We, Art and the Art and African Mind (AAM), a Black student body at SOAS are extremely
hurt and disappointed by the statement released by Marie Staunton, the Chair of SOAS’
Board of Trustees (BoT).

We find the Board’s statement cynical, alarming, disempowering and disingenuous,
especially since the Board has not found the time since the racial abuse on the 11th
March to reach out to the student; to provide mental health or any sort of healing. Instead,
the Board is centering the victimizer and providing him the humanity he stripped off the
Black student by negating his Africanness and his identity. Habib calls himself African and
says the student is not African. For Habib, an upper class South African of (South) Asian
descent, who has lived through Apartheid, to re-classify a Black person with a logic that
echoes Apartheid South Africa’s racist re-defininition non-white folk is not only cynical, it
is also violently colonial. We shall not be erased from ourselves this way.

Currently, the Black student of Somali descent, whose identity was re-classified, whose
existence was erased by Habib, is deferring his BA in African Studies and losing a whole
year of his studies.

Adam Habib, who has lived for over half a century and has participated in many Higher
Learning platforms, on the African continent; has not bothered or taken the minimum
initiative to educate himself on the plight of Black people due to White supremacy.
Instead, he has taken all the opportunities to re-emphasise and rationalise his use of the
N-Word, which he continued in a string of 17 tweets the next day.

For these reasons and others, we have been explicit in our initial demand that Adam
Habib be removed from office. It is egregious for the BoT and senior managers at SOAS
to accept the dishonest apology from Habib, on behalf of Black students, when Habib’s
first action was to defend himself by saying South Africans use this word, and to
unashamedly continue using this racialised language on Twitter to further harm Black
students and Black folk.

We do not need or want Habib’s apology, whether it is directly from him, the BoT or the
17 tweets he decided to type to justify use of a racial slur and simply reduce it to identity
politics. We do not care whether he has chosen to ‘educate himself’ now or whether he
will commit to this ‘education’ at all when he has disrupted a Black student’s Education.
The behaviour he exhibits is offensive, deplorable and inexcusable.

We would like to know how the BoT concluded that Habib's actions and subsequent
apology would suffice. Do the BoT decide how Black students, staff and members of the
Black community should feel and do they decide what should or should not hurt and
offend us? The response to this incident from the Board implies that they believe they
determine how and what Black people at SOAS, and outside SOAS, should be offended
by. Is the Board deciding on behalf of Black people that his apology is enough to remedy
the hurt caused to Black people, even despite the Board possibly not understanding the
depth of the hurt. How can we trust SOAS management with our pain and trauma from
racism when the very same management has received our complaints as a society
representing the Black Student Body over the past three years?

• When some of the students in these three years have graduated, left SOAS with the
hurt and the assaults they have borne the brunt of.

• When there have been complaints against staff in departments such as the Africa
Section, Politics and International Relations that have not been processed. When
some of these staff members have resigned from SOAS without ever being held
accountable.

• When staff members who have racially abused Black students, instead of being
disciplined as we have asked, have then turned around to harass and revictimise
Black students and a few Black lecturers and lecturers of colour who have shown
Solidarity with Black students.

We, the student body representatives from AAM are further appalled that we have to
initiate and request a meeting with Marie Staunton. In the meantime a predominantly
liberal middle-class group of individuals are deciding on how to deal with the issue of
racism and anti-Blackness without even consulting those affected.

How can we trust SOAS management, when they assume to understand our plight, pain
and trauma when they continue to act as they have been, shielding the aggressor and
making an apology on his behalf, in our name? How does SOAS management and Board
know the Black experience? How is the Board of Trustees our representative when they
have not tried to reach out to Black Students?

We, more than anyone, know how crucial it is to tackle structural racism and anti-
Blackness within the institution and have for years been asking for this with almost no

institutional support. We cannot trust the process that is being implemented by the
School committed to keeping Habib, without even a slap on the wrist.
We have no confidence in Habib’s ability or willingness to meaningfully reflect on his
actions. More importantly, we do not want to engage with him. He has shown no remorse,
and by forcing this individual to interact with Black students the School is actively
exposing more students to harm. Clarification: We have had enough workshops, we want
him fired. Gone. Immediately.

Just because you are not white does not mean you are not a White supremacist.

The BoT’s action, by telling us, Black students, to disregard our own safety and retraumatize

ourselves in ‘dialogue’, all for the sake of Habib’s ego and the university’s pseudo-decolonising

image, is a heinous failure.

The suggestion to keep this man as the director, confirms the BoTs’ refusal to address the
anti-Blackness that numerous students of African heritage constantly face. There is
nothing to be taken ‘in context’ when a non-Black person says the N-word. It is
intellectually dishonest to say South Africans use the N-word. It is shocking for a
“confirmed African” to not understand the conditions that have placed Black people in
the West. To dispossess them of their identity is insidious and panders to a racist logic.
We strongly urge the BoT to reconsider their current position. In his short time as the
Director, Adam Habib has failed to show leadership, he has so far demonstrated; his
willingness to attack and harm individuals he has a duty of care towards, anti-Blackness,
and most importantly he has an undeniable history and reputation of doing so.

Adam Habib must leave by Monday 12th April.

#FireHabib