Not even an NUS camp eh

Media has never been about truth or falsehood. The true strength of media has always been it’s power to generate awareness and discussion.

The public/parents are wearing their public/parents goggles and loosing public outcry, as they are expected to do. The NUS camp organisers are wearing their defensive goggles and claiming “this never happened in my camp!”, as they are expected to do. But there’s a much scarier truth that lies in the middle, and it’s hardly visible to the lay person’s eye.

While it’s true that not every camp can be generalised as rabak, there’s no doubt that social pressure, distastefully sexualised games and a sinister level of bullying happens behind closed doors, and it’s something that warrants serious discussion, and not brushed aside as issues of students’ ‘independence’ or ‘being wussy’.

If it takes camps being cancelled for people to start talking about it, I’m 100% for it.

“I’d rather face ten daggers pointed at me in daylight, than the 1 dagger in the dark.” — Epictetus

Media does not determine true or false, but it brings social injustices to light.

Besides, if only people started talking about how camp committees select and exclude people… That’s when the real shitstorm would start.