STUDENTS’ UNIONS WILL ALWAYS BE POLITICAL

Posted on May 19, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged anonymity, anti-apartheid, anti-war, BDS, boycott, class, climate change, decolonising the curriculum, democracy, featured, harassment, international students, israel, malia bouattia, marketisation, NUS, office for students, palestine, privilege, racism, social media, student activism, student history, student movement, student politics, student societies, Tories, tuition fees, UEA, UEA SU, UEA Union Council.

By Robyn Banks

Over the last few weeks, UEA Students’ Union has received a number of comments from certain students on social media, complaining about it being ‘political’ and choosing to take political actions such as organising boycotts and funding students to travel to rallies. The SU is also being accused of acting undemocratically for taking these actions. Whilst these accusations are nothing new, in these recent cases the accusers are creating an obscure binary on what the SU can and can’t be seen doing, with a particular focus on only serving certain students’ needs.

THERE’S MORE TO STUDENT ACTIVISM THAN #PEOPLESVOTE

Posted on February 20, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged Amatey Doku, Brexit, bursaries, class, defend education, featured, fossil free, Free Education, george osborne, grants, grassroots, guardian, higher education, history, marketisation, NUS, politics, Remain, solidarity, student activism, student movement, student politics, students, students' unions, The People's Vote, tony blair, tuition fees.

By Robyn Banks

Amatey Doku is right: student activism isn’t dead. In a recently published interview with the Guardian, the NUS Vice President of Higher Education proclaimed that students’ response to Brexit and their engagement with the People’s Vote campaign has shown that student activism is thriving anew, after years without a “unifying cause”. But what about the fight for free education that has been active on our campuses since 2012? For many activists in the last few generations of students, it was the issue that brought us together and gave us the skills to take the fight to the powerful. But for Doku, it was too “inward looking” to inspire a “genuine” movement.

THE DECLINE OF STUDENT MEDIA – AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged accountability, careerism, Concrete, expenses scandal, featured, investigative journalism, journalism, media, NUS, Rupert Murdoch, student activism, student media, student movement, The Tab, UEA, university management.

By Robyn Banks

Over the last couple of years, student media outlets on our campuses have lost much of their political clout. Often, their focus is on delivering a hot take with a snappy headline, not on the integrity of their journalism or on exercising their power to make change on students’ behalf. This is particularly true of the two main student media outlets at UEA, and can be seen in how they handled the UEA management expenses scandal last month.

WHEN WE STAY QUIET WE ARE ALSO MORE POWERLESS – AN INTERVIEW WITH SUNFLOWER BEAN

Posted on March 30, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged activisim, album, alternative, Anger Can Be Power, anxieties, anxiety, Cate Le Bon, collective, conviction, create, Donald Trump, Dream Wife, fat white family, featured, gun control, human ceremony, indie, jacob faber, Jay Som, julia cumming, king krule, march for our lives, MGMT, music, New York, nick kivlen, norwich open, NRA, Parquet Courts, political music, presidential election, psych, punk, Pure X, republicans, Sheer Mag, student movement, sunflower bean, Twentytwo In Blue, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, US, USA, Washington, Wolf Alice.

by Rowan Gavin

Sunflower Bean are a band who know what they’re about. Sitting down with the trio of 22 year old New Yorkers ahead of their show at Norwich Open on March 26th, it becomes immediately apparent how certain they are of their musical and political convictions. Drummer Jacob Faber, guitarist Nick Kivlen, and bassist & vocalist Julia Cumming made quite a splash with 2016’s debut Human Ceremony and its fresh-yet-eerily-familiar blend of indie, punk, psych and alternative sounds.

Having previously visited the Fine City when they supported London alt-rockers Wolf Alice, they returned to headline here for the first time at Open off the back of their entrancing second album Twentytwo In Blue, which was already making waves when I spoke to them three days after its release.

“NUS IS YET TO FULLY EXPLORE THE VALUE ADDED BY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS” – NUS ELECTIONS 2018: RIDDI VISWANATHAN

Posted on March 24, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #NUSConference, #NUSNC18, democracy, higher education, NUS, NUS conference, NUS Elections 2018, politics, student activism, student life, student movement, students, students' unions.

