EUREKA POLITICS & SOCIET Y|ARTS & CULTURE ISSUE 1|DECEMBER 2011
. . . .
Do You Speak European ? An Untold French Affair Russia’s 6th Wave Diplomat’s Dilemma
Editorial Bobbie Mills This term the UCLU European Society put on European Focus Week, a series of events focussing on contemporary challenges faced by Europe. It had been decided way back in March that we wanted to put this on, and we spent a good chunk amount of time at the end of the summer wrangling over the exact form and focus that these events should take. At first, we felt we really needed to highlight the seriousness of the situation that Europe was in. We considered calling the event Europe on the Brink. But then we stopped and thought: Are we being naïve here? Hasn’t Europe always been on the bloody brink? We were worried about assigning greater significance than was merited to our own place in history. Turns out we needn’t have been so cautious. In many ways it seems that it all finally hit the fan as 2011 played out; for once you really do get the feeling that we are entering into a new era of European politics. The death of Osama Bin Laden back in May was the grand finale of The War on Terror, allowing public fear to turn firmly from bomb scares and on to bank accounts. The Grand European Project, embarked upon in earnest ten FOCUS: years ago with EUTOPIA the implementation of the single currency, is facing its first true trial by fire. The intellectual scene is divided over whether we can survive this ordeal or whether 6 will find THE MULTI- we that NETHERLANDS: the Euro really does haveA God on its side. Berlusconi has been forced to pull out, which we know he CULTRAL MESS? is not normally very fond of doing. Others are facing the of Marta choice whether toZieba follow suit or to cuddle in closer. This choice is not an easy one, given that they have their own 10 IN DEFENCE OF domestic problems to sort out first. A crisis such as this in volving 17EUROSCEPTICISM different national economies using a single currency unchartered territory. A federal union is essentially Elliot Nichols such as the American model might prevent this happening 12 and THE FUTURE: AN EVERagain this would be quite appealing if it weren’t for the tricky little problem of sovereignty and democracy. EXPANDING UNION? As the Arab Spring swept on to our televisions and in BenandTufft to our papers newsfeeds, we were all given a stark reminder of the privilege that it is to live in an embedded 14 THE FUTURE: AN EVERdemocracy. The high politics of humanitarian intervention Europe’s ENCHROACHING UNION? aside, experience of the uprising of the people took the shape of an intensified stream of people across Sarah Coughlan the Mediterranean towards the democratic North. All were hoping better lives, orBRITAIN: at least to escape the tyr16 forBROKEN THEfrom MORAL anny dictatorships. But Europe has itself been struggling MALADY against the bonds of its own quasi-dictatorship; that of a market economy that necessarily leaves so many out in Tom Platt the cold. If the economic crisis was caused by the rational 18 AM I EUROPEAN? self-interest of financial actors, then it seems that they have lost of reality. Before launching in to problem solving sight Daniela Bädje it is clear we must take a step back and take stock of what 19 SPLIT IDENTITIES is really important.
Louise Dewast Here’s a word from the street: it is time for a change. From Cairo to London to Bogota, the word of change is spreading. Something has gone terribly wrong; the system we live in is unsustainable and makes our world unjust. For the past three months, people have been protesting for change. These people who fight on Tahrir Square, who protest at La Puerta del Sol, who distribute food at the Occupy Toronto camp, these people, are the undeniable effect of today’s widespread crisis. Not so different to the past generation of 1968, people of rich countries are taking their anger to the streets, as the spread of the Occupy movement to 951 cities worldwide can testify. If corporate irresponsibly and greed were the triggers of their discontent, a never-ending list of problems is stemming from the smoking gun. And if Mr. Lennon said that ‘Happiness is a warm gun’, it would this time around be very cold. The mainstream media reports the daily ups-and-downs of the markets, on the new deal struck by ‘Merkozy’, yet they fail to grasp the nature or the extent of the social change that is taking place. Our economies are in dire state POLITICS & down-sloping SOCIETY since 2008, and protests to say the least, such as Occupy are probably somewhat naive concerning their power of change. 21 FRAU EUROPA We want to believe however, that something on a longdurée scale is happening in our societies. The difficulties Quirin Maderspacher we are facing are far-reaching. Change might not take 24 NEWtheGREEN DEAL place, THE but changing discourse is a good start. Immediate change may be a long way off, and some pessimists Emily Katzenstein say it might never come. But, as the courageous Atticus 26 BENEDICT Finch told his children BLUES in To Kill A Mockingbird, “simply we were licked a hundred years before we started because Antoine de Saint-Phalle is no reason for us not to try to win”. A battle that can’t be 28 LAfighting, LIBERTÉ won isVIVE still worth if you are fighting for what is right. Louise Dewast Make up your own mind about what is happening in our 30 WHO ARE societies and attend oneYOU? the Occupy LSX General Assemtake place every day at 1pm and 7pm on the bly. These Elena Georgantzis steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. Check-out the Tent Universi31 EXTREMISM: AT HOME AND ties calendar (see www.occupylsx.org) for interesting talks and debates, and give your own voice to the challenges we face. AWAY
CONTENTS
Omar El-Nahry
Joshua Davison
4
★
CONTENTS // Post-Modernism in Action - By Agnes Ziolkowski-Trzak // Do You Speak European? - By Sebastian Jannasch // Secular EU - The Challenges of Religion - By Asmaa Soliman // Improving Transparency and Public Participation in the EU By Paul Haydon // Diplomat’s Dilemma - By Anna Mazur The Netherlands: A Multicultural Mess?/ Zieba / The Future: An Ever-En//Marta Misconceptions from Pastoral croaching Union? / Sarah Coughlan / Am I European? / Daniela Bädje
France - by Elly Watson
// An Untold French Affair - By Louise Dewast // The Corner Shop - By Lucie Mikaelian // Russia’s Sixth Wave - By Joar Kvamsås // The Gospel According to the Guardian - By Bobbie Mills
All photography unless otherwise credited by Souvid Datta Layout - Alix Casanova
★
5
Post Modernism
in
Action
International Occupy Movements prove that unity doesn’t need grand narratives.
By Agnes Ziolkowski-Trzak. Photography by Louise Dewast What have you heard about the Occupy Movement? Most likely you know that it started on September 17th in New York, with people occupying the city in protest against Wall Street. You might also know that this phenomenon quickly swept throughout Europe where many citizens all across the continent quickly set up occupation camps in solidarity with the protesters in New York. You will have heard many reasons for the occupations, ranging from statements like ‘we are fighting against corporate greed’, to ‘bankers got a bailout, we got sold out’, and the now famous slogan ‘we are the 6
★
99 per cent’. These rather incoherent claims go hand in hand with the almost arbitrary mix of assertions the protesters direct towards their governments: ‘Tax the rich’, ‘we want our pensions back’, ‘free education for everybody’, ‘stop the war’, ‘real democracy, now’. These, and the lack of an all encompassing grand narrative, naturally let the conventional journalist assume that if there is no coherence within a single camp then there cannot possibly be any unity on a European scale.
