making students the solution to any problem they may face. I want to see a Union which goes out to engage the 16,000 students not currently involved in societies or clubs. I want to see a true campaigning Union which harnesses the power of the student body to be a real force for positive change. I want to see a Union which acts as a true welfare organisation that holds the University to account to ensure that you receive a high standard of education, a Union that acts as a defender of student welfare not only on campus but in the wider community. For example over 53% of students have part-time employment but very few know their rights at work. It is the task of the Union to step in, to ensure that students know their rights and that every employer treats students as they deserve to be treated. I want to see a Union which can support and represent the students as it should, that moves forward with clear vision and just cause. If you agree with this vision, if you want to see real progress and real change then cast your vote wisely in this election. Go to:

This site will show you the all-stars team:

Ben “Monkey” Norman : Presidential Candidate

Jenny “Smiles” Leggott: SADO Candidate

Sarah “Gum queen” Blatchford: Student Support Candidate

Steve “Godfather” Topazio:  Education and Representation Candidate

These candidates can make this vision a reality; these candidates have in fact already started. Between them these students have years of experience, volunteering their time to create some of the award winning aspects of the UPSU. They’ve organised RAG events, they’ve coordinated nationally recognised Volunteering projects, they’ve written training programmes, they’ve contributed to making this Union a true Union of the students. They are the only candidates with experience, they are the only students with clear vision and they are the only candidates who have already proven they can deliver it. All I ask is that you let us finish the job, that you allow us to display the same dedication and the same ethos of student ownership and democracy that we have shown to our roles, and apply these to the entire Union, because together we can build a better Union.

So when you go to the ballot box this week, when you cast your votes, make sure that you make the informed choice. Make sure that you get the sabb team and the Union that you deserve.

Ben “Monkey” Norman

Student Activities and Development Officer

(Presidential Candidate)

“Men do not shape destiny, destiny produces the men of the hour.” Imbued with revolutionary fervour and a strong sense of both history and purpose Fidel Castro wrote these words about his old comrade Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Throughout the nineteen fifties and sixties revolutionary passion ran high across Latin America and the third world. It seemed that history had chosen its moment and in return destiny had chosen the men for the hour. Che, the name has become synonymous with youthful rebellion, a syllable for revolution. His face is guaranteed to appear, like a modern messiah, at most left wing protests since he became martyred to the cause in the Bolivian jungle. Of course if you don’t see his face on a placard or poster its advisable to look at hats, wallets, handbags, T-shirts, calendars, clocks or just about anything else in the ever growing “revolutionary industry”, where you can buy off the shelf ideals and a revolutionary image for a couple of dollars.  There are times when you cannot help but be impressed with how capitalism has taken a man who spent years of his life locked in the bitter struggle of jungle warfare against imperialism, a man who paid the ultimate price for his ideas, how capitalism can take such a man and turn everything he stood for on its head by selling his image to an lethargic mass who largely know nothing of his struggle. Whilst Che may have this cult status, his comrade and commander Fidel Castro, who is largely responsible for nurturing this image, has not enjoyed such iconic status even though his mark upon history has, for better or worse, been far more significant.

This week Castro, who at the time of writing is the longest serving ruler of a nation, has formally resigned from his position of chair of the Cuban Communist party, relinquishing power to his brother Raul Castro. Raul is Fidel’s long serving second in command and it is widely believed that he will be ratified by party election on Sunday the 24^th February. Fidel Castro has been a controversial figure on the international stage ever since his small force landed in Cuba in 1956 to begin the guerrilla war which would end with the fall of the corrupt, and American backed, Batista regime in 1959. There has always been an inescapable romanticism associated with the Cuban revolution, forgetting for a moment the fact that they became the poster boys of radicalism, the Cuban revolutionaries carved for themselves one of the defining moments of the twentieth century.  After the revolution and the American government’s swift excommunication Cuba became allied with the Soviet Union and the small Caribbean island played a pivotal role in the Cold War, both in terms of strategic position and by exporting the revolution to African and Latin America.

When considering how Cuba has developed since the revolution it is crucial to remember that the Island does not exist in a vacuum, like everything else it is affected by the factors that surround it, namely a hostile superpower to the north and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 Cuba has suffered a full embargo by the USA meaning that nothing can be imported, or exported between Cuba and the USA, which until recently included US Dollars. This embargo, when linked to the 638 assassination attempts on Castro and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion has resulted in Cuba existing in a perpetual state of war in true siege mentality for the past fifty years. The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the USSR the Cuban economy was effectively propped up by sugar exports to Russia, the lack of which resulted in a further slump into poverty for the people.  From adversity comes ingenuity, to prevent the people from starvation the Castro regime has embraced the ideas of perma-culture, turning every garden and every ex- colonial estate into allotments, Havana is now the only self reliant city, which can entirely feed itself.  This of course may be more due to necessity then leading by green example, but it’s impressive none the less.