The Norwich Radical was born in the student movement, and we continue to play an active role within it. We recognise that while official structures are not the sum total of the movement, they are undeniably important. Following a highly controversial year for both the National Union of Students itself and the higher education sector as a whole, we contacted all candidates standing for the President, Vice-President and National Executive Council roles and offered them the space to write about their election campaigns, why they are standing and their visions for NUS.

“IT’S TIME TO AMPLIFY OUR POSITIVE VISION” – NUS ELECTIONS 2018: SHAKIRA MARTIN

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #NUSConference, #NUSNC18, democracy, higher education, NUS, NUS conference, NUS Elections 2018, politics, student activism, student life, student movement, students, students' unions.

“STUDENT WELFARE IS INHERENTLY POLITICAL”- NUS ELECTIONS 2018: EVA CROSSAN JORY

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #NUSConference, #NUSNC18, democracy, higher education, NUS, NUS conference, NUS Elections 2018, politics, student activism, student life, student movement, students, students' unions.

“THIS IS THE TIME FOR RADICALISM” – NUS ELECTIONS 2018: SAHAYA JAMES

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #NUSConference, #NUSNC18, democracy, higher education, NUS, NUS conference, NUS Elections 2018, politics, student activism, student life, student movement, students, students' unions.

WE CAN’T JUST WAIT FOR FREE EDUCATION – NCAFC WINTER CONFERENCE

Posted on December 23, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #FreeEdNOW, bigotry, boycott, conference, Cut the Rent, democratic education, demonstration, direct action, education workers, fascism, Free Education, free speech, GE17, HE policy, higher education, history, jeremy corbyn, KEF, Labour, Labour manifesto, left wing, living grants, local campaigns, marketisation, NCAFC, no platforming, nss, NSS Boycott, NUS, Picturehouse, Picturehouse strike, progressive taxation, protest, REF, Research and HE Bill, solidarity, strike action, student activism, student media, student movement, students, students' unions, tef, terfs, trans liberation, tuition fees, UCL, universities.

by Lewis Jarrad

On the 9th-10th December, the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) put on its 2017 Winter Conference in Liverpool. Taking place less than a month after their national demonstration, which advocated for free education and universal living grants funded by taxing the rich, the conference was a chance for student activists across the UK to strategise and discuss where we can go next in the fight for a free and democratic education system. Campuses represented included Liverpool, Manchester, UCL, UAL, KCL, Warwick, Sheffield, Abertay, Oxford and Cambridge. As a first year UCL student who was involved in the national demo, I went along to learn more about NCAFC and how I could get more involved in the campaign.

EDUCATION’S SUCH A MESS, BUT WHERE THE FUCK IS NUS?

Posted on November 24, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #FreeEdNOW, 2010, Barclays, campaign wins, campaigning, demonstration, direct action, divestment, fossil free, Free Education, grassroots, lobbying, london, NCAFC, NUS, people and planet, power, protests, rent strikes, student debt, student movement, student protest, students' unions, tuition fees, UCL cut the rent.

by Robyn Banks

Last week students from around the UK marched through London to pressure the government into finally delivering free education. The march has become a yearly spectacle and a symbol of the importance of direct action to the student movement. This year however, the National Union of Students decided not to back the demo, claiming that putting more energy into lobbying will have a greater impact than this direct action could. This shift of attitude isn’t just found in the higher ranks of NUS; it is also becoming commonplace in more and more student unions across the country.

student movement

THERE’S MORE TO STUDENT ACTIVISM THAN #PEOPLESVOTE

THE DECLINE OF STUDENT MEDIA – AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

WHEN WE STAY QUIET WE ARE ALSO MORE POWERLESS – AN INTERVIEW WITH SUNFLOWER BEAN

“NUS IS YET TO FULLY EXPLORE THE VALUE ADDED BY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS” – NUS ELECTIONS 2018: RIDDI VISWANATHAN

“IT’S TIME TO AMPLIFY OUR POSITIVE VISION” – NUS ELECTIONS 2018: SHAKIRA MARTIN

“STUDENT WELFARE IS INHERENTLY POLITICAL”- NUS ELECTIONS 2018: EVA CROSSAN JORY

“THIS IS THE TIME FOR RADICALISM” – NUS ELECTIONS 2018: SAHAYA JAMES

WE CAN’T JUST WAIT FOR FREE EDUCATION – NCAFC WINTER CONFERENCE

EDUCATION’S SUCH A MESS, BUT WHERE THE FUCK IS NUS?

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