Okay so this is just a random question for anyone really, What exactly happened at York with the YFS?(I suppose it is their version of MSU) I was randomly youtubing and came across a protest video with anti YFS petitioners storming their office, them barricading it and hiding; their president shouting and losing it. What exactly did they do during the labour strike to cause the ire of the students? Also what was the guy saying in teh comments section when he said the anti YFS campaign is just there because YFS supported the Muslims in the the Anti Israel standoff's at York :S

Link to video..?

Originally Posted by Chad

Link to video..?

I think. Not really finding much on youtube t_t

Plus ire against YFS

I've only watched a bit into the film but someone told me that universities in canada support Israel in Israel/Palestine conflict and some Muslims don't like their university doing so. I don't know too much about the issue.. someone else?

Edit:
Found this article

The second video is a good rundown of why students are p.o.'d. Last year, CUPE, a union which represents part-time, sessional, and contract workers, went on strike, which lasted for a substantial amount of time. Because this cohort includes TAs and lecturers, school couldn't go on. The York Federation of Students (YFS) is York's version of the MSU but it is very different in a number of ways and has strong ties with the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), their link to federal representation. What they went and did was decide to support CUPE, the group who was striking and ultimately preventing school from continuing. The students union is supposed to represent the interests of the entire student body, many of whom wanted to get back to classes immediately. Although CUPE does represent students who fall under the YFS constituency, it doesn't represent all of them. So, when the YFS decided to support the CUPE strike, a lot of students lost suppot in their students unions ability to represent them.

The YFS seeks federal representation through the CFS, as previously mentioned, whereas the MSU now goes through the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA). There is a huge difference between these two groups. CASA recently elected their new national director, Arati Sharma, who is a former MSU Vice President Education. It will be interesting to watch what CASA will do!

http://www.thecommentfactory .com/i...in-canada-1840
I can't find the other video where they were attacking the closed room but the article mentions it: "After gathering 5,000 student signatures toward a petition calling for a recall of the York student government executive, petition organizers as part of a “Drop YFS” coalition planned to announce this success at a press conference last night. But that conference never happened. “A large group of students attempted to force their way into the room” where the conference was to be held"

Also another wierd thing: What exactly was the YFS VP doing allegedly trying to "stop" the press conference, IF I'm assuming according to law they had managed to get 5000 votes? (I also read a comment saying the signatures were falsified/forged)

"Harris said, alleging that a YFS vice-president Krisna Saravanamuttu tried to push in between students and get in in order to stop the press conference from starting."

HOWEVER: The other side disagrees: “Ever since these individuals involved in the Drop YFS coalition started their campaign there has been an increase in racism and many other forms of discrimination on our campus,” said Krisna Saravanamuttu, the YFS vice president for equity. Saravanamuttu described the gathering that disrupted the press conference Wednesday night as a protest against “racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and sexism that we’ve seen on our campus in the last two weeks.” The protesting students simply wanted to be a part of the pres conference, Saravanamuttu said. “They just wanted to have their voices heard,” he said.
“There was no anti-Semitism involved with yesterday’s protest. It was a peaceful demonstration,” he said, adding that no one blocked access in or out of the Jewish student center. Saravanamuttu said that most people believe that the Drop YFS campaign is a response by pro-Israel student groups to a YFS resolution denouncing the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza.

But what I don't understand is, after all this happened with Mr Saravanamuttu at the forefront mixing politics and the YFS in a wierd concotion. He then got elected PRESIDENT, If 5000 signatures were against the BOD he was part of and he was also at the forefront of the Anti "Anti-Yfs" mob, quite how did he get elected?

Originally Posted by temara.brown

CASA recently elected their new national director, Arati Sharma, who is a former MSU Vice President Education.

And fellow Mayfield Alum!

Originally Posted by lorend

And fellow Mayfield Alum!

Woot Mayfield!

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

I can't find the other video where they were attacking the closed room but the article mentions it: "After gathering 5,000 student signatures toward a petition calling for a recall of the York student government executive, petition organizers as part of a “Drop YFS” coalition planned to announce this success at a press conference last night. But that conference never happened. “A large group of students attempted to force their way into the room” where the conference was to be held"

Also another wierd thing: What exactly was the YFS VP doing allegedly trying to "stop" the press conference, IF I'm assuming according to law they had managed to get 5000 votes? (I also read a comment saying the signatures were falsified/forged)

"Harris said, alleging that a YFS vice-president Krisna Saravanamuttu tried to push in between students and get in in order to stop the press conference from starting."