If only our mainstream media had understood post-modernity, they would be able to see beyond the mix of different bodies with different demands. They would be able to recognize the unity that is created through the very uniqueness of every single Occupy protester. That is the essence of post-modernity; a single body of diverse individuals who do no t follow a single ideal but embrace many convictions in a democratic way. It is a fact that there are as many different opinions concerning the purpose and the aim of the interna-
tional Occupy movement, as there are citizens involved. Having said this, it is also a fact that being different from one another is what the demonstrators have in common. Instead of letting their individualism and idiosyncrasies become an obstacle, they use them as sources of inspiration for debate. Here, debate is always advancing, never stagnating. Based on the principle of inclusion and in the form of general assemblies or specific working groups, Occupy discussions bring together various identities, which jointly create a blend of knowledge that lends progress to the movement. Here of course, the claims go beyond catch phrases such as ‘make the banks pay’, so that a dynamic space of reason is created. The purposes for occupying are constantly being debated, the aims are continuously restructured, and the methods and strategies to achieve these goals are persistently being transformed by the unceasing reorganization of the group dynamic. As these discussions are open to all, they offer an opportunity for anyone to propose an argument, express support of someone else’s idea or simply object to any kind of suggestions made by others. Admittedly, this type of action and reasoning can be seen as discouraging and daunting, as it is easy to lose perspective over the whole movement. The established procedures make it especially difficult to visualize specific intentions of Occupy, and even more so, the direction in which the movement is heading to. However, this unpredictability of debate, the venture into the unfamiliar, experimental and, of course, new, is what constitutes the post-modernity of this insurgence. As Flamina Gianbalvo writes in The Occupied Times of London (the official Occupy London newspaper): ‘The debate might be never ending, but only by engaging with it, do we stand a chance of
achieving what no other movement has done: inventing the unknown’. Critics’ arguments concerning time insufficiency of large debating groups can be quickly made redundant. The Occupy London community of just over 300 campers, and thousands of visitors has managed to establish a self sustaining city within the city. Institutions in the camp include a general information tent, a kitchen and a coffee/tea house, The Occupied Times of London headquarters, the Tent City University (a space for lectures and seminars) as well as a growing library. Working groups dealing with concerns such as waste management, safety on the camp grounds, internet presence or outreach are based on voluntary participation. All this has been established in London within the progress of only four weeks, and is being developed and extended with every passing day. Of course, when being down at the camp, one cannot help but notice the organizers’ faces, pale with exhaustion, and their bodies worn out from sleepless, cold nights. Their visible fatigue does not however overshadow the overall enthusiastic mood within the camp. For me, the tiredness is a sign of dedication and passion. In a way, the organizers’ “cry for help” has the effect of inspiring anybody willing to get involved in the movement.
Interest and support has been growing since the beginning of the movements but an inevitable question of sustainability emerges. Are people making compromises, volunteering funds and energy because they know it is temporary? What if this was a permanent venture? This concept of a city made by the people (that is a group of diverse identities living together in a community), for the people, is carried out in Occupy camps all over Europe and the world. This is the very essence that unites the individuals involved with different Occupy sites, despite - no, rather due to - the very lack of a clear strategy and an aim. Led by the general disillusionment with the way in which Europe is being governed under the current status quo, the protestors all share one common feature: desire for autonomy and self-determination. They are united under the shared discontent of being patronized, of having decisions made for them. It is because they all have different opinions on solutions and future prospects that the debate is so lively and progressive. They are coming together in solidarity to reclaim the freedom of shaping their own lives. The collective tool they use for this purpose is purely and simply, deliberative democracy.
The camps have to constantly fear attacks, or even threats from governmental institutions. In London, Rome or Frankfurt, it appeared that any adversity which the camps might face have caused awareness in the broader public and made participation grow. The constant arrivals bring new energy to the camps, and makes-up for the structural flaws of the movement.
★
7
DO YOU SPEAK EUROPEAN ? By Sebastian Jannasch
Considered as sacred in France and regarded as a living organism in Germany, language has a different intrinsic value in each member state of the EU. Often the diversity of languages is accused of being an obstacle to European unity. It is actually a strength to the European Union in many undeniable ways. A student’s life in France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy or Poland looks pretty much the same. You attend lectures in the morning, read the newspapers at lunch-time, engage debates during afternoon seminars, write essays and spend time with your family and friends in the evening. We do all of this in different languages, and indeed most of us live and engage our everyday life within national and often linguistic borders. With many more examples of this sort, we come to question the extent to which we are part of a so-called European identity. Do EU members truly form a European society or simply a conglomeration of societies of Europe? The diversity of languages has often been seen as hampering the development of a European identity and unity. Such critics are also sceptic about the practicalities of an evercloser union. As such, a common 8
★
language would enable a discourse arena for public debates and public participation. These critics believe Europeans should be able to talk to each other directly, to tear down the invisible walls that still separate member states from one another. Indeed there is a disparity between the political and the social integration process. Whether European Union law prevails over national law and major political decisions that affect all European citizens are taken in Brussels or Strasbourg, interactions between a lot of Europeans is actually often limited to their holidays experiences. How could this ever lead to a federal political union? Further integration is still very much within reach. It is often argued that the creation of the current European states was facilitated by the existence of a common idiom, and that state borders are naturally placed along the fault-line of language areas. Switzerland for example proves that a shared language is not even necessary for a stable federal state. It might be true that language matters in some specific cases, but it is no argument to support the thesis that a linguistic heterogeneity curbs the process of European integration. Whilst there is no sign of a federal
Union yet, member states are currently working on closer cooperation, harmonization of economic, social and political agendas, frequent consultations and joint decisionmaking in all policy areas, finding common positions, acting together in global crises and defending liberal convictions. All of this is possible against the background of common historical roots, common liberal values and common objectives, not on the basis of a shared language. There is no doubt that a language mirrors the history and therefore collective memory of its speakers. Language carries identity, as it includes traditions, habits and worldviews that also structure the speaker’s thinking. Diversity of language should be seen as a cultural treasure from which all Europeans can benefit from. The role that language assumes in different members of the EU could not be more diverse. As an example, France and Germany have almost diametrically opposed approaches to dealing with their respective languages. In France, language is protected with an eagle eye: Prestigious institutions like the “Academie française” or the language department of the Ministry of
culture discuss the nitty-gritty cases of grammar and introduce French equivalents for English terms. In Germany the situation is completely different. There are also polemics about the adulteration of the language by Anglicisms every now and then, but defenders of German language are more often found among popular authors rather than amongst politicians. In spite of these profound differences, both Germany and France are considered to be the driving forces of European integration. A strong national identity does not stand in the way of a more integrated Europe. The current euro crisis has made them chief advocates of closer cooperation and coordination. Even some of the most taboo ideas are being sacrificed on the altar of further integration. Economic governance and the construction of a fiscal union, terms that had once been relegated to the rhetoric poison cupboard– are now on top of the political agenda. Though there are several official languages in the EU, one language –English- is mostly used because of practical reasons. English has the upper hand as the working language – and this is no reason to moan, because it does not replace other languages as a “living organism”. All pieces of legislation need to be translated in all official languages. However, English is a language that a majority can agree to use as a tool of communication on an international level. A dominant working language can perfectly co-exist with a diversity of other languages. The attempt to impose a common language would be counterproductive, as it would lead to a rejection of a perceived levelling down of
cultural characteristics and violate people’s right to express themselves. The fact that there are 23 official languages in the EU is not an issue and proves that political institutions can work without the existence of a single language, when certain arrangements are made. It is misleading to stage-manage the question of identity (linguistically and in general) as a zero-sum game, in which a national feeling of belonging exists at the expense of a European identity. Identity is felt at different levels: we might be local patriots of the cities we come from, we might have a feeling of belonging to the region where we grew up, we certainly feel attached to our
national states, but we are also part of a European community. Language is a cultural characteristic that shapes our personality, makes us who we are, and influences the way we see ourselves. By no means is language a disqualifying criterion for European unity. The diversity of languages makes Europeans focus on ideas and shared understandings, instead of simply assuming unity, because of a common language. That is why it even strengthens the European idea. It might not be our tongues, but our minds that speak European.
