Why is St Andrews so Apolitical?

How The Bubble and the world at large clash

As Fresher’s Week kicked off, walking down the street, I came across a poster advertising a pro-Palestine demonstration. I felt so disappointed that a meeting with a professor was scheduled for the same time. But when I left said meeting and walked down Market Street across from the demonstration, it was so sparsely attended that I had barely noticed it as I passed by. This seemed beyond bizarre and unprecedented, given how the conditions in Gaza deteriorated so substantially over the summer. The state of affairs has gradually stopped being treated like a political issue and has become, in a way that is utterly undeniable, something increasingly seen for what it is: an unacceptable humanitarian emergency. A rush of shame fell over me in recognising the degree of comfort and non-confrontation we seem to enjoy in the Bubble. 

Checking the news has consistently felt sadistic and dystopian, with a relentlessness that almost seems comical. We’re all just waiting for the next thing in today’s utterly ludicrous politics, and humanitarian crises that only get worse, driving us all into a simultaneous sense of sickness and desensitised helplessness. 

Assassination attempts, some successful, pervade American politics. This is symptomatic of a political climate which is perhaps the most polarised we’ve seen in the US in decades. The world echoes this polarisation, as immigration laws are called into question globally, along with the lives and livelihoods of so many. In the UK, Nigel Farage and his far-right, anti-immigration politics lead the polls. In the US, ICE continues its assault on immigrants, breaking up families, destroying lives, and tearing the social fabric. Recession and inflation only seem to be intensifying, and employment opportunities are increasingly scarce. Most pressing are the events in Gaza, which represent not just war, but one of the worst genocides and famines contemporary times have seen. 

Gen Z has become increasingly political — likely from the feeling of having no stake in global decision-making, which ultimately forges the world we inherit. The most striking example of recent radical youth political activity is in Nepal. The recent protests, which represent our generational character and trademarked ‘unseriousness,’ prove that we aren’t always unserious, particularly regarding issues which cannot be overlooked. These protests have not been benign — they’ve been angry and violent. The recent movement in Nepal, now referred to as the Nepalese Revolution, resulted in 70 casualties. In the US, an assassination attempt on President Donald Trump resulted in the death of the twenty-year-old perpetrator and a bystander. My point does not attempt to glorify violence, nor idolise the perpetuation of violent protests, but rather to highlight the extent of Gen Z’s anger in response to the current political climate. 

People, in general, but displayed most vehemently in the St Andrews community, have a trait that I’ve found increasingly difficult to stomach: Problems seem to only be legitimised once they are ours to face. Even the worst economic conditions globally don’t faze the vast majority of us St Andrews students. St Andrews’ elitist student community and the echo chamber of privilege which has shielded us can no longer absolve us of our duty as students. Here in the Bubble, rent, bills, and even meal-deal prices continue to climb. Our Career Centre visits increasingly lead to the inevitable understanding that opportunities for jobs and money are scarce. We are not immune, even in our most privileged spot. Activism and advocacy have taken place for the ongoing war in Ukraine and the floods in Spain. This is important, and we, as privileged students have a responsibility to act. I can’t help but think, however, that our sympathies seem only to peak when calamities and atrocities hit the first world — which is, for most of us, our world.

What is happening in Afghanistan (yes, still, look it up) and Gaza is sickening. We all say it, but what have we done with our rights and responsibilities to appeal to the institutions around us, which are complicit? The shameful answer is “not enough.” Yet we sit in our History tutorials, condemning people of the past who stood watching as terrible injustices were committed, and it somehow hasn’t occurred to us that we’re no better. 

Across the UK, students have embodied what has long characterised student culture. Activism and outrage are what’s expected from young people gathered in educational institutions. Comparable institutions with similar student demographics, including Durham and Oxbridge, have staged large-scale demonstrations, actively engaging in resistance against the injustice our world faces every day. Haya Adam, President of the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies, recently faced expulsion, allegedly in relation to her pro-Palestine activism. Here, there certainly has been discourse, and I would be remiss not to mention our Rector, Stella Maris, and her statement condemning the genocide and the extensive complicity of the UK and British institutions. The backlash this generated represented a wider issue, in which placing accountability on a government's perpetration of ethnic cleansing as an assertion of Zionism is misconstrued as antisemitic. I signed a petition to help the Rector be reinstated, and the Palestine Solidarity Society has been doing even more important work, but it just doesn’t ever seem to penetrate deep enough into the student community. 

My question is, for a generation so polarised — the leaders of ‘woke’ culture and, increasingly, its conservative counter-movement — why don’t we seem to echo this political outrage in St Andrews? 

What, beyond our good fortune, separates us from the university students and faculty living through war-torn conditions in Gaza, or the Palestinian journalists being targeted and killed? As a student body that is almost half international, does some extra cash in a trust fund absolve us entirely from standing up for ourselves and for those far more affected by anti-immigration movements across the UK and US? These issues are becoming less and less a matter of differing political views and commonplace discourse; we are watching lives, families, and communities be upended and destroyed. Our privilege does not absolve us from saying nothing and doing nothing. It is time we stopped being ‘apolitical’ on issues where our silence and non-participation can be taken as nothing but complicity. 

Illustration by Ramona Kirkham