HOWEVER: The other side disagrees: “Ever since these individuals involved in the Drop YFS coalition started their campaign there has been an increase in racism and many other forms of discrimination on our campus,” said Krisna Saravanamuttu, the YFS vice president for equity. Saravanamuttu described the gathering that disrupted the press conference Wednesday night as a protest against “racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and sexism that we’ve seen on our campus in the last two weeks.” The protesting students simply wanted to be a part of the pres conference, Saravanamuttu said. “They just wanted to have their voices heard,” he said.
“There was no anti-Semitism involved with yesterday’s protest. It was a peaceful demonstration,” he said, adding that no one blocked access in or out of the Jewish student center. Saravanamuttu said that most people believe that the Drop YFS campaign is a response by pro-Israel student groups to a YFS resolution denouncing the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza.

But what I don't understand is, after all this happened with Mr Saravanamuttu at the forefront mixing politics and the YFS in a wierd concotion. He then got elected PRESIDENT, If 5000 signatures were against the BOD he was part of and he was also at the forefront of the Anti "Anti-Yfs" mob, quite how did he get elected?

I understand that this topic might be a bit dead already, but I just came across it and I might be able to help clarify.
The article you are mentioning above I believe was a different scenario than the one mentioned at the beginning of the article. To the best of my knowledge concerning this scenario, this is what I heard happened that time:

After the York University/CUPE strike this past year, many students disapproved and felt betrayed by the York Federation of Students (YFS) as they were seen as supporting the views of CUPE (including indirectly using student funds for their cause) while not actively supporting the movement to allow students to return to their classes. A group of students decided that they would like to call a referendum to have a reelection and reinstate a new group of students to replace those who were on the YFS at the time. Their movement was later referred to as YorkForward, and abiding by the laws of the YFS they managed to gather 5000 student signatures (none of which were forged/falsified) in support of having an immediate election to instate a new YFS.

During a press conference created to announce and present the petition, the room in which the conference was taking place began exceeding the maximum limit of people allowed in the room for safety reasons, forcing York staff to bar more people from coming in, leaving a large crowd of students outside in the hall. These students, who were supporters of the YFS and many of them also incidentally part of the York SPHR chapter, began to chant to be allowed into the overcrowded room. This chanting began to increase in numbers and volume, with many of them shouting slogans including "Zionism is racism", "Get out of our campus", "Racists off campus!", "Shame on Hillel", aimed to the students who gathered the petition.
(One of the students who organized this petition is also the president of York's Hillel (Jewish Students Association), and these chants were made regardless of the fact that the collective who helped organize the petition were all of different backgrounds)

The conference had to end early due to the intensity of the protest outside of the room, and the Jewish students in the room who were in support of the petition felt intimidated and unsafe from the large protest. These students decided to seek refuge away from the protests in the Hillel office, where then the protesters decided to follow these students and continue their protest toward these students, many of whom had no involvement in organizing the Drop-YFS petition. Those students who wished to enter the office after the protesting crowd arrived were intentionally blocked by some of the protesters from being able to move anywhere near the door of the office (I can find a video showing this if anyone requests). It wasn't until Toronto Police arrived on the scene to escort the trapped students out of the office that the protest ended. (Campus security were unable to do anything except to stand guard in case "something happens")


So to answer your question, Mr Saravanamuttu, although one of the loudest anti-DropYFS/anti-Zionist/(incidentally anti-Semetic) voices rousing up the protest, managed to win presidency due to not enough support for the YorkForward movement at the following election. Although I personally do not like to get involved with Israeli/Palestinian campus conflicts, I address Saravanamuttu's and these students' actions as being anti-Semetic as they were directing this harsh protest and deliberately intimidating Jewish students, regardless of the students' position of the YFS, CUPE strike, or even Israel/Zionism and the situation in Gaza (which I believe was never addressed by the DropYFS campaigners).

