An open letter to the NUS from an international student

Dear NUS,

Does anyone remember the days when we did not know what the word “Safespace” meant? Or the days when we did not know the word “Safespace” existed? For me, that was a mere 5 years ago. Call me ignorant because sure it would have existed then, but today, the word “Safespace” is trending.

Why has it come to this? Why was it a mere 5 years ago we could speak freely without offending anyone, without offending our friends, without offending our family? Why have we turned into a generation of fragility? Why have we become millennials who need more care and protection than a newborn baby does? Why are we becoming emotionally weaker as we “progress” into the new generations?

So many questions and so many people trying to fix the problems but who has ever offered you an answer or who has ever tried to identify the problem? We millennials have become a generation of clockwork, seeing a problem and trying to fix it, seeing another problem and trying to fix it. But have we ever stopped to think where are all these problems arising out of in the first place?

In the past few years, so many organisations have popped up on the pretext of standing up for and protecting LGBTQ people, racial minorities, international students etc. But it is also the same organisations who put you into these group or “classifications” of people in the first place. Who bestowed upon them the right to label us? Promoting yourself as a guardian and a protector of us is racist, is triggering and is very offensive. Who allowed you to put us into these groups of people and give us specific labels?

I am sorry but you are doing more damage than good. You are making us stand out like sore thumbs in society because by doing this, you are telling other “normal” people that we are different from them. We are as much of a human being as a, as YOU would put it “CIS White Male” is. Speaking from the standpoint of an international student, I implore you to stop trying to create little boxes to put everyone into.

Can you not accept that we or I am as normal as the next person?  I do not need to be labelled “Chinese Ethnic Minority”, I do not want to be a flashing neon sign that I am a minority. I am as much of a human being as everyone else. What I most definitely do not want is someone who is not me, to stand up for me and protect me when they do not even know what it is like to be me.

Please, I implore you to stop pretending to be the hero that you are not. LGBTQ as you call it, racial minorities as you call it, ethnic minorities as you call it, international students as you call it, we are all strong individuals and we never asked for an organisation who cannot represent us to protect us.

The NUS, you want to be applauded for the work that you have done to protect and stand up for international students so much so you are using it as one of the main selling points in your Stay Campaign. You want to be applauded for the fact that you have managed to stop the deportation of 48,000 from the UK.

Do you also want to be applauded for the 100,000s of international students you have failed to help integrate into the society here? Doing one good thing and neglecting the rest does not make you a hero, you are just about as normal as everyone of us out there, so stop promoting yourself as righteous and the guardians of the “weak”.

Were you, the NUS there to help when I first arrived in the UK and when I struggled to integrate into the society? No. I had to break those barriers down myself and I have brought myself to where I am today on my own individual abilities. If you cannot do something as basic and as simple as helping the international students feel welcome on your home ground, how can we trust you to follow through with these supposedly ground-breaking changes that you have promised us? And most ridiculous of all?

There have been rumours of people from the Stay Campaign invading flats and student accommodation and shoving laptops in the faces of international students and coercing them into voting to Stay in the NUS when most of us barely have any idea what exactly is going on in this referendum. These may just be rumours, but will there be such rumours if there has not been anything to trigger it?

I honestly do not want such an organisation to be representing me or protecting me when they are executing underhanded tricks like attacking international students and making them feel harassed in the space of their own homes or flats. If the NUS hears of this, they will say that they do not in any way endorse such behaviour but if there is such behaviour rampant in their campaigning team, then maybe they need to sort out their internal structural issues first before trying to solve all the world’s problems to look like a true hero.

Please I implore you not to sign away another £50,000 to be supporting an organisation that tries to separate normal human beings from normal human beings for the sake of coming out of it as a guardian and protector of us all. Please I implore you not to pay to be classified and put into the little boxes that we do not belong in. We are all normal and we are all people, please let us not pay for our individuality to be taken away. And please, let us vote for the right choice. For one and all out there, to protect your individuality, please vote to Leave the NUS.

You can vote to LEAVE the NUS here: http://www.exeterguild.org/change/ideas/idea529-leavenus/