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A student perspective on Drew Pavlou and the University of Queensland, from a current peer of the same faculty: 1/14
Prior to Drew Pavlou’s very public controversy regarding the CCP and “freedom of speech” at Australian universities, he was already known to students - particularly that of the law & humanities faculties - for his, frankly annoying, online presence. 2/14
He was the admin of the infamous “UQ Discussion Space”, where students interested in politics held discussions on current & historical affairs. He was also a *very* active member of “UQ Stalkerspace”, which has 65k members of the uni community. On these he would 3/14
Make public polls which humiliated anybody who disagreed with him, comment insults & inappropriate memes, be attention seeking & obsessively hold public grudges against certain staff & students. He would openly criticise the university and those who run it, and was part of 4/14
student protests against the Ramsay Centre, Confucious Institute, cuts to courses (such as gender studies) and huge bonuses to board members. He was not silenced or ever reprimanded for such actions, as was nobody else, because UQ does not have a freedom of speech issue. 5/14
Drew has been targetted by the university & certain students, but this only began following a peaceful anti-China/pro-HK protest that turned violent, which Drew has labelled as evidence of “Chinese thugs” & “CCP spies” in Australian universities and broader society. 6/14
He spent hours in the week prior to this inciting division online targeting the large cohort of Chinese int. students, including posting the Chinese characters that translate to “fuck your ancestors to the 18th generation” in StalkerSpace which is highly offensive in China. 7/14
https://youtu.be/VFByXM6HKSM ">https://youtu.be/VFByXM6HK... We all know the Chinese student (not spy) who grabbed the microphone and threw it away when Drew was blocking the pathways and yelling contentious remarks about China, which he then decided was best to respond to by pushing the person & so on, so on. 8/14
Immediately following this, Drew gained huge media attention and his already enflamed ego went through the roof. Abusing people in online chat groups & publicly on the pages increased; criticising anything he could muster that might gain attention from global media. It was 9/14
Concerning and many of us who knew Drew had to withdraw from all contact as he was manic, unreasonable, made many racist remarks & labelled all criticism of these actions as Chinese influence impeding his freedom of speech - not the case. He is now entirely isolated by 10/14
Who were his former friends & fam as he has preferred to do whatever he thinks will rile up the Chinese gov. (giving him positive media in the west) & has taken advantage of Western hysteria on China to pursue personal vendettas under the guise of “fighting for democracy”. 11/14
There is a place for a discussion on foreign influence in Aus. universities. It should start with - as COVID has highlighted - the fact that government cuts to funding has forced a dependence on int. student revenue within sector. I am the first to critique my uni’s board 12/14
And its many elitist and often sexist, racist ways. However, suspending Drew Pavlou for breaking protocol on his role as Student Representative & inciting violence is not one of them. I am embarrassed at how Chinese int. students are now treated at UQ & am begging 13/14
For the romanticising of Drew Pavlou’s actions to cease. They are not brave, they have been attention seeking, bigotted, orientialist and ultimately distracted from the real discussion & fight that needs to be had regarding the internal ongoings of our universities. 14/14