Now that he has stepped down the question remains, how will history judge Fidel Castro? His exiled opponents in Miami denounce him as a tyrant pointing to the one party state of Cuba, the lack of full democratic rights and the number of political prisoners. His allies, namely on the international left but who have included Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the writer Ernest Hemmingway, and film maker Oliver stone  will argue that he is a solider of ideals, a much needed dissenting voice in a world of western hubris. Whilst the revolution and the Cold war past of Cuba may be lionised by the left even Castro has acknowledged that times have changed. Castro is a personified image of the Cold War; he heralds from an era of rival superpowers and an epoch of espionage, indeed he survived 638 assassination attempts by the CIA. However, he also represented an age of hope and it is vital for the people of Cuba, and indeed Latin America as a whole that whatever the future may hold the hope that Castro and his comrades inspired is not extinguished.

As an aside: Good luck to all candidates standing in the UPSU elections this year! If your not standing make sure you vote, its your Union and its your time to choose who and how its run!

Imagine a country where it is compulsory to carry identity cards, a country where the police can stop and search at will and can hold suspects for ninety days without conviction. Imagine a country where the right to protest is abolished, where every aspect of one’s life is held on vast government databases, where the right to fair trial by jury is suspended and where suspects can legally  “disappear”. In this country being presumed innocent is a lost luxury. This is not a description of Belarus, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or any other dark corner of a foreign field. It is not a nation on the infamous “axis of evil” or denounced by our politicians, for it is a vision of Britain. This Orwellian vision of the future is no longer confined to fiction, and it is not a wild prediction of the distant future it is the state of things to come in 2009. 

If the report, partly reproduced in the Guardian, is accurate then we are about to witness a creeping barrage upon our civil liberties, with students on the front line of this assault. The proposed timetable stands thus, later this year foreign nationals will be expected to carry identity cards whilst by 2009 it is expected that those “in positions of trust” shall be forced to carry them. By 2010 the government, using the student loans system, will be in a position to collect the biometric information of over two million young people. The wider population will then also be expected to apply for identity cards as they will be compulsory for Passport or driving license applications. As we toast to the end of 2010 and the rise of 2011 we shall also be toasting to the end of our freedom and the beginning or a new era, and if this timetable succeeds, we may not even notice.

We must not allow ourselves to sleep walk into a police state. We cherish living in the age of information, an age with technology that can provide levels of communication never before dreamt of. However, it is with these measures that we will wake up in an epoch of surveillance.  No doubt we will hear the familiar cliché that “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to hear”; this argument of course magnificently misses a very dangerous point.  For all of the faults of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s premierships they are not dictators. We do not yet live in a police state, but that is not to say we will not. Measures such as these, rushed in by opportunistic politicians and granted by a fearful public, lay the foundations for future governments to display unparalleled levels of tyranny.  Imagine a Britain where a BNP government had these powers.  Today they come for those you fear; tomorrow they may come for you.

 We are the generation who allowed top-up fees, we are the generation who watched as our country entered an illegal war and now we are the generation who chooses to look the other way as we are striped of the liberties and our freedom. We are students, we are education, we are the future and we are on the frontlines of this assault and so it falls upon us to make a stand. Let us not throw away our freedom  or  forsake our liberty, let us be the generation who reclaims what is rightfully ours.

Do you have a view on ID cards? Necessary evil or the first steps to a police state? Make your views heard at ww.upsu.net

Imagine a country where it is compulsory to carry identity cards, a country where the police can stop and search at will and can hold suspects for ninety days without conviction. Imagine a country where the right to protest is abolished, where every aspect of one’s life is held on vast government databases, where the right to fair trial by jury is suspended and where suspects can legally  “disappear”. In this country being presumed innocent is a lost luxury. This is not a description of Belarus, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or any other dark corner of a foreign field. It is not a nation on the infamous “axis of evil” or denounced by our politicians, for it is a vision of Britain. This Orwellian vision of the future is no longer confined to fiction, and it is not a wild prediction of the distant future it is the state of things to come in 2009. 

