arafo blog

Hey, sorry it has been a while, I have had a few technical issues when it comes to being able to blog

1. I WANT TO SAY HUGE WELL DONE
A huge well done to the interfaith association and all faith societies involved in the around the world in 8 faiths, literally was so happy to see this go on and be beneficial and get students involved, this is exactly what the guild should be enabling to help. Jonathan Smith, campusalaam, needs a huge congratulations for this also, I hope this can go on next year and expand to even greater heights

2. ANOTHER WELL DONE
I’d like to congratulate Hannah on becoming the new ARAF, she will continue to strengthen this position and find her own way to take it forward and make her stamp, I am very excited

I have just received this message via email and I really am amazed and astonished that such an act of ignorance and inappropriate behaviour has occurred on our campus:

Hi Ben,
Could you make sure this message gets to the right people.

I was praying Mincha (the Jewish afternoon prayer) on campus at about quarter to 5 this afternoon, in the corridor between the P6 and P9 computer rooms. As I was praying, facing a door, I saw in the reflection from the glass panes in the door a student walk behind me and imitate the way many Jews pray, bowing up and down. I wasn’t praying in this way, but the student clearly thought it would be funny to imitate this practice regardless.

After I had finished my prayer, I approached the student outside the rooms and told him what I had seen and asked for an apology and an explanation. He at first denied the incident, but when I threatened to take his name and report him he apologised and said he did not mean to offend me.

I was deepy upset by this incident because up till now Birmingham has been a very comfortable place to study. Today I felt uncomfortable being a religious Jew on campus and was saddened to see intolerance and a mockery of my religion under my nose. The university clearly supports many freedoms, but today I saw a student who felt it funny to mock my religion, or at least one of its religious practices.

Thank you,
Lior Sayada (3rd year physics student)

I have written on this blog about the incident in LSE where a Jewish student was beaten up for not wanting to take part in a Nazi version of Ring of Fire and said that I was proud to be a student at the University of Birmingham due to the tolerance and respect that I had found throughout the student population, but with this I am saddened.

Can I first praise Lior for continuing to pray and not let such a person stop him from carrying out his beliefs and then bringing this to the correct person. It is important to highlight such an issue and make you all aware that this still happens and we have work to do, it has been a reminder to myself and to us all that the work that has been going in to rid this unviersity of racism and ignorance is still ongoing and in the times of Guild elections, I urge anyone interested in continuing the work of the last 7 years to stand up and apply.

The statement that really got to me in this message was: “Today I felt uncomfortable being a religious Jew on campus”. University, as I have said over a whole range of issues that I have dealt with this year, is a time to experience new things and to really find yourself and develop and to do this you must feel comfortable to be yourself and we, as a student population, are involved in making everyone feel comfortable on our collective campus; whether that be in our societies, our course peers, the people you walk past on the way to lectures or guild politics – we are all here for the same reason to achieve that degree and have a great time whilst we’re at it.

But, I want to further thought on religious tolerance. This is something I am extremely passionate about and this is why this incident really touches a spot with me and really infuriates me also. We have been working very hard this year to re-start InterFaithAssociation and to work closely with Campusalaam and Coexistence Trust as well as other organisations that want to be involved and this work has really paid off, with different religious groups working together and showing the benefits of interfaith work. But, then this great work gets spoilt by one person, one person does something that annoys one ethnic minority and the work could be broken, but we must continue to move forward and show these people that are outrightly racist that this is not the correct way (a simple idea I would have thought, but it seems not everyone agrees) and we as a guild will not accept such behaviour. It is unfortunate that we do not have a name, if we did I would be calling for a public apology and I hope that if the culprit in question for this ignorant act is reading this, he will apologise once more to Lior for his actions, and realise that mocking someone’s religion or their way of life is not right, especially when completely unprovoked as was in this case.

If you have ideas and projects that you feel will benefit interfaith on campus, if you have a desire to get invovled then message me on arafo@guild.bham.ac.uk; we must continue and up our game to make sure that this is an isolated incident and one that will not happen again. All people (whether they are of a relgious minority or not) have the right to feel comfortable on campus to be themself and not be scared!

With all the stuff going on at the moment, no matter where you are standing you have probably gone through a period of time where you have thought “we are a mess”, this guild infighting has got to stop and we have to unite on common ground – to better our guild and get discussion away from facebook groups where people do not listen, but that’s a side note, today I am proud to say that I am a member of the Birmingham guildofstudents and I say this because of what has happened in LSE:

http://thebeaveronline.co.uk/2012/01/15/lse-students-involved-in-antisemitic-brawl/

This link is about a group of LSE students playing a “Nazi Ring of Fire” game and a Jewish boy that did not want to be involved with such a digusting, outrageous game being beaten up for standing up for what he believed in. This highlights that ignorance and intolerance are still around today; thankfully since my time in office I have not had to deal with too much intolerance, faith and non-faith students continue to want to understand more and want to further their knowledge in the variety of ways that we have on offer on campus. This is something I am proud of and I am proud to be a university of Birmingham student.

So anyway, what do we have to look forward to:

1. On wednesday a Holocaust speaker is coming to our university for a talk at 1:30-3:30 at Main lecture theatre in Arts; Myself and Abby Levy have organised this event and I am very much looking forward to it

2. The week after, 24 January we have 1 israeli and 1 Palestinian youth leader coming onto campus at 7:30pm Main Lecture theatre in arts to speak about what next and their differing lives

There are also some fantastic inter-faith projects in the pipe line that will occur over the next few months!

