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Column: I may be in the room, but I’m certainly not in the club

Activist and student Eugenie Touma van der Meulen describes their time in the Finnish student movement, a time that has been riddled with different kinds of challenges.

The journey started when someone told me to run for the Representative Council.

They said: “You’re always talking about how things should be better at the university, this could be a way for you to make a difference”.

I knew nothing about the Finnish student movement then. Words like trilingualism and automatic membership had not yet entered my vocabulary. I certainly did not know the journey would lead me to being the first international student on the board of SYL* 

Between then and now, I’ve been elected to almost every kind of position of trust that exists for students. I’ve held them in not one, but two very different student unions and universities.

I’ve been representative council chair and group chair, I’ve been on the Board, I’ve been in the collegium, I’ve been a halloped**. I can now explain to you exactly where in the Universities Act the duties of the student union are described, and what they are (section 46.2, in case you were interested).

I have patches on my overalls, and I know the melodies of sits songs. 

In most of the positions I held, I was the first international student to be elected to it. In the others, there weren’t many who had come before me. It was always a “new situation”. The voice of international students was heard in places it had not been heard in before. I have spent years in rooms where I was the first of my kind. 

What was painful, were the many moments I realised that there is intent behind the inaccessibility of these rooms. That my voice is not a wanted sound here. 

What was equally as painful, were the many moments I realised how easily people forget that I am even in the room. However present and visible and good at what I do I am, I’m still not included. 

”I have spent years being alone. I still am alone”

Often when people talk about being in the student movement, they say that the best part of it is the people you meet along the way. I don’t know if I can really say the same.

In my case, it is exactly many of the people who have made it so hard to be and stay in the movement. Both people in the university, and people in the student movement themselves. I stayed because of my sense of justice. 

I have spent years being alone. I still am alone. My Finnish colleagues don’t understand or necessarily want to listen to my experience of spending years fighting for the basic things that are just given to them. Years having to constantly and repeatedly earn trust, instead of being given it to keep.

My Finnish colleagues also often still forget to include me, at work and at the social events we attend together. In all the years, I have only ever attended one sits where I felt truly included. The others, well, everyone just spoke Finnish and sang Finnish songs. I may be in the room, but I certainly am not in the club. 

International students in the movement now don’t necessarily understand me either. Earlier this year I was talking to current international students on student union boards, and they were describing how well their term is going, how they are included, how they are able to work on the things they want to. Of course this was always my goal.

I clawed the doors open with my bare hands, so others wouldn’t have to. But it was still hard to be met with scepticism or disbelief, when describing my experiences of hardship that lead to their ease. 

There are of course also people who have made my life in the student movement easier. People who have listened, who have tried to understand, who have helped. Fewer than I would like or need, but they do exist, and I remember them all.

They are the ones who bandaged my hands after I’d clawed at yet another door, or who patiently explained what I needed to know so I could succeed. Even that one person who told me to run for RepCo all the way back at the beginning, I remember. 

But still. I wish I had more of those memories. I wish I felt like I belonged. 

(* = Suomen Ylioppilaskuntien Liitto, Finlands studentkårers förbund, National union of university students in Finland)  

(** = student representative)

Eugenie Touma van der Meulen (they/she) is a Palestinian artist and activist based in Helsinki. They studied harpsichord performance at the Sibelius Academy and neuroscience at the University of Helsinki. Currently they are a Board member at SYL, the Union of University Students in Finland. 

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