Hopes, Aspirations, Dreams, Plans

Boots Library, Goldsmith Street, Nottingham

Yesterday, the warm air hit you as soon as you opened the front door. As usual I was dressed for winter, but the warmth wouldn't last would it, so I didn't change. What a mistake.

Layers started to come off as soon as I left the tram at the Premier Inn, opposite the Boots Library in Goldsmith Street. That meant carrying a jumper and heavy top coat - will I never learn? The Premier Inn also houses a Costa coffee house, and I sat outside with my cappuccino watching part of the student world go by.

What will this generation of students achieve, or what will they be allowed to achieve? When I was watching those go in and out of the library; others having coffee with friends, and still others in groups large and small making their way into town, I wondered what hopes, aspirations, dreams, plans they had. I hoped that they had some, rather than just waiting to see what happens. These would be part of the next generation of scientists, educationalists, politicians, lawyers and whatever was their chosen field, and while university is also a time to enjoy yourself (or so I'm told), it is also the time to prepare for the future. No pressure there then.

How embarrassing

In making my way to the Arboretum to finish my coffee, I found scores of students (I overheard some conversations) who obviously preferred a sunny afternoon in the park, rather than an air conditioned library.

If I had the body for it I would have sun-bathed myself, but I don't so I didn't. I'm always afraid that some concerned citizen will ring up the authorities and say that somehow a whale has beached in central Nottingham.

You almost needed a ticket system to find a park bench, but I eventually found a free one overlooking the Chinese Bell Tower; it was worth the wait for its comedic value. There was a mixed group of about a dozen students sprawled over the tower having their lunch. Some of the lads were stripped to the waist showing off their six-packs, and obviously trying to get the female attention. They were like peacocks without the plumage. The funny thing is that the girls were paying more attention to what was on their mobiles, than anything that the lads got up to. With damage done to the male pride, some of the lads seemed to admit defeat, and did what many of us have done when we've been rejected, they had a game of football.

As an old man I was beginning to find all of this very humorous, but then I remembered that there's nothing new in this. Men have always postured to get the attention of others; always used their bodies as part of the mating rituals. I remembered that I was a bit of a poser myself in my youth, as the embarrassing photograph above of me shows. Girls were driven wild by my slim and cool exterior (Oops! Apologies, I've slipped into dreamland again; just like those on the Bell Tower cannons, I was more ignored than acknowledged).

The students were certainly having fun, and that's part of life. I also hope that they have dreams and plans, and that those come to fruition, not only for their benefit, but for the country also.

While still on the subject of students, I went into town today, and while walking down Bridlesmith Walk, I noticed a photographic exhibition by second year students from Nottingham Trent University, so I went in to have a look. Bridlesmith Walk is not exactly the mecca for "foot fall", but the exhibition had taken over an empty shop.

I was interested because a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in the town centre (yes, I know I do a lot of that), when a young lady came up to me and said she was a photography student who was taking photos of people in town, and would I mind if she took mine. I should have asked, "Why me"?, but I didn't, so I just said yes. I don't think that it was my physique that impressed her; I just hope that she doesn't put a caption like "Lonely old man on a city bench". But I wasn't in the exhibition.

I love photographs, and the student exhibition was very good. My eldest son is keen on photography, and you can see some of his latest pictures of London here. That's worth a pint by anyone's standards.  Good photography for me seems to be all about the eye; good equipment yes, but it's the eye that sees the image you want to capture. The NTU students had this, and the exhibition showed it.

Hopes, Aspirations, Dreams, Plans - what will the future bring?

Response to Students Boycotting Israel

This letter was posted on Archbishop Cranmer's blog, and I agree it should be circulated widely. I have posted it so that people can start using their brains.

A non-Jewish Scottish professor responds to his Israel-boycotting students

Scotland is known to have a slight problem with sectarianism, but the focus is invariably on Celtic-Rangers spats with the occasional demand to outlaw the singing of the Hokey-Cokey. Meanwhile, Scottish councils and universities pass their anti-Semitic motions with impunity.

The following letter was written to the Edinburgh University Student Association following their vote to boycott Israel and all Israeli goods because it is an 'apartheid regime'. Dr Denis MacEoin (a non-Jew) is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs. He is senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, and runs his own blog 'A Liberal Defence of Israel'. This letter merits dissemination far and wide, and certainly to every university in the country.

The Committee
Edinburgh University Student Association

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain’s great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves.

Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby. Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a ‘Nazi’ state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nüremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled things in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is. That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world centre; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran, the Baha’is (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran?

Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews – something no blacks could do in South Africa. Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home. It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief. Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak. I do not object to well documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it’s clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens. Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Baha’is... Need I go on? The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott.

I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930s (which, sadly, there was not), don’t you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it? Of course he would, and he would not have stopped there. Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense to you. I have given you some of the evidence. It’s up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin