Ma'an Students Together: Positive feedback from visit to SOAS

Fri, 14th June 2013 - We had a very successful meeting with SOAS Student Union officers to bring up a discussion on our ultimate aim for this project; the student twinning. The meeting was attended by 3 full-time student union officers, SOAS SU Campaign officer, representative from SOAS Radio and a committee member of Palestine Society, and of course the Ma’an team!

This friendly dialogue was mainly focus on what does 'student twinning' means and to explore the key areas on how to make 'student twinning' meaningful and effectively beneficial to both sides; the Palestinians and the UK students in the long-term prospect.

The meeting started with introduction on how student union in the UK and Palestine in general work, we talked and shared both its similarities and contrast. We are grateful to have a Palestinian student who in fact studying Master in Political Science to provide us greater insight in relation to student political movement in Palestine.

Twinning - Among the ideas generated was to work on society-to-society-based, linking up students on area of expertise for instance on media and communication area where students from both sides can exchange their ideas and works so as to promote deeper understanding on Israel/Palestine conflict. This particularly was brought up following sharing by the SOAS radio representative and one of the Palestinian students (Huthaifa) on their works. Huthaifa show us his media and tv works covering protests in the west bank which is unusual and rarely seen by the British students, this is interestingly brought us to imagine the sort of collaboration that can be achieved through twinning for instance in the aspect of translation, editing, publicity etc. We are also very pleased to know that the editor of SOAS student newspaper is in fact a Palestinian! Other area that can be explored and discussed; law and human rights, which crucially important such as Israel warcrimes of imprisonment of Palestinian minors.

Al-Quds University, Jerusalem

Protest in West Bank

However, one of the issues which is the main concern is sustainability. Often due to the nature of university students that come and go, the works done by previous students may have not known or forgotten by fresh students. We thought that this is where the student union could play its active roles, we argued that twinning should be put into annual agenda of the union, of promoting and encouraging all areas in the university to optimise mutual collaboration between UK and Palestine.

We understand that in doing this, as a democratic movement, the union needs to be able to get a substantial vote, in which a motion will have to pass through during the AGM enlisting the objectives and strategy for twinning. To add, it also has to come from the students themselves, as this is the force that shape the direction of the union. In doing so, effectively the work now should be focusing in cooperating with the Palestine society to make the matter above into reality.

It is to be noted that SOAS as a pro-Palestine institution is a unique case, its tremendous overwhelming support on Palestinians cause brings joyful tears to the Palestinian students who attended this meeting. It is to be hoped that the cooperation between SOAS students and Palestinian students will continue to prosper, it is the time that the present strong bonding will be taken up to another level so as we could work effectively to fight injustice in Palestine.

We look forward for the next university visits on Monday, meeting students from UCL, Goldsmith’s, City and Islington. More to come...In sha Allah.

In the meantime, we leave you with one entertaining video of Huthaifa. We had a great laugh during the meeting due to this video. Enjoy!