Watch this space!

ARAF!

Hi All,

So thought I’d just let you know what is going on in the weeks you come back.

1. 23 January OneVoice will be bringing one Israeli and one Palestinian Youth Leader to come and speak about what is happening in the region, what can be done and be there for a Q+A session. This is set to be an awesome event, it is something that will continue the great work that has happened during the year with the debate and others. Watch this space and watch out on facebook to see the event that will come.

2. Holocaust Memorial Day is 27 January, Birmingham Guild of Students will be holding an event for this on the 25 January (a Wednesday) there are many preparations being made and this will also be another great event just like it was last year when Joseph Moses ran it.

If you have any questions or queries feel free to email me on b.eliad@guild.bham.ac.uk

A video of a British woman on the LondonTransport complaining that Britain is now nothing that ethnic minorities are in HER country.

This outlook and behaviour from certain members within Britain is damaging to the fantastically mutlicutural and diverse society that we have. Britain is one of the most tolerable. I stood on a plaform that hate speech and intolerance would not be accepted on campus and so far this has been fantastic. I have made links with societies, seen the great work that societies have done to show off their faith, and then go further and educate the lay person about their faith. Faith has an ability to bring people together, it can be used to show off the colour and vibrancy that our society has. Differences in the way people are, their beliefs and the different backgrounds that people have are superb and something to always stand up for.

Send out this video, show the world that this is not the type of behaviour we want for future Britain. We must stand up for mutliculturalism and not give up, the majority appreciate it, we must maintain that!

If you are interested in interfaith on campus then get in touch, we have Interfaith association running on campus this year, Campusalaam, Coexistence Trust campus ambassadors and other great ways to get involved!

Thanks for reading,

Ben Eliad

Hi all.

So, this has been an action packed month of society events and I will just name a few.

On 7 November TBFF did a fantastic talk which really got the attendees thinking about what we actually can do to bring faiths together and this has furthered my belief we can work this year to do so.

Sikh Society held their fantastic Langar on Campus, a fantastic sight showing that faith’s can really make a difference and help our University. Sikh and Hindu Soc had a sports day, something which we are excited to look at doing on a larger scale next term where we can join in with the run-up to the Olympics and have Faith-olympics!

I’d also like to congratulate the InterFaith Association on their continued progression, we had the first interfaith cafe which I hope will continue and they have set up a calendar bringing together all the events being run by different faith societies. The more we can work together, the better in my opinion! If you are interested in joining the InterFatihAssociation facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/120605381302554/
We have also seen the Jewish Society running a fantastic event called “Fighting AntiSemtism – Are we winning?”.

On Thursday, there is a Israel-Palestine Debate being co-hosted by the Debating Society, JSoc and Friends of Palestine. This is an awesome opportunity to open up debate to both sides and most importantly the neutral! At this event I am looking to finally get our IPF off the floor looking to get a group of people together to help myself, Fliss and Jo to get this moving.

And finally, on the other part of my role – AntiFascism. I am proud to say that this part of my role is limited on campus but I urge you to join a great facebook page run by the HopeNotHate campaign. A fantastic organisation that I have been in touch with and give great information on a national scale about the BNP and EDL: https://www.facebook.com/hope.n.hate. They also have a newsletter that his fantastic online so check out their website as well. I urge you to check this out.

If you have any questions please let me know

Ben

Hi everyone,

This is just a blog to say what is going on at the moment and what is being looked at in the near future.

On the 7 November we have the Blair Faith Foundation coming to Birmingham at 6pm in room 201, the title of the talk led by Ian Linden is called “Why are the rights of the religious minorities so often voliated?” It is sure to be a fantastic speech and something that I am very excited about.

On the 14 November we have the Coexistence Trust Campus Faith Hub tour arriving to talk about campus relations, islamophobia, antisemtism and much much more. They have a fantastic set of speakers and a perfect chance for us to learn what we can do to stop the rise in islamophobia and antisemtism.

In addition, I am excited to say that the InterFaithAssociation has had its elections and together with Campussalaam we are going to be working hard to get this working and get this moving. If you are interested in interfaith and are interested in being part of a team of 20 students looking to create events this year, then please get in touch with me on arafo@guild.bham.ac.uk

Thirdly, we are at the moment looking to set up an Israel-Palestine Forum; a place where people from both sides AND people coming to understand and increase their knowledge about the conflict can come to learn in a friendly environment. It is an exciting prospect and something that we are looking to create for years to come. If you are interested in being a part of that then please email me also. We have many meetings ahead to iron out what we want from this.

If you would like to know any more please email me at arafo@guild.bham.ac.uk and I will get back to you asap!

Ben Eliad
ARAF

Hi Everyone,

So this is my first blog, I have been having problems setting this up so apologies for any delay.

I have a few things in the pipeline that are very exciting and wanted to let you all know about it.

Firstly, I am looking to bring in the BlairFaithFoundation onto campus during the start of November.

Secondly, I am looking to bring outside organisations in to do with the Israel-Palestine conflict. We have a lot of very enthusiastic students on this matter and I want to work hard to bring these people together to work for solutions.

This is all for now, if you have any questions or ideas, please let me know!

Ben