An update from Exeter University: a racist Singapore in Exeter

Hello everyone, I have just received an update from Exeter university regarding the Singaporean student who wrote a very racist piece on Quora regarding his experiences at Exeter university. It is good to know that they do take such complaints quite seriously and at least they are looking into the issue. I don't know what kind of action they can take - certainly, I cannot coerce them into doing anything just because I am outraged by what the student has written. The ball is in their court now but at least I am going to share with you how this process is going.

I have already had one reader told me that I have been too harsh in going directly to his university directly without first confronting the student himself. My reply to that is simple: this Singaporean guy is in his third year at university, that makes him 23 or 24 years old. He is an adult, not a child and if it had been a 16 year old kid spouting bullshit online, I might have been inclined to either ignore the post or offer the student some advice, but this guy is an adult and thus I have made it clear on my blog before: you can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. There is no point in trying to help someone who didn't even ask for help in the first place. The piece he wrote was not a cry for help - no, it was a viscous, nasty post to tell the world how horrible he thinks England and English people are. Here is the email I received this morning from Ms Pamela Hoad, the policy advisor for student welfare and conduct at Exeter University:

Let's see how Exeter University responds to this episode

Dear Mr Liang,

Thank you for your recent email, which the College of Social Sciences and International Studies - Law Office has forwarded to us. We would wish to thank you most sincerely for your observation and attention to this matter.  Please be assured that our Student Conduct Office who are responsible for dealing with such matters will be investigating this matter in line with our procedures.

Thank you once again.

Pamela Hoad

Policy Advisor (Student Welfare and Conduct)
Academic Policy and Standards
The University of Exeter
The Old Library
Prince of Wales Road
Exeter EX4 4SB
Monday - Thursday (please note that Friday is a non-working day)

Tel: 01392 723328

Exeter, a small city in SW England

Here is my response to Pamela Hoad:

Dear Ms Hoad,

Hello and many thanks for your email. I am grateful that you are making the effort to engage me and look into the matter. If I may explain please: I found Mr Abdullah's post most disturbing for quite a few reasons. Firstly, if what he alleges is indeed true (or if at least some of what he alleged is even half-true), then it does raises a lot of questions from a student welfare perspective. If a student is facing this much racism at your university, then surely there must be proper channels for him to address his grievances rather than vent his frustration via a blog like that. If there is genuinely racism at your university as alleged by Mr Abdullah, then certainly that needs to be investigated and addressed with urgency. The fact is Exeter University has a very good reputation in Singapore (amongst other countries) when it comes to providing a very conducive and welcoming environment for international students like Mr Abdullah. With an article like Mr Abdullah's going to viral, it could easily undo years of good PR if it goes unchallenged.

If Mr Abdullah's claims are unfounded, exaggerated or untrue, then that raises other questions about his intentions to spread hatred against the local English population in Exeter. There is a report in the BBC entitled, "Radicalisation review 'to urge more student monitoring", in which a review of policy on radicalisation will call for more monitoring of students by university and college lecturers. If indeed there are students like Mr Abdullah at your university who are potentially spreading hate speech and inciting hate online, then I would like to know what kind of measures your department will be taking to address this before it spirals into something a lot more serious. Certainly, if a law student starts making false, baseless claims online in this manner, then it does reflect poorly on Exeter University's law school: as a third year student, Mr Abdullah's curriculum should have already covered the topic of libel and hate speech.

As someone from Singapore who has lived in the UK since 1997, I can tell you from experience that all too often, foreign students reach for the racism card when often there is something else going on, such are the dynamics of the student body when you have a mix of international and local students. There is unfortunately too often, the temptation for them to play the racism card as that allows them to spare themselves the responsibility of having to consider that they may have done something wrong to have caused the misunderstanding in the first place. I would like to know if there are any measures undertaken by Exeter University to help international students (like Mr Abdullah) integrate better and deal with these cultural barriers when they come to study at your university.

Finally, I am a blogger as well with quite a captive Singaporean readership (my blog is ranked 14th in Singapore) and thus I hope to be able to offer an alternative perspective to the one that Mr Abdullah has presented on your university and Exeter. Thus I look forward to hearing back from you and finding out how you intend to deal with this situation. Like I have said previously, I do not recognize the ghastly image that Mr Abdullah has painted of life in England and that is why I felt this urgent need to stand up and do something about it. Thank you so much for your attention.

With kind regards from London,

Alex Liang