With national media purporting that UBC might be funding terrorism, and is trying to one-up CSIS, you have to ask stop and ask WTF, what is wrong with us. The answer is quite simple: leadership. Something the current AMS President Bijan Ahmadian quite honestly and thoroughly lacks.

In November, the Executive deferred the decision to approve a donation to the Canadian Boat to Gaza from the SJC. Ask yourself: what decision? The SJC is well within its rights to spend money as they wish. Council can veto the SJC with a 2/3s majority, but council approval isn’t required. The only reason this came to Council was to kill the transaction.

The Executives first mistake: picking a side by deciding to intervene. If the SJC donated money to a cause students oppose, students hold them accountable. The SJC are autonomous and responsible for their actions. The AMS’ role in resource group transactions is purely administrative; reviewing the SJC’s budget and paperwork to ensure everything is in order. Deciding to intervene because its nature is not administrative, it’s political.

Their second mistake: haphazardly justifying their actions with paper-thin arguments. They say the SJC cheated their way through an AGM, and the Gaza Flotilla is a terrorist activity. Sounds like it could be true, so why not, eh? Well, for the sake of process I’ll take five minutes to see if those allegations are true. First, let’s just Google it. Better yet, let me Google that for you (http://tinyurl.com/2ejbwne) to avoid any Bijan-styled mistakes.

The Alternatives home page lists a few supporters of their “terrorist activities” with Margaret Atwood and Archbishop Desmond Tutu among them. That was two minutes of my life. I promised to spend five, so let’s Wiki Alternatives. Their funders include: the Government of Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency. I’m inclined to say the donation is legit and just move on but for some reason, a couple Executives decided to go with their gut and ethno-profile it as a terrorist activity because it involves Gaza.

Which leads us to their third mistake: making it personal. We have a President who has, on numerous occasions, voiced his personal opinion instead of that of Council’s. One who threatened to sue the AMS — an organization he apparently leads — after Council passed a motion asking him to not speak on an issue. Ask yourself, what kind of research did Bijan do to conclude they were terrorists? Was it Archbishop Tutu’s support of the project that gave it away, or the federal funding? He clearly has a personal opinion, and as he’s indicated in the past that he’s absolutely willing to bully people into getting his way, Council included.

The Canadian Boat to Gaza, a purely Canadian initiative, sponsored by Alternatives, a registered charity with funding from the federal government, but is apparently connected with terrorism. Clearly, the easiest way to get supplies for terrorist abroad is through a very public yearlong, national fundraising campaign and soliciting money from the general public. They got passed CSIS, but they better watch out for Bijan, cause he knows better than those guys.

(+49 rating, 35 votes)

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