Bahar Mustafa was the Diversity and Welfare officer at
Goldsmiths University. She was elected to the position after she ran unopposed.
You can read her re-election manifesto here(dubbed
a "WOmanifesto"), and read more here(complete
with women in Burkhas firing AK47's) and her original election Facebook page here. I'm actually going to break her
manifesto down a little before I go on.
" As a BME, queer, disabled woman from a working class immigrant
family, I have first hand experience in the multiple ways that barriers to
education manifest, and have therefore developed strategies to challenge this:Facilitated workshops for liberation groups, such as BME and women, in the run up to elections to encourage traditionally marginalised groups to participate in Students’ Union."
Firstly, disabled? Really? Last time I checked Narcissistic
Personality Disorder wasn't classed as a disability.
Secondly, working class? Apparently she lives in a £450,000 house with her
parents (I can't actually find a citation from a news source for this
valuation though).
I'm sure all of this posed a great barrier for her to
overcome on the path to her degree in, you guessed it, gender and media
studies.
Also, notice there is no mention of doing anything
whatsoever to help the male members of the student body? Approximately 1/3 of
the students at Goldsmiths are male, that makes them the minority gender.
The "No-white-cis-men" image was posted after she
arranged a meeting on campus, apparently to discuss the university's diversity
policies no less, and deliberately
excluded anybody who was male and/or white (see below).
She also had a habit of using hashtags such as #killallmen
and #killallwhitemen.
Remember, she was at the time employed as the Diversity and
Welfare Officer at a university where male students are a minority group. I
shit you not.
At this point she was given the chance to explain her
situation, and presumably apologise. However, in `sorry/not sorry`
fashion she instead doubled down and read a statement stating that she couldn't
be sexist because she was a woman, and she couldn't be racist because she is an
ethnic minority, and partly because she also chose to redefine the words
"sexism" and "racism".
A student started a petition to get her removed from office.
This student gives in interview here.
In October 2015 she was arrested for the tweets and faced
one charge of sending a threatening message and one charge of sending a
menacing or offensive message via a public network. She was scheduled to appear
in Bromley Magistrates court in November but the courts decided to drop the
charges due to lack of evidence. Apparently making several tweets promoting the
sentiment of killing on the grounds of race or gender, along with pictures of
yourself with images of "male tears", is not sufficient evidence to
prove anything these days. It's a wonder anybody ever gets sent to prison at
all. Mustafa
went on to say that she never made the tweets, but that she didn't condemn them
either.
By
the end of November 2015, she had announced that she would be quitting her job
"for the preservation of my mental and physical health". I'm sure
this isn't to deflect away from the allegations of bullying at all.
She had been accused of bullying and harassment (again,
Diversity and Welfare officer) of the student's union president, Adrihani
Rashid, who had a day earlier resigned from her role. It
is alleged that Mustafa badmouthed Ms Rashid and created a hostile working
environment.
So, she pretends to be disabled and working class, excludes white people and male students (men making up only 1/3 of the university), seemingly promotes hatred on the grounds of gender (#killallmen) and race (#killallwhitemen), claims that the rules don't apply to her, when it goes further claims that she didn't post the hatespeech but also refuses to condemn it (surely defacto endorsement if nothing else), allegedly bullies her co-workers to the extent that they resign then resigns herself when an investigation is announced.
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