★
9
Secular EU - The Challenges of Religion by Asmaa
Soliman.
Photography from the photo stream of Mait Jüriado’s
10
★
“Joy, beautiful spark of the gods, daughter from Elysium, we, drunk with fire, step into your holy shrine, Heavenly One. Your magic binds together again that which custom has rigidly divided: all human beings become brothers wherever your gentle wing is.”
These are the first verses of “Ode to Joy” written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785. It has been adopted by the EU as an anthem for all members symbolizing a sense of brotherhood among the European Community. Even though the creation of the EU was primarily based on economical and more practical motives, it can be said that soon after its establishment other levels began to gain importance. A common political and cultural conception of the EU has developed and has formed a particular identity for which the EU stands. There is the idea that EU countries share similar political orders of a liberal democracy and moreover a common culture rooted in the French revolution, civilization and secularism. It is the cultural level that I want to elaborate on in this article, more specifically the EU´ s secular identity. It is common knowledge that all countries of the EU have a somehow secular mode of government even though if one looks at a more profound level one can notice that the shape of the secular state varies from country to country. Every EU state has its own pet policy regarding secularism, and theory is often different to practice. While France´s form of secularism for example can be seen as a very strict division between the state and the Church, that of Germany and the UK is more moderate and a corporate relation between the state and the Church does exist in these countries. Not only is there a difference in the strictness of separating religion from politics but one does also come across a reference to a ChristianJudaic heritage of Europe. Scholars like José Casanova describe Europe´s relation to religion as an ambiguous one where a clear coherent stance is difficult to discern.
Above all that the re-emergence of religion in Europe has been intensively provoked by the growing appearance of Muslim communities in European countries. An emerging group of first, second and by now also third generation of Muslim immigrants that refer strongly to its Islamic identity and is now demanding a public recognition of Islam challenges the EU, its secular self-understanding and its reference to a common Christian-Judaic heritage. Also the question of Turkey´ s membership in the EU and the reluctance to accept Turkey as a European country do raise thoughts about the EU´s general unease with religion and with a culturally different country. Hot debates about religion´s role in Europe, about Muslims in Europe and about the protection of a secular identity occupy politicians and the European public opinion and have deepened particularly in the last decade. Even though one can say that secularism is still being embraced, opinions are divided about religion´s place in Europe and it is impossible to identify one coherent overarching viewpoint. Also, among those who support a corporate relation between politics and religion, different viewpoints are expressed. There are those who emphasize the Christian-Judaic heritage of Europe while distancing themselves from the Islamic religion in their identification. We also see others, mainly supporters of multiculturalism emphasizing the importance of all religions including that of Muslim minorities in the EU. I think that it is this last group of politicians, academics and European citizens that is actually most close to the values democracy, equality and freedom which are the most crucial to Europe’s self-understanding. These values are only then guar-
anteed when individuals and communities with religious identifications and beliefs are included in the European public sphere. We cannot just ignore the fact that there is a significant number of Europeans that feels close to religion. It is time for die-hard secularists to understand that a strict imposition on individuals of secular ideals does not fit with the aforementioned essential values on which secularism has based itself in Europe. Besides, it has to be understood that secularism put in the simplest terms means the division of politics and religion in the sense that the latter should not control the former. This has to be seen in the context of a dark, traumatizing past of Europe characterized by an oppressive Church that abused its power and that took control over people. However, while secularism does not want religion to control politics, it does not mean that the former has to control or eliminate the latter. Rather, it stands for the sovereignty of both realms where neither one should interfere in the sphere of the other. Having said this it becomes clear that some secular pioneers of today seem to have understood the idea of secularism differently and tend to follow the path of another form of ideology that suppresses dissenting views. Whether or not a stronger religious identification is going to be more welcomed in the EU is still not totally clear as we are in the midst of these debates. However, what can be said is that unlike some theorists have predicted or some strict secularists would have wished, religion has come back to the heart of Europe. One would be mistaken to argue that there is a necessary correlation between modernity and a decrease of religious identification.
