UWS Bankstown Students Avoiding a future path of silenceThe UWSSA Bankstown student union organised on the 17th of August a excellent student run forum on War, Terrorism, and Human rights. Speakers included Scott pointing, Lecturer for sociology at UWS Bankstown, Dr Paul White, co-coordinator for Muslims For Peace and lecturer at many universities on Middle eastern politics, Imam, Afroz Ali along with Sarah Stephens and the man the media was all waiting for, Mr. Mamdouh Habib!! The forum was attended by approx 150 university students and outside visitors. Comments weren’t as free flowing as was hoped but what was great to see was that no one left, EVERYONE WAS GLUED TO THEIR SEATS AND EAGER TO HEAR MR. HABIB TALK!! Issues such as civil rights, and human rights were discussed speakers along with students passionately and emphatically agreed that only through open discussion and dissent through educated critical thinking will we avoid a future society with impinged freedoms and aggressive governments
The community cannot be lead down a future path of fear, disintegration from
discussion of social issues and the self censorship brought about by a fear
of being marginalized. Opinions can only be improved upon and constructively
changed if there is input from all sides of an argument. Truth and knowledge
of issues is brought about through the testing of ideas and opinion, and the
development of consensus, and only when we as a community place our ideas under
the heat of scrutiny of an open forum will we improve upon them. That is why
UWSSA , our student union, organised the open forum on the 17th. It was an opportunity
for the university community to discuss an issue that affects us all. This issue
is the issue of disintegration and taking away of our rights to free speech,
expression, and openness. Our general civil liberties.
Lack of communication breeds a stagnant pool of opinions which can never be
developed or formed into complex ideas or even tested for their validity.
When there is no communication between misunderstanding parties problems cannot
be solved. Today the targeted group are Muslims but tomorrow, if we accept a
curbing of our civil rights in favor of a so called “security” we
will all be sufferers of our impinged freedoms.
Under the guise of protection, our government is controlling us more, and infringing
on us everyday on our ability to discuss and express opinions openly. The open
mic forum held at UWS Bankstown on the 17th was a demonstration that we will
not be coerced into silence through fear.
Written by Tomas Buratovich for the UWS Student Paper "The Onion"
Event occured on Bankstown Campus 17th August 2005
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