The first month of my second year as President is flying past, and so far it’s been as busy as ever.

I’ve already blogged about the Make Poverty History demo on 2 July, but prior to this we had the NEC induction, which I thought was both useful and constructive. I then went on the Islam Awareness day at East London Mosque, which I got a lot out of it. There was a really interesting range of speakers with diverse views and different approaches. I especially enjoyed a session with Yvonne Ridley, a journalist who was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Sarah Joseph, who edits Emel, a Muslim lifestyle magazine. The speakers had differing views on a number of issues, and I found that I agreed a lot more with Sarah Joseph - she was really good at detailing and breaking down some of the stereotypical views of women and Islam. When I got back to Scotland, and prior to the MPH demo, I met with a group of trade unionists from the STUC Youth Committee, who we do a lot of work with in NUS Scotland.

I’ve been to the Aldwych Group handover training in Nottingham, where I gave a presentation on NUS special nations, and the work of NUS Scotland. It was good to be able to explain to student officers from all over the country why it is that we have special nations and all the different areas of work that we do. Since the Scottish Parliament was established (which NUS Scotland had campaigned for), the majority of decisions affecting students in Scotland are taken by the Parliament (by the way, please note – it’s a Parliament, not an Assembly!), and the impact that NUS Scotland is able to have is massive – devolution has definitely been good for students. There is also a great deal of confusion around the current student funding system in Scotland, and whether we will have top-up fees or not. Aldwych gave me a chance to explain what’s happening – but I’ll blog separately about what is actually happening, as it of course hugely affects my work for the rest of the year.

I’ve been to two NEC meetings – the first of these was an Emergency one to discuss the anti-Semitism inquiry, which we should see more progress on now. The other was the first regular meeting of the year, where amongst other issues, we discussed priority campaigns and found out which NEC responsibilities we have been allocated. Outside of Scotland, I have responsibility for strategy, affiliations, anti-racism/ anti-fascism and internationalism. I am particularly excited about the latter two – firstly because I have done a lot of anti-BNP and anti-racism work and campaigning, both in and out of NUS already, and am really passionate about it. Last year, the BNP leader was invited to address a students’ association debating society in Scotland, and I worked closely with anti-racism organisations around Scotland, trade unions and groups such as UJS to put our no-platform policy into place. There was significant media interest in it all, as well as some rather unpleasant phone calls that I received. At the end of the day, the debating society could not find anyone significant to speak opposite the BNP, and the university stepped in and the debate was cancelled. To me, this shows how valuable and effective no-platform policies are. Stopping extremist right-wing groups like the BNP coming onto our campuses, intimidating our students and spreading their hatred is vital, and no-platform policies help achieve this, time and time again.

The rise in racist attacks since the London Bombings on 7 July has been awful, and I have been working with Muslim students in Scotland to respond to this – see www.nusonline.co.uk/scotland/NewsandPressReleases/269723.aspx We are really going to have to unite as a movement and support students’ associations in supporting their students to prevent such dreadful incidents when term begins.

The other reason why I’m pleased to have responsibility for NUS work on anti-racism/ anti-fascism is because I want to take forward work on anti-sectarianism in Scotland this year. Despite having strong liberation campaigns and campaigning against racism, NUS Scotland, for some reason, has never worked on anti-sectarianism before. Although sectarianism and bigotry between Protestants and Catholics in Scotland is clearly not as bad as in N. Ireland, it is still a major issue in many of our communities, and this is reflected in lots of ways – one of these notoriously being football. The number of times I have been asked which football team I support upon meeting someone new in Scotland is countless, and a sad reflection of the ways in which we judge each other. At our most recent NUS Scotland conference, where I was re-elected, we had an anti-sectarian campaigning organisation running a workshop, which was really popular with delegates. I’m also working with Damien at NUS-USI to learn from their activities and expertise in this area, and I’ve recently met with officials from the Scottish Executive, as well as Ministers, who are really keen to support us in progressing this work. I feel so strongly about this issue and am really keen to take forward a decent campaign on it for the first time ever.

Internationalism is another responsibility that I’m really pleased to have. I have a real personal interest in this area, and recently we have had a number of international visitors to NUS Scotland that give me some great links to start from! In April, some students from South Africa visited sparqs (Student Participation in Quality Scotland – see here www.sparqs.org.uk) and ourselves. In South Africa, there are currently two national representative student organisations (one for universities and one for technical colleges) that are merging this year to form one South African NUS. The students were really interested to find out about our liberation campaigns and have since told me that they are likely to transplant the idea to South Africa! Then, in May, we were visited by a group of students from Basra University in Iraq, which was amazing. The students there are in the throes of setting up an NUS in Iraq following the fall of Saddam, as such an organisation was previously banned. However, they have very little in terms of resources or finance, and I really hope that our NUS will be able to assist them this year. We all learnt a lot from each other during their visit (most of them were pro-war, in case you’re interested – so we had some interesting debates about that!) and I am determined to keep up the links with them.

I will end with a picture that I love – it’s of Hazim, the President of Basra University Student Union and I in the Scottish Parliament. To all those who say that NUS should only focus on education matters within our own localised bubble, this is the reason why you are wrong – because students in the UK have a history and a responsibility to show solidarity, and build understanding, with students all over the world:

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