★
11
Improving Transparency and Public Participation in the EU By Paul Haydon
Many in the UK and across Europe tend to view the EU as an elitist and alien bureaucracy, out of touch with the everyday needs of its citizens. This is particularly significant at a time when there is widespread alarm over the Euro crisis coupled with growing separatist yearnings in the UK. So how is the EU responding to such charges? Can the EU the policymaking process? Eureka spoke with two high-ranking officials of the European Parliament, Diana Wallis and Michael Shackleton, to find out their thoughts become more democratic, more transparent, and increase the participation of its citizens in on the matter. Diana Wallis, a Liberal Democrat member and Vice President of the European Parliament, has been given the specific responsibility of improving transparency in the EU. This is a task which she feels is key to improving the EU’s legitimacy: “We have to admit that at the moment people don’t feel the same way about European decision-making as they do about national decisionmaking; there tends to be an unwillingness to accept the decisions that come from Europe. You’re only going to overcome that if people can see what the process is much more clearly, and feel that they are involved.” Last June she helped to introduce the Transparency Register, a measure which has made the process of lobbying in the Parliament and Com12 ★
mission far more transparent and accountable. Lobbying groups such as private companies and NGOs are now required to register on a list, clarify their policy interests, and obey a code of conduct, whilst information relating to their lobbying attempts is now made publicly available. Interestingly, Diana points out that no such transparency exists regarding lobbying in Britain, or indeed in most EU member-states. But what about the policymaking process itself? One of Diana’s chief concerns is the way that decisions are increasingly being taken in informal ‘trialogues,’ private meetings between representatives of the Commission, European Council and Parliament. “However you conduct this, people will always meet in the corridors or have a cup of coffee before a meeting; you’re never going to get everything into the public arena,” she says. “But where you have trialogues, with all three institutions agreeing on legislation, that really needs to be brought out into the open much more. At the moment what you often have is a key group of people from each of the three institutions conducting negotiations more or less in private.” These informal trialogues often lead to ‘first-reading agreements,’ where decisions are accepted by all three institutions at the first stage of the political process without any further negotiation. This then removes the
potential for public discussion or the proposing of amendments in the European Parliament, which under the Lisbon Treaty has become a co-legislator equal in power to the Council. “We’ve gained new powers under Lisbon, but it feels as though we’re almost handing them back again by not taking full advantage of the legislative process,” argues Diana. “We need more pre-discussion before we take final decisions or give a mandate to one person, however excellent the work they do. There has to be a way of ensuring a fuller debate and more openness.” Nonetheless, Michael Shackleton, who heads the European Parliament’s Information Office in the UK, argues that the EU’s decision-making process remains far more open than that of most national governments. “There is a whole debate in the EU about how much we should say, and whether we should make public sensitive internal documents about how the institutions operate. But the government in the UK would never release information like this, such as an internal document about the accounts of the Ministry of Defence.” As Michael goes on to explain, these perceptions of transparency also vary greatly across the member states. “Everyone’s political culture has grown up in a different way. Transparency hasn’t got the same resonance in somewhere like France
as it has got here-despite having a promote transparency; some MEPs revolution they still have a president think, ‘well, why should we? We who goes around a bit like a king! wouldn’t do something like that in The European Parliament is a place our country.’” where these different ways of looking at things can collide. This can Yet in spite of this the European Pargenerate problems when trying to liament remains the most transparent
of the EU’s institutions, especially in comparison with the European Council, which largely due to the sensitivities of its member-states remains fairly secretive. For example, the Transparency Register introduced by Diana Wallis applies to
★
13
both the Commission and the Parliament, but has not been extended to cover lobbying in the Council. Meanwhile Votewatch, a public database which shows how each individual MEP votes in the European Parliament, is having difficulties trying to extend coverage to member-states’ voting in the Council. “At the moment the Council produces a document describing how member-states intend to vote,” Michael explains. “The question is: should Votewatch just publish this, or should it push for the Council to release how the member-states actually ended up voting? It’s quite a difficult issue. If their eventual vote was also released they could have a hard time explaining things to national parliaments. This could actually prevent compromises and restrict the decisionmaking process.” How then will the Council respond to growing calls for greater transparency? Michael remains optimistic: “The Council has responded to pressure over transparency in the past, for example when it created its Registry of Documents in 1999. I think it will begin to feel awkward about being an outsider to the other institutions, and so it will become quite hard for them to resist. It’s a gradual process, but at the moment the movement is in one directiontowards greater transparency.” Such improvements in transparency are undeniably desirable, yet they do not address a central issue; the lack of public interest and participation in EU decision-making. There seems little point in the political process being more open to the public if hardly anybody is actually taking any notice. So, in what ways could
14
★
citizens be encouraged to engage more with issues at the EU level? Diana argues that the media is key, and must do a better job of improving peoples’ understanding of how the EU works. “At the moment Europe is still being portrayed as an entity where certain heads of state, right now it’s ‘Merkozy’, get together and make decisions. It’s as though the rest of the apparatus, all the democratic checks and balances, didn’t exist.” The European Parliament has created its own media platforms such as Europol TV, to try and get its message across and raise public awareness at a European level. But as Michael argues, there’s no obvious answer to the question of how to increase public interest in the EU. “The institution can try do draw people towards it, but in the end it has to be something that’s out there in society, people need to feel it’s something worth looking at. We have to accept that there’s just not the same passion as there is for national politics.” Several political reforms have been proposed to try and address this issue, and to create more of a European political space. One of these is Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff’s proposal for ‘transnational lists,’ which would make a proportion of MEPs elected on a crossnational party platform rather than on a local basis. But both Diana and Michael are sceptical of this proposal. “On the face of it sounds like a good idea, but my fear is that they won’t fulfil the need for people to have their voices and that of their region
heard,” Diana explains. “This is especially true at a time when people still feel they need that linkage with their elected representative, which already in the current system can be difficult. So while maybe one day in the future we will be ready for it, I’m not sure that now is the right time.” Michael agrees with this sentiment: “It’s not really solving the issue. People currently don’t know why they should vote for whichever party, what difference it will actually make on the ground. All the transnational list does is to try and make people aware that they could be voting across borders, it doesn’t make a difference to the end product.” “I’m much more enthusiastic about the idea of linking European parliamentary elections with the appointment of the Commission President,” Michael adds. “Each of the European political parties will nominate a candidate for the Commission president, someone who would state clearly what they stand for. This would then create a standard against which their behaviour could be judged- because the problem at the moment is that nobody actually knows what a party will do if they are elected.” “There are significant difficulties with it,” Michael admits. “One of the issues is how do you find somebody who is identifiable and acceptable across 27 countries, and the answer is you probably can’t. But it’s going to happen in one way or another in 2014, so we’ll see what happens.”