If the report, partly reproduced in the Guardian, is accurate then we are about to witness a creeping barrage upon our civil liberties, with students on the front line of this assault. The proposed timetable stands thus, later this year foreign nationals will be expected to carry identity cards whilst by 2009 it is expected that those “in positions of trust” shall be forced to carry them. By 2010 the government, using the student loans system, will be in a position to collect the biometric information of over two million young people. The wider population will then also be expected to apply for identity cards as they will be compulsory for Passport or driving license applications. As we toast to the end of 2010 and the rise of 2011 we shall also be toasting to the end of our freedom and the beginning or a new era, and if this timetable succeeds, we may not even notice.

We must not allow ourselves to sleep walk into a police state. We cherish living in the age of information, an age with technology that can provide levels of communication never before dreamt of. However, it is with these measures that we will wake up in an epoch of surveillance.  No doubt we will hear the familiar cliché that “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to hear”; this argument of course magnificently misses a very dangerous point.  For all of the faults of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s premierships they are not dictators. We do not yet live in a police state, but that is not to say we will not. Measures such as these, rushed in by opportunistic politicians and granted by a fearful public, lay the foundations for future governments to display unparalleled levels of tyranny.  Imagine a Britain where a BNP government had these powers.  Today they come for those you fear; tomorrow they may come for you.

 We are the generation who allowed top-up fees, we are the generation who watched as our country entered an illegal war and now we are the generation who chooses to look the other way as we are striped of the liberties and our freedom. We are students, we are education, we are the future and we are on the frontlines of this assault and so it falls upon us to make a stand. Let us not throw away our freedom  or  forsake our liberty, let us be the generation who reclaims what is rightfully ours.

Do you have a view on ID cards? Necessary evil or the first steps to a police state? Make your views heard at ww.upsu.net

On the second of Febuary I will be taking students to lobby John Denham, the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills at his constituancy office in Bitterne.

We will be meeting up with students from Southampton, Reading, Oxford and Chichester to present Denham with petitions containing thousands of signatures from students calling against spirraling debt, against increased fees and for a fairer education system based on the abillity to learn not the abillity to pay.

Denham will be a key figure in Government when the top-up fees cap is reviewed in 2009. If the cap is lifted institutions such as Portsmouth will be free to charge anything from £3000 to £12,000 extra per year. This will push back equality in the education system back by a hundred years. We are calling for Denham to use his position to influrence the future of education to benefit both the students of today and the students of tomorrow.

Free transportation is provided:

9:30 - 10AM Gunhouse Carpark (Students' Union)

To secure your place contact me at: Ben.norman@port.ac.uk

2007 has been a busy year, a year of change, it has been a year of new problems and of new solutions. Now that 2008 is upon us the question must now be asked, what has your Union done for you in 2007 and, perhaps more importantly, what are we going to do in 2008? The following is a brief report about what has been achieved in the field of activities and development as well as my goals for the months ahead.

Before we continue I would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to the hard working permanent members of staff who strives hard to make this Union work and without whose support none of the developments mentioned below would be possible. Thanks must go to Steve Baker, Mike Cooter, Rena Ellis, Tracey Anderson and Cherylyn Cuthbert for their continued dedication to UPSU, especially in those areas mentioned below.

At Presidents day at the start of term I stated that the academic year 2007/2008 would be “the year of the society”, I predicted an increase in society representation, activity and ownership of the Union and urged those present to hold me to my claim. It is with great pleasure that I report that as of December 2007 the number of students who are signed up members of societies has now passed the 3060 mark, with 500 outstanding membership forms. This means that, provided those forms are returned, society members now outnumber AU club members, this makes societies the largest, most diverse and most representative group of students within the Union and a proud testament to everything the Union stands for.

Since I took office in July we have seen the establishment of many new societies and we have also seen a huge rise in society events. From the creation of the new Hellenic and Cypriot society who have hosted live football, and a very successful Greek night, to the outstanding events organised by the Hindu society. Finally these, and many other society events, are getting the publicity and the credit they deserve, not only from the wider media but also from UPSU’s new Pugwash news Newspaper created by media officer Alex Harries. Thanks to Alex societies now have the opportunity to raise their profile and show the world the great things they have done.

The Society executive, the body of 6 elected students who meet to represent and coordinate societies as well as hold me to account, has also had a radical makeover for 2007. A change in the roles and the direction of the exec means that there is now an elected representative for each category of society, from cultural rep to religious rep. The exec now works on developing the role of societies within the Union , ensuring that societies are represented at every level of the Union ’s democratic structure as well as helping to coordinate inter-society events. At the time of writing the society exec are busy drafting a new constitution, a new societies handbook and are looking to organise refresher’s fair and the societies takeover event, which could potentially be the largest social event ever hosted by UPSU.  

