Fisticuffs Mayhem!

Campus isn't our favorite place to be. We consider it a mighty achievement just finding the energy and the resoluteness to get up in the morning and actually take classes. After that, it's either a quick hangout with the like-minded folks or a dash to get home. We will never get the poor souls who consider the university to be their all-time coolio hangout. Some people stay for hours after their classes are done. Even more scary are those who arrive on a day where they have no reason to be there, all for the sake of dallying and faffing about. So, even though this blog claims (actually it doesn't) to be some sort of anonymous News of the World rag but on less worldly issues (sex? what IS that?), news-wise it's more or less mediocre because we simply don't care about all the little things happening, we're not exactly omnipotent, and we don't consider loitering to be in our best interests. Do we have to report on every time the loudspeakers are out with the nationalist songs blaring? Truth is, life is pretty much boring on campus. Altercations between idiots are considered to be...hm the pinnacle of interesting happenings. Somehow, the majority of them, when they do occur, always take place while we're locked up in some lecture room zoning out and wondering whether the guy in front of us deep fried his hair in last year's cooking oil or not. Imagine our moderate surprise when on the student academic portal, Ritaj, a statement condemned the recent fights that had broken out...on campus!! Fights? More than one? And we missed them? When? Where? Who? What kind of getaway students are we? Well well well. The statement didn't mention the nature of these fisticuffs, but here is the link and below is our sorry translation **:

Statement Issued by the University Council

Since the beginning of this semester the university has witnessed sad events that have resulted in the closure of the gates of the university and assault on faculty members and others (And we assume that we must have been hiding under a rock the whole time...seriously? News to us!). The latest event took place on the sidelines of a student activity on Monday 20/9/2010 held in the Kamal Nasser Hall, where there were clashes between students that involved hands, rocks, and sticks. This resulted in injuries and a number of students had to be transferred to the hospital for treatment. Serious property damage was also caused. The participants refused to comply with instructions to use cool logic and reason, and that has been taken into consideration and with our strenuous efforts, all student activities will be suspended for a month. (Fists, stones, AND sticks? Man, that's it, we endeavor to be more..aware of fights from now on!)

The University Council deeply regrets these deplorable practices and sees it as unfitting to the morals and values that prevail within the university. The deplorable practices have intimated other students and faculty alike, and have threatened to spill over outside campus where the warning bells will not be ringing.

Birzeit University has a long and proven history of ensuring a democratic atmosphere, and follows that dialogue is the only way to solve all kinds of issues (Suckers! Armed resistance everyone!). But when groups of students resort to violence (verbal and physical abuse), and ignore the system of the university and the instructions of officials, this represents a serious threat to the reputation of the university and the academic situation, where thousands of students will have no future because they won't choose to come to such a university because of the unstable and unsafe environment (No future! bahahaha).

The University Council will do all that is in its power to keep the university free from interactions that lead to agitation and physical violence, without prohibiting the right of students in intellectual diversity, and will remain faithful in its mission to promote freedom on opinion and calls upon everyone to combine their efforts to achieve this and apply it effectively.

So, anxious to calm things down, and reduce friction, and to prevent the transmission of the manifestations of violence off-campus, the Council has decided:

1. The suspension of all student activities for a month, subject to renewal light of variables.
2. To emphasize the force of order, hence any student activity must seek permission first from the Dean of Student Affairs.
3. The emphasis on preventing students who were expelled for one semester or those with behavioural problems to enter campus, without prior permission from the Dean of Student Affairs.
4. The prohibition of any visitors of students to enter campus, without prior from the etc etc.
5. The transference of all students who were involved in violence to the Committee of Public Order and holding them responsible for the property damage done.

It also calls on students to avoid violent practices (use anaesthesia before castration!) and the denunciation of such practices, and to cooperate fully with the officials to keep the campus an oasis of security and democracy, and to maintain the university as a magnet for female students ( WHAT? hahahahaha, a chick magnet!) and students throughout the nation, and to increase the academic level we all aspire to achieve and which we hold in the best interests for our children in the future.

** Google translation might have been used in abundance.

Wow. It took us a while to stop howling from laughter. Given bet that the fights were of some political nature..or actually..some guy might have hit on some other guy's girl and the girl liked it and told her friends and her friends told her brother and her brother with his friends confronted the guy with the original guy and his friends and ohhh what a lovely world we live in.