Diplomat’s Dilemma
Interview with H.E. British Ambassador to Poland, Ric Todd words and photography by Anna
Do you remember the Ferrero Rocher commercial shown throughout the 90s? Chic soirée hosted at an embassy, overflowing with champagne and glamour; fabulous and foreign-looking socialites taking delight in the tasty chocolates, while the voice in the background chimes in: ‘The ambassador’s receptions are noted in society for their host’s exquisite taste.’ The same advert made Guardian’s Oliver Miles (former ambassador himself) refer to banquet-hosting as the dull, yet splendid ‘Ferrero Rocher side of diplomacy.’ An average citizen, when first asked about a job of an ambassador, pictures a party not so different from the one we know from the commercial. Why do people have a vague perception of what diplomacy really is? Are ambassadors truly ‘useful only in fair weather’ as de Gaulle once said? Today Eureka talks to Ric Todd, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Warsaw, about his job as the head of a diplomatic mission, the changing nature of diplomacy, and how there’s more to being an ambassador than giving away nicely wrapped chocolates. 16
★
Mazur
dor to Poland, my job still focuses on trying to build trade connections, trying to identify common interests, advising my government on policy, dealing with bilateral problems, and helping the British in Poland. Now, obviously, this is happening on a different scale, and often at a totally different pace. I believe three big changes can be distinguished in diplomacy since I first started working for the Foreign Office. The first thing was the end of the Cold War which saw the demise of the Soviet Union and deliberation of Central and East European countries. Borders were opened, the Iron Curtain was lifted and the nature of global relations changed irreversibly. The second Mr. Ambassador, so far you have had a long and significant element is probfull career as a professional diplomat. Having ably, what I would call, the worked during the last 30 years on diplomatic ‘rise of the East.’ We can missions in South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Gerclearly see now that China many, Slovakia and now Poland - would you say is starting to dominate the diplomacy has undergone a big change during the world economy, followed last three decades? by India and other Asian I think diplomacy in many ways reflects the way countries, slightly diminthe world changes. Yet there is always a constant, ishing the significance of a clear element that will never be subject to fundaprevious Western leaders. mental change. The constant thing is the need for I think right now we’re in relationships between states; the means to find ways the middle of that transiof resolving conflict and the means to find ways tion and it still continues to of creating cooperation and asserting stability. The heavily influence the way central role of a diplomat remains the same as it was, diplomacy is changing. say, 400 years ago. Being the 56th British ambassa- Finally, there was of course
the technological development. It makes it easier to travel, to quickly communicate – also with your own government. So can we say that today’s ambassador is no longer plenipotentiary? Since thanks to technological advancements he is practically forced to consult every decision with his government, with the Foreign Office? Plenipotentiary means having the power to make agreements, to make commitments on behalf of the government. Now, ambassadors today are still traditionally referred to as such – they still do sign documents on behalf of the country - but due to facilitated communication they don’t decide on those matters for themselves. Still, what I consider an even bigger change related to technological advancements is that nowadays more and more people around the world take interest in what diplomats do; today, we are more subject to the public opinion than ever before, and diplomacy is no longer a ‘secret’ business. We can see that diplomacy is no longer a discreet matter with major state decisions being taken behind closed doors – WikiLeaks being the most extreme example. But do you think that this change — the fact that diplomacy is in the media spotlight and under mounting pressure from public opinion – has significantly altered your responsibilities as an ambassador? Like I said, the fundamental role of a diplomat remains the same. What has changed is that now diplomacy is not mostly done between diplomats. Take the example of the climate change issue: the British government clearly wants to negotiate solutions to climate change with the
Polish government. But equally, we, the British government, also want to engage directly in a public debate between Polish citizens. So actually, it is not just about me communicating with the Foreign Minister, but also about me communicating with the Polish people through media, newspapers, Internet and public appearances. Would you say that being increasingly subject to public opinion blurs the boundary between the ambassador’s responsibilities and the actions dictated by his own opinion? How do you know what will be accepted as representing your government and what can be considered as exceeding your authority? I think there are different views among countries with respect to that matter. I remember that when I was an ambassador in Slovakia, several years ago, I gave a speech about Slovak politics, and it was in newspapers. One of my ambassador Slovak colleagues later came up to me and said, shocked: ‘Why did you do that thing which ended up in public newspapers?’ ‘Well, because it’s my job,’ I replied. She responded, ‘If I ended up in the newspapers, I’d be withdrawn.’ I think this clearly shows how perception of ambassador’s role can differ between countries. My government prefers that I’m in the newspapers, that I’m in the public light, making British arguments publicly. I’m asking because I know in June 2009 you were heavily criticized by some of Poland’s conservative politicians, including the Polish civil rights ombudsman, for supporting a gay pride march and for hoisting the ‘rainbow flag’ at the embassy’s building a year earlier.
I believe that as an ambassador, you have to be ready to be controversial. The problems that I have to deal with in my job are almost by definition controversial and multifaceted. If we agreed on everything marvelously, then there wouldn’t be any need for diplomats’ intervention, would there? I think that, for me, to explain what the British government and the British people think – and to do it in an open and respectful way is entirely my job. I’m also very happy to accept that people can disagree. What are the British interests concerning Poland today? First of all, Great Britain and Poland are allies and friends, especially in NATO and EU, and therefore the big part of British interest in Poland is persuading it to vote the same way in EU and NATO. The second thing is the strong economic relationships – Britain exports more to Poland than it does to Russia, Brazil or Turkey; and for Poland, it is its fourth biggest export market. And then, there’s also the fact that Britain and Poland have common views on a number of global issues – I’m talking about trade, development, nuclear proliferation, climate change. When it comes to these matters, the cooperation between Polish and British governments takes place not only on bilateral level, but also on a huge scale on the forum of the European Union. There’s especially the matter of how to make it economically successful, how to bring growth back to the EU, how to have an EU with a dynamic economic growth, globally competitive. This is a goal that we want to cooperate on with Poland, as we believe that
★
17
EU should be open, should work on being competitive and should not try to micromanage individual countries. So would you say there is too big an interference of the EU in these details? I think that it’s important that the European Union focuses on what matters above all for citizens – which is growth, prosperity rather than focusing on things that are not so relevant. Like somebody said: ‘the European Commission needs to use binoculars rather than a magnifying glass’. So it’s not their role to decide how many hours people should work or how big the bananas should be – these are the things that countries can decide themselves. The EU, collectively, has so many big challenges to deal with, they should not waste time and money examining little things with a microscope. Do you think that Poland’s presidency in the Council of the European Union is a big chance for the country? An opportunity also for a new chapter in PolishBritish relations? Or is it more of an administrative role that people tend to put too big hopes in? The role of a Presidency in the EU does give a country a lot of opportunities. It is clearly important to Poland, now that it has been a member of the EU for seven years. However, the problem with the presidency is that you have to be careful not to overestimate your abilities to achieve your own objectives – countries which see the presidency as a chance to put forward their own agenda tend to have difficulties. Countries 18
★
who want to manage issues, deal with problems, and put forward consensus tend to do pretty well. The other thing to remember of course is that the presidency happens to come by and tends to be shaped by unexpected events. So a country may have a great plan for the presidency, but often the real question is how it will deal with an eventual crisis.
the job that I’ve been working in for 30 years now. You actually get to actively participate in the making of history. And these several occasions make it worthwhile.
Do you have any advice that you would give to students aspiring to work in diplomacy? I think you need to be aware that it comes with a package of pluses and minuses. You will definitely have fascinating tasks to carry out and you will be constantly meeting a lot of interesting people. But it’s not an easy job - in human terms, in family terms - and you have to be prepared that you probably won’t make much money. But surely you must have the feeling that you take part in important events in the history of each country you’ve been working in. Yes, this is what fascinates me in
Bio Note Ric Todd was born in 1959 r. in Sussex. He studied History at All Souls’ College in Oxford and joined the FCO in 1980 r. Posted to South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Slovakia, he also worked in between in for the Treasury as well as FCO Board Member and Finance Director, to finally arrive to Poland in October 2007. In September 2011 he was appointed Her Majesty’s Governor to Turks and Caicos Islands (the interview took place earlier in the year while he was still holding his office in Poland). He is married to Alison and has three children.
