First things first: kudos to UCU for denouncing the visa ‘snooping’ by lecturers as ‘pandering to anti-immigration racism’. Recently the Home Office has been rather harsh with stringent rules for non EU Students – raising the UK student visa fees, introducing the points-based system of immigration checks and introducing the controversial ID cards for international students before the rest of the population.

Worse still, they introduced a requirement that from September, University academics would have to monitor the attendance of international students. Phew! Stench of fear there – insecurity and strong anti-globalisation forces hitting out!

“UCU members are educators, not border guards…politically, UCU is absolutely opposed to this legislation and we know that many members have strong and principled moral objections as members of society and as professional educators,” said Sally Hunt, General Secretary of UCU, who completely decried the new rules as turning educators into “immigration snoopers”.

The government claims that the proposals are designed to curb illegal immigrants and terrorists, who enter the country as students. Admittedly, illegal immigration has been on the rise in the past few years, and some terror suspects enter the country on student visas. However it must be said that some of the terror suspects are British citizens. Therefore the plans to monitor all (I repeat all) international students cannot be justified, as it treats all international students as suspects.

Forget about the students coming here to study for a brief period, today even the second-generation Asians (who were probably born and brought up here) are termed as “British Asians”, in essence creating a different class of citizen who is not fully British. Another example of these discriminatory practices is on application forms where jobseekers are asked to provide information on their ethnic origin, which may then be used to discriminate between different applicants based on their race.

Perhaps a bigger problem is the rise of nationalist parties who spout slogans like “Say NO to Immigration….Guard our UK Borders” Immigrants could be forgiven for thinking to themselves Am I an invader? Or do I look like a plunderer? The contribution of immigrants to the UK seems to have been conveniently forgotten by these groups.

International students come here to seek education and knowledge, and to gather an enriching cultural experience. Let’s face it, these messages create a kind of media-fuelled conflict in the minds of native citizens and work to create a somewhat tepid, if not strong, anti-foreigner sentiment among native residents. Which reverberates – in the work place, in social clubs, gyms and restaurants.

I am an international student and I think the skepticism with which we are viewed everywhere is despicable. In fact, I was appalled to hear on my first day in the UK that my Pakistani friends had to go for anti-terror and crime-checks simply because they hail from Pakistan, a country viewed with suspicious activities. It’s a pity the government has to adopt such measures that are only giving rise to deep-seated fear among its citizens, thereby creating more misunderstanding instead of fostering better relations among people from different nationalities.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of campaign group Migrationwatch UK commented in April, “Student visas have long been a gaping hole in our border controls which the government has chosen to ignore, partly because of the fees that foreign students pay.” Mr. Green, I’m sure there are better ways of checking security and border issues rather than hitting out at the self-respect and dignity of a foreign national!

It is commendable in such circumstances that UCU has vowed to oppose such international discrimination, thereby re-instilling faith in the UK education system and the educators. Sally Hunt rightly says, “One of the more pernicious effects of this new system will be to turn our members into an extra arm of the police force.”

But has policing ever averted a crisis, anyway? Without being cynical, terrorists still find their way through cordoned security covers…and civilians or ‘innocent’ citizens bear the brunt of their activities by facing the military’s wrath at their own incompetence.

It’s time for the government to act with a bit more maturity – unlike the terrorists themselves, who attack civilians in order to revenge the wrong done to them by a handful of military soldiers or army personnel.

Much as a government decision is merely representative of its people’s views, a terrorist’s cultural and national background should only be viewed biographically, and not looked into as one which incites rebellion in the whole community. It is exhibition of fear, suspicion and panic, on the other hand, which have deeper repercussions for the harmony and peace of a nation.

Economics, profit motive and self-interest have driven national and international politics for a long time: empathy hasn’t. But now, educators’ vehement denial of international discrimination is a logical step – it sends the message that ‘knowledge is free’ and that the educational community has nothing to do with mindless policing. However, it does call for introspection by policy-makers at a time in which anti-globalisation is becoming globalised.