For more info on student societies have a look at:

Upon coming into office it appeared to me that it was the development aspect of my job role that was, ironically, the least developed. With the changes of higher education over the past few years student development has become of paramount importance. More students are going to University, this is arguably causing greater competition in the job market, therefore students need something to make them stand out, to separate them from the generic mass, they needed an opportunity to showcase their individual skills. My, and the Union’s answer to this question is STAND, student training and new development, a brand new training package which aimed to provide real tangible and transferable skills. The first semester has seen four training courses being written and presented by myself: Media skills, Campaign Coordination, Club and Society management and Train the trainer. I have been pleased by the turnout and the feedback and look forward to working with students to further develop STAND in semester two.

Each of the twenty four workshops can be found at: 

Alternatively I can provide them, and more info on how to get involved and how to write training of your own. Just get in touch at: Ben.norman@port.ac.uk

V.I.P, Volunteering in Portsmouth is the Students’ Union’s volunteering arm and it is an organisation of which I take great pride as it has grown to become a proud example of everything the Union stands for. Democracy, student ownership and altruism are the foundations from which VIP is built and has flourished. Throughout the year VIP has been transformed into an organisation run entirely for the students and by the students. This year we have seen more projects, with more student involvement. Such projects include the Santa’s little helper event which took place on the 8^th December. This event was attended by over 40 volunteers, a record number for this project. We also saw the first ever Senior Citizen Christmas lunch which was attended by 50 local residents. These large projects have been run simultaneously to regular smaller projects such as weekly trips to the Meadow house residential home, and regular visits to the Saturday club to work alongside Enable ability. The hard work of the Volunteers was given national recognition in December when VIP won the best team award at the National higher education volunteer awards. The award, presented in Wembley by Danny Wallace, is grand testament to the work of VIP and the continued drive to be a link between students and the local community. All credit for these developments must go to the VIP student committee, whose dedication to volunteering continues to astound, impress and inspire.  

If you would like more information on VIP, to get involved in the projects or to read the new volunteering handbook, please go to:

2008 is a year for optimism, and for good reason. Finally we are seeing the UPSU become a true reflection of the student body. There is however a lot of work still to be done. One of the greatest problems facing the students’ union, and indeed most other students’ unions is the student apathy. By this I do not mean that the blame lies with students, indeed the problem is that Unions do not understand how to engage with students. There is therefore a very pressing need for the Union to prove itself relevant to student life. In order to do this the Union needs to prove that it understands the problems that face students today, before proving that it can be a source of solution to those problems. Step one must be regular contact and communication between the Students and the Union who is supposed to represent, support and organise those very students. The Union ’s media arm is currently engaged in doing this but I believe that the Union must go out to the students, to the very grass roots, to talk to you the students about issues facing you. It is hubris for us to simply sit in the Union waiting for you to come to us, this must change. Throughout the year I will endeavour to push this ethos across everything the Union does, part of this effort will include regular UPSU travelling surgeries. This will see me, pitching up in various locations across campus in order to engage and talk to as many students as possible in order to bring the Union to you.  

• STARS

This is a new imitative which aims to act as a reward system by ranking societies and judging them on their contribution to the Union and the student experience. This is a project which is being planned as a joint project between the Society executive and the AU Exec. Currently there may be three categories, Bronze, Silver and Gold and societies and clubs will be awarded these standards if they, participate in Union democracy, advertise themselves in the media, hold successful events, attend STAND training. The intention is to provide a comprehensive system for society and club development. 

• Societies Takeover

One of the more ambitious projects for the Society exec this year includes the Society Takeover. Scheduled for February 22^nd an alliance of societies, led by Society Exec rep Jenny Leggott will be claiming their stake in the Union building by booking out the entire venue and using it to allow societies to showcase themselves. So far over 2o societies are signed up, and aim to make it the event of the year. If you want to get involved, join the facebook group or e-mail me.

Now that it has been established the campaign coalition will continue to go from strength to strength, incorporating more members, raising its profile and working together on new campaigns. The Fair Education campaign will continue to move forward and will build towards two key dates. On the second of February the coalition are organising transportation to Southampton to take part in a regional lobbying of John Denham, the minister for higher education. We will be working with our counterparts in Unions across the region to make this event happen and to allow students to voice their concerns to the highest levels of national government. I will also be working alongside Andrew Machin, our Education and representation officer to organise a debate between Vice-Chancellor John Craven and student representatives on the question of top-up fees.