★
19
Misconceptions From Provincial France By Elly Watson
We all believed a lot of silly things when we were young. It is a universal phenomenon that children think they run really fast, that their mum’s faux fur coat is beautiful and that owning more than one Gameboy is a sure sign of wealth. I am in no way an exception to this rule. In fact, being a selfassured little madam only meant that I accumulated an unruly amount of these beliefs, so that by age seven I felt perfectly confident in telling people that Austin Powers was a real person and that it was illegal for a woman to marry a man if she was older than him. Add to this the fact that I spent my primary school years in a Catholic school in rural France and the result is a very peculiar set of ideas. Whether they are an insight into French culture or reflection of my own experience, I can’t say, but I sincerely hope I am no longer so easily influenced.
Belief #1: Poetry is important
Belief #3: French is the universal language
One of my most vivid childhood memories is when I was of standing at the front of the class, aged six, staring at the floor and trying to remember the opening lines of Jean de la Fontaine’s ‘Le Corbeau et Le Renard’:
While it is foreseeable for all countries to display a certain amount of patriotism, the ardour with which French greatness was thrust upon us lead to several misunderstandings. The first being that French was the language of the world. This in turn lead us to believe that French translations were the ‘real’ name of any given thing: the protagonist of ‘Where’s Wally’ was really called Waldo, and the real title of Home Alone was ‘Mummy I’ve Missed the Plane’. Snowballing from this train of thought was the idea that Switzerland wasn’t actually a country but merely a French province and that Picasso was in fact French.
“Maitre Corbeau...Maitre Corbeau...fromage?” I have never been so embarrassed. While the French school system is renowned for its antiquated methods, this particular ordeal always seemed especially cruel to me, not because of the public humiliation it often involved, but for the misplaced importance of performing. Imagine my surprise when I moved to Australia and found out that my new peers not only didn’t want to hear Hugo’s ‘Clair de Lune’, but would rather try to fit their fists in their mouths instead. Unbelievable. Belief #2: Protestants are the Anti-Christ
After all this though, there are certain things I learnt at Ecole Sainte Marie that I would never question namely that butter makes everything taste better, nuns should always feature in sex jokes and that joie de vivre is more than just a Renault advert.
I once met a girl at a party and, wanting to become friends, complemented her on the gold cross she was wearing. I asked if she was Catholic and when she replied that no, she was Protestant, my face dropped faster than the A bomb on Hiroshima. Did these people really exist? Running back to my friends I told them that “that girl over there” actually protested against God, and wasn’t even ashamed to admit it, “can you imagine?” Full of self-righteousness I declared that I would rather not believe in God than be a Protestant, hand on my heart. Ironically my mother had been taking us to an Evangelical church this whole time, but I hadn’t understood that there was a difference until I wasn’t allowed to do Communion. Woops.
★
21
An Untold French affair By Louise Dewast
It was neither secret nor illegal, but undeniably a dubious affair. It seems as if nobody talked about it, no politicians outlawed it, very few journalists reported on it. Wikileaks did, of course, try to spark attention to it. Unfortunately apart from diplomatic gossip and burning issues such as war, climate change and war again, most of the infamous cables were silenced. Who cares about culture or national sovereignty anyway? Well, probably all of us, if only we knew how -and by whom- they were being tampered with. 22
★
It was a three day affair. They had been invited to Paris for conferences, sight-seeing and social events. On October 19th 2010, a group of twenty-nine delegates from the Pacific Council on International Policy gathered for a continental breakfast to discuss how they could exert influence over France, courtesy of Charles Rivkin, the US ambassador to France. He is himself a member of the Los Angeles based globalist network strongly associated with the US government
Charles Rivkin had set the tone of the conferences around three themes. The delegates, hosts and guests were to discuss FrancoMuslim relations, issues on energy and nuclear policy along with media and culture connections between California and France. However, as the Wikileaks cable later revealed, there was an underlying globalist strategy with a seditious agenda aiming to transform French consciousness, in particular by manipulating Muslim youth with American representations of “freedom” and
“equality”. The PCIP chose France because they felt threatened, to a certain extent, by the revival of a French national identity discourse. As in many other European countries, the rise of extreme-right wing parties, Le Pen’s National Front Party (FN), known for its extremist views on immigration and French identity, has been gaining ground in the past ten years. National identity discourse is also very dear to current President Sarkozy who had made it a cornerstone of his 2007 election campaign. Following the three-day conferences in Paris, a report was issued. Revealed by Wikileaks, this report shows clear intentions of influencing the political future of France, by subverting French culture through the medium of Hollywood and other soft-power tools. For information purpose, here are the seven targets as they are described in the report: 1. Aim to engage the French population at all levels to amplify France’s efforts to realise its own egalitarian ideals, thereby advancing US national interests. 2. To continue and intensify our work with French museums and educators to reform the history curriculum taught in French schools, so that it takes into account the role and perspectives of minorities in French history. 3. To build on the expansive public diplomacy programs already in place, and develop creative, additional means to influence the youth of France, employing new media, corporate partnership, nationwide competitions, targeted outreach events, especially inviting US guests. 4. To develop new tools to identify, learn from and influence future French leaders. 5. To support, train, and engage
media and political activists who share our values. 6. To continue our project of sharing best practices with young leaders in all fields [...] so that they have the toolkits and mentoring to move ahead [...] We will also provide tools for teaching tolerance to the network of over 1,000 American University students who teach English in French schools every year. 7. To install a minority working group [...] measuring tangible indicators of success. While we could never claim credit for these positive developments, we will focus our efforts in carrying out activities, described above, that prod, urge and stimulate movement in the right direction. This prompts a simple question: why would the US set such an agenda? Surely these matters are a responsibility of the French ministry. History has shown that France can be a challenging and at times unreliable ally for the US. Today however, the French government is in most part aligned along the same lines as the US foreign policy agenda. Therefore, France’s “hard power” –in Joseph Nye words- of military and economic power is constrained. This explains France’s stubbornness in using soft power instead, by promoting its culture and language around the world rather than abiding to US dictates. This is very obviously problematic for the US government. Because it would be inconceivable to exert hard power over France, the US settles with using its own soft power, as a tool for co-opting and exerting influence over French values, culture, policies and institutions. In the Rivkin report, the main soft power tool suggested to promote US interests is multiculturalism. Howard Perlmutter already wrote during the 1970s that “the best way
of ridding France of its nationalism was to introduce multiculturalism”. French political culture is also a useful tool for Rivkin, as he asserted that France’s “history of ideological liberalism will serve us well as we implement the strategy outlined here”. In his mind, the young French will be taught to think that they are upholding French traditions when in fact these are products of American culture. This does not necessarily reads as an appropriate engagement towards French disaffected youth… Multiculturalism does not have the same meaning everywhere and for everyone. Actually, the term has a fundamentally different meaning in France and in the US. In the latter, it is less a sense of cultural tolerance than a mono-cultural intolerance. The Rivkin Report is, at first reading, a revolting offense to French sovereignty, but it is actually its perversion of the word multiculturalism that is eminently wrong. US lobbies along with state representatives have transferred a globalist perspective to the term, submerging different cultures and identities into a melting pot of global consumerism. Multiculturalism has been emptied of its original sense, and can now join the list of subverted ideals such as “democracy” and “equality” excessively misused by the Bush administration and which has continued ever since. The Albert Camus saying « to misuse words is to add to the world’s misfortunes” (Mal nommer les choses, c’est ajouter aux malheurs du monde”) is more salient than ever.
