By Milana Knezevic
Vice Chancellor Brian Cantor’s garden was lit up on Wednesday evening with candlelight from a DISARM protest, against what they see as the University’s hypocritical investment in the arms industry.
Some 20 members of the group gathered outside Cantor’s campus home with candles representing the lives lost as a result of the arms industry. The students also read out poetry and sang, with the demonstration ending in an emotional moment of silence.
Organizers Freddy Vanson and Chris Venables argued: “The University claims they aim to ‘apply and exploit knowledge for the benefit of society as a whole’ and even have a Post-War Reconstruction centre. At the same time they spend our tuition fees on investments in BAE Systems, an arms company directly and indirectly responsible for the suffering of people all around the world.”
Figures from the University show that the University, through the University of York Pension Fund, hold shares close to a million pounds in BAE Systems, currently the world’s fourth largest weapons manufacturer. Among other things, the company produces Hawk Jets used by Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.
In response to these findings, one unassociated second year commented, “I wish they would just stop all this nonsense, the University isn’t going to do anything, DISARM need to calm down a bit”.
The demonstration ended a day of peaceful protest where the student organization gathered signatures on postcards carrying their message, which were then slipped into the Vice Chancellor’s letterbox. They hope their actions will convince the University top dogs to end the investment in BAE Systems, which they believe “explicitly contravenes the guidelines outlined in the Universities policies.
“We believe this institution should focus on education and welfare, not profiting from war,” Vanson and Venables conclude.
Brilliant that Vision are consistently on the ball with the news stories at the minute…
Also good on DISARM for maintaining pressure on the University to end the immoral and unethical investment in BAE. Regardless of the amount that has been invested, the university is made complicit (and some would argue makes every one of us complicit too) in supporting regimes such as that of Mugabe.
Anyone who holds a bank account with a major bank is also helping to fund the arms trade but does it make us think twice when they dangle that free five year railcard in front of us? Not a chance. Nice idea but the guys with the candles probably have as much blood on their hands as the rest of us. Pot…kettle…
Firstly, hats off to Vision for reporting this event as accuratelly AND rapidly as they have!
Regarding the comment by an ‘unassociated second year’, the vigil was one of the most peaceful and moving demonstrations I have ever experienced, the claim that DISARM need to ‘calm down a bit’ is absurd. By wishing movements against companies such as BAE, you are advocating the lives of not only innocent civilians but British service personnel. Sure, the Uni is unlikely to disinvest from BAE in the near future-this is not a reason to abandon all hope, it is exactly that defeatist, apathetic attitude which justifies inaction towards every humanitarian crisis and genocide witnessed in the contemporary world.
Dan, it is true that most major banks invest unethically, however, you have missed the point entirely. Nobody is infallible, and nobody in DISARM claims to be so. All of your ‘wit’ regarding pots, kettles and hypocracy, are all very well, but I urge you to please abstain from this failed rhetoric. At least members of DISARM (and the 200+ who in two hours signed postcards) are making an effort, however small or hypocritical it may be, to do what they believe is right.
It would be impossible for a small group of students to change evry ill of the world, we are merely doing our best to make the small difference that we can and at the moment this involves focussing on the uni investment. We cannot do everything at once, we are all only human. If hypocracy meant that any attempt to do the smallest good in this world should be abandoned then so be it-we can all burn together.
Diarmuid, I actually agree with that second year that DISARM need to calm down. The whole day before this vigil, there was a guy pestering everyone to sign his form, now that is not a peaceful way of doing things, we just want to get on with our own business, and your representative was being incredibly complacent with people who refused to sign.
Additionally, I know the money is for pension funds, but ultimately the better the University pensions, the better the staff, the better our education. Would you not admit that if BAE do well, as a company, the benefits can be very fruitful for our education? I’m under the impression that BAE is an incredibly safe investment.
Lottie, I am afraid that we share different definitions of ‘peaceful’, I feel that you have responded in an over-sensitive and incredibly petty manner to somebody passionate about preserving the lives of fellow humans, but there is little to be gained through arguing over semantics. I feel it is a shame that students become so outraged when their apathetic daily lives are disrupted by an inconvenient truth. By wanting to get on with your ‘own business’ you are implicitly advocating the death and agony from which BAE profit.
I agree with your first comment concerning the pension fund, a profitable pension fund will be beneficial to the University, DISARM have never claimed otherwise, but instead wish the University to invest in one of the many other highly profitable organisations around that don’t happen to be one of the world’s most corrupt arms companies.
The belief that BEA is an ‘incredibly safe investment’ is misled and incorrect. Share prices in BAE have dropped since last year, due to the Serious Fraud Office’s investment into the legality of BEA’s corporate activities, and also because arms companies, to make vast profits, require as many people to buy ammunition as possible, and luckily less people decided to do that last year.
I don’t think it’s fair to pin it on someone that by not being particularly interested in this particular case they are advocating death and agony. Some people aren’t interested in the bigger picture. Some people feel as though they are doing more to help the world by being a good example…by going about their day and trying to do what they can for the people around them. Just because a person is disillusioned with politics, it doesn’t mean that they’re apathetic and it certainly doesn’t justify that kind of thing.
I’m not saying that DISARM are wrong or anything but you’ve got to be aware that people find their passions in different avenues. Some people aren’t interested in the impersonality of politics and would rather make a difference on a more personal albeit small-scale level. You have no right to judge them on that.