Letters: how to get the uni protestors out

Soft left

Sir: I read with a certain wry amusement in Yascha Mounk’s piece that ‘activists’ occupying Columbia were demanding the university administrators should supply them with food and water (‘Preach first’, 11 May). How times have changed.

In winter 1976 I was the president of the student body at Edinburgh University. A group of ultra-left activists occupied a building of the social science faculty. The administration sent two members of staff to speak to me in the hope that I might be able to dislodge them.

I explained very patiently to them that given my own unashamed Conservatism, there was unlikely to be any meeting of minds on this matter. However I also pointed out that it was in the middle of a Scottish winter and that perhaps simply turning off the heating would be a rather more effective deterrent. It was: the protestors departed less than three days later.

Tim Davies

Winchfield, Hampshire

Fear eats the soul

Sir: Your article by Yascha Mounk makes interesting reading. I am however confused as to why this particular war should draw such a large and vociferous audience. Where were the tents on campuses during the height of the wars in Syria and Yemen? In both countries hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, but no one went on the barricades for them. Could it be because in Yemen the supporting force is Iran and in Syria it is Russia and students don’t want to risk their cosy lives and future careers by protesting against regimes that would have no compunction in silencing their critics by any foul means?

Jacky Hayward

Maidenhead, Berkshire