★
23
The Corner Shop By Lucie Mikaelian
The riots in London shed light once again on the disparate worlds that coexist in the same metropolis. Big cities are paradoxical; they create fantasies as fast as they destroy them. As a French observer of this summer’s English riots, the first thing I did was to compare the urban violence in Hackney, Brixton or Tottenham, with the French banlieues unrest in 2005. Paris and London are two ‘world cities’ undergoing constant renewal due upheavals implied by globalization. A ‘world city’ is one that exerts world scale strategic and commanding functions, a centre that organizes flows and is entrenched in sprawling networks. Paris and London have witnessed these processes in the last ten years with changes in their political, economic and social organization. Projects aimed at enhancing sustainable development such as adequate public transportation or strategic economic policies have flourished. Now facing a grave economic crisis and widespread impoverishment, those two global cities appear more fragile. Behind the veil—a centre of attraction for foreigners— hides extreme poverty endangering civil peace. London and Paris are two 24
★
very different cities. London gathers almost 8 million people within 1580 km –16 times Paris’ surface— whereas Paris only brings together about 2,2 million. They both have ambitions of a world city, the ‘Grand Paris’ project as well as the Olympic Games create enough emulation to help them vibrate and attract more than they already do. However, in 2005, the French riots showed the existing inequality gap between the population living in central Paris and those from the suburbs, particularly within the young people. Many point to immigration as a core factor in this issue. The comparison of the French and English immigration and integration systems is a polemical topic. Indeed, we often compare the French secular and republican way to integrate newcomers, to the more libertarian and community-oriented English tradition. Both systems are widely criticized as they have continuously failed to create an equal society. These systems have flaws, having failed to integrate minorities in urban areas, but there are many other causes of urban unrest. Some districts of London are reaching catastrophic levels of poverty. Compared to anywhere else in England, London ranks highest in poverty levels for all age groups. Child poverty amounts to
40% in London, meaning that over 600,000 of London children live in low-income households. The rift created can be explained with Ted Gurr’s writings. The author of Why Men Rebel has formulated a theory on the ‘relative frustration’ or ‘relative privation’, that is, the breach between two levels of diverging representations: the expectation of acquiring goods –considered legitimate—and the possibility of obtaining satisfaction. In other words, the former relates to expectations of change towards higher standards, and the latter to privation as real and concrete injustice. Hence, the claims differ completely from the political and ideological ones made in 1968. Today, every citizen is entitled to good living standards and participation in capitalist society through consumption. We often take the example of technological gadgets (the iPad is the most recent one) as the symbol of a permanent creation of new needs which excludes a major part of the population who cannot afford it. But the riots in Paris and London showed more than relative frustration. In fact, we can say that they showed absolute frustration. Indeed, in 2005 in France, the rioters set fire to cars, as well as private and public infrastructure.
This summer, London witnessed extreme violence and looting -which has been severely sanctioned- without taking into consideration the original causes of the riots, namely feelings of despair. Not only was there violence, but some rioters seemed to be losing all sense of morality, people sacking the corner shops where they used to shop every day. This violence demonstrates the fraying of social fabric, which is itself produced by poverty. It also illustrates the low level of hope and expectations from life that people often feel in those neighbourhoods. Many commentators have said that the people who stole rice
from the corner shop were just motivated by hunger. David Cameron called them ‘nihilists’ and ‘opportunists’. It is high time to read E.P. Thompson. In ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’, the author claims that food riots could not be solely explained by starvation. According to Thompson, people participating in this kind of violence actually have a sense of what is legitimate, and a fair notion of what is right; ‘the men and women in the crowd were informed by the belief that they were defending traditional rights or customs; and, in general, that they were supported by the wider consensus of the community’. It is interesting to observe that relative frustration
can become a legitimate political action if it concerns basics goods such as food. Both the cases of Paris and London reveal the complexity of civil unrest. Understanding the complexity behind the issue is essential in solving it. World Cities need more than ever a social reorganization of their spatial territory in order to avoid the emergence of poverty patches, which always seem to lead social issues into riots. These problems are ongoing; if this summer’s crisis and the increased media coverage have shown a worsened situation, long-term solutions must be implemented.
Russia’s Sixth Wave By Joar Kvamsas
“- Should my daughter rather learn English or German?” This question is asked to me by Olga Radchenku, a 33 year old lecturer at the faculty of Medicine at the University of Kazan. We are having tea with traditional Russian sweets in a small but well furnished flat on the outskirts of town. Olga lives there with her ten year old daughter Anastasia; a small family in a relatively affluent Russian city. While being the sole provider for the family, Olga finds the time to spoil her daughter with attention and affection. This makes it strange – but not surprising – to discover that there is nothing Olga 26
★
wants more than for her daughter to leave Russia as soon as she is old enough. “There is no future for her here,” she says. “What opportunities does this country give her? What profession can she have?” Olga hopes that her daughter will one day go on to study at a foreign university. She has had her daughter learn German for the last few years hoping that she one day can lead her life in Europe’s strongest economy, though she wonders if maybe English would open up a wider set of opportunities. Olga is not the only mother who would want a better future for her children than what her country can
offer. It has been estimated that 1.25 million people have left Russia over the last 10 years, seeking better lives in Europe, the US, Israel, Latin America or other parts of Asia. One of them is Anna Komissarova, a Moscovite currently studying visual arts at a college in Florida. I met up with her in Moscow, where she lives with her family over the summer. As a foreign student, Anna is taking part in what is becoming known as “the Sixth Wave” of Russian mass emigration. The first five were caused by the 1917 revolution, the Stalinist purges of the 30’s, the Great Patriotic War (or WWII as we know it in the West), the exodus to Israel under Brezhnev, and the economic disasters resulting from Gorbachev’s perestroika. The Sixth Wave is, according to Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin caused by the disillusion of Putin’s new regime. Like in the previous waves of emigrants, the people who leave come mainly from the educated middle class. They leave in order to escape the corruption and economic stagnation, as well as the state’s increasing limitation of personal freedoms. As Oreshkin puts it; it’s the feeling that unless your father is affiliated with the United Russia Party or Gazprom, or was once in the KGB, you can’t get anywhere. However, the picture is not necessarily rosy for those who do decide to leave either. Anna Komissarova, having finished the first year of her American college degree tells me that living the American Dream is not turning out quite as she had expected. “Our college is situated in the suburbs, very close to a pretty bad neighbourhood,” she says. “No one is out on the street – one time we heard shooting going on.” Mos-
