HAMMER & SICKLE TO STAY
After over two weeks of debate, arguments, motions and speeches, the question of the future of the hammer & sickle was decided upon by means of a two-stage voting system proposed by KCSU. Both grads and undergrads voted, and below are the results:
Keep as is: 203
Take it down: 55
Change/alter/replace: 111
As stated earlier, voting was done using single transferrable voting. Since more than 50% have chosen 'Keep as is' as their first choice, this means that the hammer & sickle will stay where it is in its current form... at least until someone, a couple of years down the line, raises another motion to take it down!
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Out of interest, for the second phase of voting, 'turn it upside-down' was the most popular choice, but through STV 'Replace: with yellow-on-red hammer & sickle without star' would have won.
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Comments
YAY
go democracy!
Yes, "a democracy is nothing
Yes, "a democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine", as Thomas Jefferson once said.
What I believe this vote has demonstrated, is, firstly, our inability to consider the opinion of minorities if they are brought forward in non-conflicting manner (as we have successful examples of motions passing after huge scandals). Secondly, King's community has just decided to keep a symbol, which is not associated with oppression for most of the students, but will nevertheless leave a question mark on our intelligence. Simply because anyone who knows which country this flag represents will consider us to be stupid in thinking that it is purely a symbol of communism.
However, that's what the democracy is, I would just question how much good it brings in this case.
Tyranny of the Majority
Ok, granted, the democratic process does enforce the will of the majority on the minority. But surely that's a better thing that the other way around?
Furthermore, it's worth noted that noone (well, except one person who objected to the entire debate happening at all) raised an objection to the democratic process before the results were announced- and i doubt many of those who have moaned about the unfair nature of the voting process would have said a word had the 55% majority backed "take it down". Democracy isn't trying to please all the people all of the time- it's trying to represent as many of voices as possible, and give everyone a say in the decision-making process.
As someone who has spent most of the last week embroiled in making the voting proceedure as fair as possible (and trying to remove any inherent biases in the voting slips), I can honestly say that the system has no agenda and as such has done nothing wrong. Sure, the KCSU members may be a bit bloody-minded and may have made a decision that you don't agree with. But that's the fault of them for not listening, or of the points made for not connecting with them.
I do accept, however, that democracy has it's failings. There is no way of representing how strongly people hold their views, and this is an issue for this debate. I doubt many of the "keep-it-ups" had the same strength of conviction as the "take-it-downs". There are few workable methods to get around this and, even if they were, noone mentioned this as a concern at the Open Meetings. If doubts about the system were raised before the ballot, we as a student body could have worked constructively to improve the system, or to reassure those of their concerns. Instead the gaggle of dissenting voices (yelling at me in some cases) sound like they are making excuses, or having a whinge, rather than accepting that the student body as a whole either doesn't agree with them (or doesn't care what they think).
So, by all means, feel hard done by that the king's student body made the "wrong" decision. But don't throw the toys out of the pram and blame democracy now that it hasn't come through with the result you want.
For the record...
I'd like to add that, for the record, there was (and still is) dissent amongst KCSU Exec members regarding the flag. It's not at all like there was one 'KCSU Exec' agenda or viewpoint. Some of us wanted to keep it up, others wanted to take it down.
We really did do our best to make sure the democratic process was as fair and unbiased as possible, and although any voting system will inherently manipulate results, we tried to design a system that would cause the least disruption to the results as possible.
Andrew, please don't take it
Andrew, please don't take it personally or something. KCSU did what it should have done, so no questions there. Everything was conducted in a professional and only possible manner under present circumstances.
My comment was rather philosophical. I did not expect some biased dictatorship from KCSU :)
You did a great job and the voting was fair in the democratic sense, and that is what we consider according to all of our rules and constitutions.
An irrelevance put to bed -
An irrelevance put to bed - to my way of thinking never was there an issue - people get offended by a lot of things.
Let's put up a swastika
Let's put up a swastika, who cares if it offends anyone? It's only art right?
Swastika
An interesting proposal of fantastic controversy!
In many cultures (including Japan, where I am right now), the swastika is a religious symbol, marking e.g. the location of Buddhist temples on maps. This use of the symbol predates its use by National Socialism by many 100s of years. In such a context, the symbol was never meant to offend, yet some Western tourists take offence when seeing it.
So, the question is: should the symbols be taken down for them, or a disclaimer be added to each? Should one expect the tourists to be able to question the symbols' meaning in a different cultural context, all by themselves?
And what exactly would a swastika mean in the context of King's College, and what debate should it provoke?
Also interesting, there is a right-facing and left-facing variant (卐, 卍) of the symbol - and some people attach different semantics to each.
Now that the decision has
Now that the decision has been made, let us not continue arguing about this - at least for another year.
i thought one of the reasons
i thought one of the reasons people were advocating that the flag should stay was because it provokes debate... lets keep arguing :)
yes...let us all rant on a
yes...let us all rant on a website.