Originally Posted by dustman

I understand that this topic might be a bit dead already, but I just came across it and I might be able to help clarify.
The article you are mentioning above I believe was a different scenario than the one mentioned at the beginning of the article. To the best of my knowledge concerning this scenario, this is what I heard happened that time:

After the York University/CUPE strike this past year, many students disapproved and felt betrayed by the York Federation of Students (YFS) as they were seen as supporting the views of CUPE (including indirectly using student funds for their cause) while not actively supporting the movement to allow students to return to their classes. A group of students decided that they would like to call a referendum to have a reelection and reinstate a new group of students to replace those who were on the YFS at the time. Their movement was later referred to as YorkForward, and abiding by the laws of the YFS they managed to gather 5000 student signatures (none of which were forged/falsified) in support of having an immediate election to instate a new YFS.

During a press conference created to announce and present the petition, the room in which the conference was taking place began exceeding the maximum limit of people allowed in the room for safety reasons, forcing York staff to bar more people from coming in, leaving a large crowd of students outside in the hall. These students, who were supporters of the YFS and many of them also incidentally part of the York SPHR chapter, began to chant to be allowed into the overcrowded room. This chanting began to increase in numbers and volume, with many of them shouting slogans including "Zionism is racism", "Get out of our campus", "Racists off campus!", "Shame on Hillel", aimed to the students who gathered the petition.
(One of the students who organized this petition is also the president of York's Hillel (Jewish Students Association), and these chants were made regardless of the fact that the collective who helped organize the petition were all of different backgrounds)

The conference had to end early due to the intensity of the protest outside of the room, and the Jewish students in the room who were in support of the petition felt intimidated and unsafe from the large protest. These students decided to seek refuge away from the protests in the Hillel office, where then the protesters decided to follow these students and continue their protest toward these students, many of whom had no involvement in organizing the Drop-YFS petition. Those students who wished to enter the office after the protesting crowd arrived were intentionally blocked by some of the protesters from being able to move anywhere near the door of the office (I can find a video showing this if anyone requests). It wasn't until Toronto Police arrived on the scene to escort the trapped students out of the office that the protest ended. (Campus security were unable to do anything except to stand guard in case "something happens")


So to answer your question, Mr Saravanamuttu, although one of the loudest anti-DropYFS/anti-Zionist/(incidentally anti-Semetic) voices rousing up the protest, managed to win presidency due to not enough support for the YorkForward movement at the following election. Although I personally do not like to get involved with Israeli/Palestinian campus conflicts, I address Saravanamuttu's and these students' actions as being anti-Semetic as they were directing this harsh protest and deliberately intimidating Jewish students, regardless of the students' position of the YFS, CUPE strike, or even Israel/Zionism and the situation in Gaza (which I believe was never addressed by the DropYFS campaigners).

While I clearly appreciate your response Dustin, I feel it isn't exactly what I'm looking for :(. I was hoping for a viewpoint from a neutral bystander or someone from MSU probably who looked at it in detail or any random student who happened to have read about it at the time somewhere else(since this wasn't really covered in the sil unfortunately).

No offence at all! But sadly I cannot take your words for granted and on face value since it is quite blatantly not neutral by any streches of imagination!

Accusations have been made on a BOD of being an active and loud anti semitic and anti zionist(I'm still not sure how many people turn "anti-zionism" into accusations of "anti semitism" which is completely different and actually a much lower form of anti-social behaviour)

Also I am confused that you mentioned that the Hillel president was randomly "one" of the many diverse group of people who started the Anti YFS. But then you later go on to state that there were "Jewish students" in that room, how and why did they get in there in such numbers?

What my studies in peace studies has taught me is that there always are two sides to a story and I would still consider the other sides claim(picked up from incoherent youtube comments) that the Anti YFS was a retaliation to what they believe was the Yfs's support of the Palestinian side of the conflict. Infact I recall seeing randomly a youtube video where the Hillel table is surrounded by hundreds of protestors, Hillel(or the ISF probably) adamantly put up a Information table(like the one's we have at MUSC) smack durinjg the middle of the campus tensions between the groups even though they knew that they would obviously face protests. What I inferred(but couldn't see because of the quality) was that the Posters/pamphlets contained things advertised as "facts" that were inconsiderate and even hiding the serious humanitarian plight in Gaza, which is not really a good idea to do in public(even if the facts they were presenting were right or wrong) unless you want hundreds of alreadly enraged protestors to surround you.