cow seems safe in comparison, as we walk along the riverbank, the evening sun reflected in the water. Its sprawling shops and busy streets that Anna is used to is very different from her new home. Florida has felt a particularly severe recession, and turning a college degree into a successful career is harder than it used to be. Of course, economic hardship in the West is not the only problem a young Russian will face when moving abroad. The cultural differences between Russia and the West are significant, down to very basic conventions of how people interact. In the West, there is a greater difference in how people act in the private and the public spheres. Studying to become an illustrator, Anna made one of her projects a satirical observation of the ‘Fake American Smile’. Her fellow students from the US were nonplussed – most of them did not understand what she was satirizing. They kept smiling though. Anna tells me that her difficulties with fitting into American culture are a major reason why she might move back to Russia once she has completed her degree. She has seen the Promised Land, and found it wanting. This is a feature that distinguishes the Sixth Wave from the previous five: The opportunity to return. Leaving Russia is no longer a oneway route, and it is becoming increasingly easier for emigrants to make regular visits to family and friends in their homeland. The option to return is also substantially decreasing the risks that emigrants take – if they don’t find what they were seeking, they can simply go back. That path was chosen by Natasha Zaychenko, a friend of mine from Moscow. She lived for a few years
in Italy and did a year at a university in Berlin, but decided that she wanted to return to Moscow for a year. “I realized I hadn’t really made a proper decision that I wanted to leave Russia forever,” she says. “I felt I needed to come back. Make up my mind about my relationship to this country.” Natasha takes me to a trendy café that acts as a meeting place for intellectuals, students and people from the media that wish to discuss political issues pertaining to Russia’s future. “The discussions here are often very theoretical,” Natasha says, “but they are quite good. If they talk about how to build a better society, and they talk about communism and socialism – it means something. It’s a real question. When people talk about these things in Germany it just pisses me off. They have no idea.” Unfortunately, those who hope for political reforms in Russia will probably be in for a long wait. Putin is preparing for another 8-year period as President in 2012, and while both he and Medvedev have expressed concern over Russia’s problems of corruption, this is mainly seen as pre-election pandering. While those at the top of the Russian hierarchy might be well aware of the costs that prolonged disillusion and flight of talent will have on the Russian state, the problem is systemic: How could Putin change the system which his power is built on? Meanwhile, ordinary Russians see few options left; either endure or escape. For ten year old Anastasia this means practicing German vocabulary every night. Even if she turns out lucky and gains a foothold in a Western country, that will only be the first of a series of challenges.
★
27
The Gospel According to The Guardian By Bobbie Mills
Euphemisms, springing directly from cultural practice, will tell you a huge amount about where someone is from, provided that you can unlock their meaning first. Take for example the phrase ‘he reads the Daily Mail’. No one without experience of British culture would ever understand the full meaning of it. But surely the extent of a man’s bigotry and ignorance cannot be better communicated than by insinuating that next to his downstairs loo is a well-thumbed stack of The Sun’s back catalogue. If it is such a well known fact that this ‘Daily Mail reader’ would be better off throwing out his toilet paper and using his tabloids instead, why is it then that The Sun and The Daily Mail command the highest readership in the nation with 7,772,000 readers and 4,741,000 respectively? This idea that tabloids-are-trash is actually only propagated by an elitist cultural minority. These fellows also have another euphemism up their sleeves; ‘he’s alright, he reads The Guardian’. Britain’s recently more pronounced shift towards the political right , characterised by suspicion of or downright hostility towards mi28
★
grants, islamophobia and other tram-abuse-lady style ideas is often blamed partly upon scare-mongering committed by tabloids. This is by and large a fair accusation, but it is not known how much influence they have over the minds of their readers. I could be in fact that Guardian readers have infinitely more faith in what their rag of choice reports than Daily Mail readers do. Guardian readers are generally convinced that they are reading the ‘right’ newspaper and that they can thereby feel comfortably well informed on current affairs. From my experience of British culture today, it appears that ‘the Grauniad’ can simply do no wrong. In some British households the paper has taken on the role of the Holy Bible, with every day a new instalment of self-righteousness. You open the pages, read the comments and you think ‘Ha! I knew it!’. Like a well constructed newspaper should, it convinces you that you are reading the truth. Meanwhile, a proportion of the tabloid readership will be being taken up by those simply reading for entertainment and celebrity gossip, rather than for the politics. It should be noted that I myself am an occasional disciple - in my opin-
ion it manages to get things right a good amount of the time. However, since the advent of the paper’s social reader on Facebook it has become ever more apparent that the paper prints just as many trashy stories as the rest of them. Therein lies the downfall of the British cultural elite. By allowing us to see exactly who read (or ‘accidentally’ clicked on) what, social readers have revealed to us the Guardian reader’s darkest of secrets. We love the trash. It’s essentially all we read. There is just as much demand for fluff stories amongst the liberal elite as there is anywhere else. When Facebook lets you know that people of much higher intellect than you are reading things like ‘playground drawing of penis seen from space’, you know it’s a lost cause, or at least it’s time to climb down from the high horse. Many articles that pop up in my newsfeed are by popular professional moper Charlie Brooker. Back in March I clicked through to an article of his that argued that newspapers are the most dangerous of drugs, posing the ‘biggest threat to the nation’s mental wellbeing’. The article was essentially one extended metaphor describing how newspapers are
a kind of drug, explaining pretty accurately how: “The dealers [of newspapers] claim it expands the mind and bolsters the intellect: users experience an initial rush of emotion (often euphoria or rage), followed by what they believe is a state of enhanced awareness. Tragically this “awareness” is a delusion. As they grow increasingly detached from reality, heavy users often exhibit impaired decision-making abilities, becoming paranoid, agitated and quick to anger.” It is clear from this just how seriously we take our media. Of course our free press is something to be relatively proud of. In the past year
it has come to light just how grossly free, not to mention unregulated the British press really is. By ‘relatively proud’, I mean our journalists can criticize government policy without being bundled in to the back of a van. But regarding the modern British press as a source of profound intellect and enlightenment, as some people still do, might be taking it a bit too far. Journalists work to deadlines. They are not opinion spewing automatons with fully formed convictions concerning every story their editor plonks on their desks. With the volume of stories they crank out each week, the average journalist cannot be expected to remember the opinion he wrote so convincingly on
last week, or even earlier that morning. If journalists don’t have the time to seriously think out their articles, it makes no sense for the reader to take their voice as gospel. That goes for this article too.
★
29
Eureka Magazine is the official magazine of the UCLU European Society, home to students from all backgrounds who are interested in the political and cultural landscape of Europe. We are particularly interested in encouraging those with little background in writing and photography to see EUREKA as a platform for gaining confidence and experience. One issue per term is published and is freely available all over UCL campus, as well as online, and so is ideal for budding journalists who want to put their ideas out there. To get involved you can get in touch with us via e-mail or facebook – in the mean time, please check out and download our back catalogue of issues on www.eurosoc.co.uk We are looking forward to our next edition to be published next term! EUREKA editors Bobbie Mills & Louise Dewast eureka.ucl@gmail.com