I will also be working with the coalition and student support officer Kat King to organise an Activist academy in March. We will be pooling our resources and calling upon or extensive contacts to organise a day of workshops, guest lectures and films for all students from Portsmouth and across the region. It is our aim that this day will signify the transformation of Portsmouth into a strong campaigning union that not only stands up for students but also gives students the opportunity and the tools to stand up for what they believe in. 

In 2008 VIP will continue to build upon the success of 2007, my main initiative to ensure this is the application for external funding which is successful could guarantee the continued growth of volunteering projects. There will also be a concentrated effort on my part to grow the Environmental projects and to finally launch the Gorilla volunteering project.

So where do we go from here? It is only through your involvement that the Union can move forward, that it can be a true Union run for students and by students. It is essential that the gap is closed between the Union and the student body that via our media, our societies, our clubs and our course reps the Union reaches out to you the students. It is imperative that you in turn reach out and work with us. For it is only by working together that we can ensure that 2008 is the year of change, that 2008 is the year of true student representation and true student empowerment. It is only by working together that we in UPSU can ensure that you, the student, becomes part of the solution to whatever problems you may have and that the UPSU has a real, a relevant and a positive impact on the lives of each of the 20,000 students studying in Portsmouth. Today I pledge to you that with your support we will make this happen. 

Want to know more? Don’t like what I’m up too? Have a question, comment or other mental meandering? Throw me a line at:

Ben.norman@port.ac.uk

Or give me a ring:  02392 843659

Fascist. This is a word with sinister connotations. To mention it musters images which represent the darkest side of humanity. It brings to mind the jackboot, the goosestep and the gas chamber. Fascism is an ideology of hate which reached its peak in the 1930’s and, through a war which cost over fifty million lives, faced its destruction in 1945. At its height fascist flags flew over Hitler’s Berlin , over Franco’s Madrid and over Mussolini’s Rome . It is popularly believed that fascism was a European phenomenon, with Britain ’s only involvement being in its destruction. However, on Sunday October 4^th 1936 over 300,000 people of London’s East end rose up, stood fast and defeated the British Union of Fascists in what became known as the Battle of Cable street.

The fact that Griffin has been invited to speak at Oxford shows that the rules of the game have changed significantly since the dark age of the 1930’s. Whilst fascism has not changed as an ideology, the method of presenting it has changed dramatically. True the BNP do not openly publicise their Nazi roots and similarly the BNP is not as straight forward to identify as the National front of the 80’s and 90’s. Whilst their fascist beliefs remain the same, it is the method of presentation which has evolved. The BNP leaders of today are, publicly at least, not knuckle dragging and brick throwing skin heads, although these types exist sure enough and they continue to make up the rank and file of combat 18 and other neo-nazi groups including the BNP. Today’s BNP leaders are graduates of Cambridge and Oxford and so attempt to present a suited, smiling and electoraly acceptable face of fascism. Their style is more subtle and their messages are more complex but their hate and their lies remain the same. It may be intellectually lazy to constantly compare the BNP to Hitler’s Nazi party, however as Griffin claims that the roots of the BNP can be found in the fascism of the 1930’s it is worth pondering on the parallels. On Mein Kampf, Hitler’s own autobiography, Griffin states that “the chapter I most enjoyed was the one on propaganda and organisation - there were some really useful ideas there.”  So whilst to the cameras Griffin attempts to distance the BNP from its nazi legacy, privately he looks back to the dark days of European fascism with nostalgia. Indeed Griffin admitted in an interview in 2006 that the Nazi era has given “fascism a bad name” yet still works tirelessly to defend dictatorships of Hitler, Franco and Mussolini. One example of this would be the fact that Griffin infamously denies the Holocaust. In an interview Griffin once stated that “it's well known that the chimneys from the gas chambers at Auschwitz are fake, built after the war ended.” This distortion of history, this attempt to forget the deaths of six million innocent people is reflected in the BNP’s core beliefs arguing, as they do in their manifesto, that denying the holocaust should be a priority of the British education system.

In December 2006 I travelled to the London borough of Barking and Dagenham to take part in an anti-fascist protest. Barking and Dagenham has become the centre of the BNP’s recent election success, having recently elected twelve BNP councillors. At this protest, which coincided with the first public BNP rally in London for years, I was able to see the true face of BNP voters and I began to understand why someone would vote for a fascist party. Barking and Dagenham is an area which has suffered from the post-industrial decline of Britain . There is unemployment, there is poverty and there is crime. This despair is coupled with a growing sense that the main political parties offer nothing to the real man on the street. Indeed the big three parties are now narrow reflections of each other, there polices differ marginally and it is true that they are now t