Also you state that they "indirectly used student funds for supporting cupe" which once again is a refutable/arguable statement not a factual one, I don't think any person can accept that on face value in all honesty!

I even read(once again youtube) that apparently the YFS was still acting in student interests and that if they had supported the university the strike would have gone on longer and that by being in touch with and internally negotiating with Cupe they somehow had the best interests of students in mind because apparently they were hard at work with cupe trying to lower demands and get them to end the strike, whereas if they supported the admin then the CUPE would be more isolated and aggressive, I have NO idea how that makes any sense lol :S

The reason this is confusing is that as I imagined both sides have biased and refutable arguments supporting their side and I would really appreciate something from a 3rd party :S

Cheers!

p.s: I too have long given up on anything to do with this issue(despite having various opinions and contradictory academic research on it from both sides) as I clearly feel since both sides tend to be so passionate and biased their aim in any debate becomes to win and humiliate the other side and make them appear as the "lower" party aka the evil side. This is true from mac students having mini heated arguments last year to even learnt intellectuals like Dershowitz and Finkelstein!
In such a situation there is absoultely no possibility of a consensus being achieved on any thing at all! I actually did attend a few talks/sessions organized by the peace studies society and sadly they turned into shoutfests as expected. A proper constructive debate as far as this topic is concerned has been impossible! :(

What I get from those videos is that "Drop YFS" is just another one of those loose coalitions of right wingers and the hopelessly bourgeois that get pissed when their lives are affected by unions taking legal action against real or perceived threats to their membership because, I mean, sure, its alright for the university to cut back full time staff, dump heavier loads on the TAs, give the Board of Directors million dollar salaries and hike tuition, but when the union asks for more money to compensate for the heavier workload placed on its members, well then...

Oh, damn...I went off on a rant again, didn't I?

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

While I clearly appreciate your response Dustin, I feel it isn't exactly what I'm looking for :(. I was hoping for a viewpoint from a neutral bystander or someone from MSU probably who looked at it in detail or any random student who happened to have read about it at the time somewhere else(since this wasn't really covered in the sil unfortunately).

No offence at all! But sadly I cannot take your words for granted and on face value since it is quite blatantly not neutral by any streches of imagination!

Accusations have been made on a BOD of being an active and loud anti semitic and anti zionist(I'm still not sure how many people turn "anti-zionism" into accusations of "anti semitism" which is completely different and actually a much lower form of anti-social behaviour)

Also I am confused that you mentioned that the Hillel president was randomly "one" of the many diverse group of people who started the Anti YFS. But then you later go on to state that there were "Jewish students" in that room, how and why did they get in there in such numbers?

What my studies in peace studies has taught me is that there always are two sides to a story and I would still consider the other sides claim(picked up from incoherent youtube comments) that the Anti YFS was a retaliation to what they believe was the Yfs's support of the Palestinian side of the conflict. Infact I recall seeing randomly a youtube video where the Hillel table is surrounded by hundreds of protestors, Hillel(or the ISF probably) adamantly put up a Information table(like the one's we have at MUSC) smack durinjg the middle of the campus tensions between the groups even though they knew that they would obviously face protests. What I inferred(but couldn't see because of the quality) was that the Posters/pamphlets contained things advertised as "facts" that were inconsiderate and even hiding the serious humanitarian plight in Gaza, which is not really a good idea to do in public(even if the facts they were presenting were right or wrong) unless you want hundreds of alreadly enraged protestors to surround you.

Also you state that they "indirectly used student funds for supporting cupe" which once again is a refutable/arguable statement not a factual one, I don't think any person can accept that on face value in all honesty!

I even read(once again youtube) that apparently the YFS was still acting in student interests and that if they had supported the university the strike would have gone on longer and that by being in touch with and internally negotiating with Cupe they somehow had the best interests of students in mind because apparently they were hard at work with cupe trying to lower demands and get them to end the strike, whereas if they supported the admin then the CUPE would be more isolated and aggressive, I have NO idea how that makes any sense lol :S

The reason this is confusing is that as I imagined both sides have biased and refutable arguments supporting their side and I would really appreciate something from a 3rd party :S

Cheers!

p.s: I too have long given up on anything to do with this issue(despite having various opinions and contradictory academic research on it from both sides) as I clearly feel since both sides tend to be so passionate and biased their aim in any debate becomes to win and humiliate the other side and make them appear as the "lower" party aka the evil side. This is true from mac students having mini heated arguments last year to even learnt intellectuals like Dershowitz and Finkelstein!
In such a situation there is absoultely no possibility of a consensus being achieved on any thing at all! I actually did attend a few talks/sessions organized by the peace studies society and sadly they turned into shoutfests as expected. A proper constructive debate as far as this topic is concerned has been impossible! :(

Huzaifa, I completely agree with you, and I'll be first to admit my bias. As I did first hear this story from my friends at york who were present at this event (the "anti-YFS side", of course), and received the information about its developments from some biased sources, I would not have been the person to give you a neutral understanding of what happened. I really wouldn't any of what I said to be quoted as "the truth" or be taken at face value, because I feel that doing so would give the impression that I feel nothing else should be accepted beyond what I said, a notion I strongly disagree with as I feel that all ideas and opinion should be open to new ones, for that is the only way we can really learn and develop our own. I just noticed that there had not been activity on this post for a little bit, so I just thought I would share my views on how I saw it occurred.

To clarify some of the points I made (to my best understanding and opinion),
The Hillel president was the coordinaor of this petition, who had a group of students helping him with this campaign (i meant the term "different backgrounds" as a way to state that these students were not all of the same (Jewish) background), and there were the 5000 students of the school who signed the petition. A large group of students who were in the conference room in favour of DropYFS (i am not sure whether they helped campaign or were just in favour) happened to be Jewish as well. As to why there were so many I cannot give a valid answer to why.
My quote referring to YFS helping the CUPE supporters through financial means indirectly referred to my hearing of one (or two) parties/socials that were organized by YFS for the CUPE protesters during the strike. I could attempt to retrace where I found this idea, and if I am in fact wrong on this statement then i would withdraw and regret making that statement.

If there are Any valid factual errors in anything i mentioned on my last post, then i would apologize for mentioning them. My only intentions were to initiate some development in this discussion, and in doing so I left my (nonconcrete) perspective.

To be frank, I generally hate talking politics (whether in person or in a university online forum) because most of the time there will never be an unbiased source to which both extremes of a conflict will agree with, and someone ends up feeling down when "they don't win". I could always show which news/media sources or people involved that were resources to my opinion about what happened from this story, but I would question if it is really worth doing so, as I'm probably going to inevitably run into someone who wouldn't be satisfied with my source (to which there is no harm in disagreeing).

I admire and appreciate your critique of my previous post and your opinion concerning this topic, and I hope that you find that 3rd party source in search of "WHAT exactly happened at york"

Cheers to you too!

Originally Posted by dustman

To be frank, I generally hate talking politics (whether in person or in a university online forum) because most of the time there will never be an unbiased source to which both extremes of a conflict will agree with, and someone ends up feeling down when "they don't win". I could always show which news/media sources or people involved that were resources to my opinion about what happened from this story, but I would question if it is really worth doing so, as I'm probably going to inevitably run into someone who wouldn't be satisfied with my source (to which there is no harm in disagreeing).


Cheers to you too!

I really agree with you about the last part, we live in a world today where even the news media doesn't actually say the entire 100% unadulterated truth under any circumstances! So its relevancy as a "source" will often be invalidated by the other side OR they will come up with sources that favour their side of the view(The Palestine/Israel issue is one prime example of that) in that sense it really becomes hard to fathom what exactly is the truth here! What we can do probably is to get to some form of consensus somewhere in the middle between the two extremes and make some concessions and hope for the best! But that consensus is highly elusive sadly! But I understand that you did mention that whatever you were saying was according to your "understanding", unfortunately for us that understanding was from a source that might have had a reason to distort things. But having said that as I said an unbiased source is a hypothetical delusion, it doesn't really exists, or most probably I don't have faith in societies ability to provide it on a consistent basis! Anyways I hope you didn't mind my critique and thanks!

All for-profit media is state-run and has been for a looooong time. So no, they won't be disseminating all of the information, especially if it goes against the ruling group.