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Sir, ORIGINAL VOICES -WOMEN IN EGYPT - A RT & I M M I G R AT I O N - FRENCH RULEBREAKERS-

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SIR IS ALL ABOUT INTERPRETING OUR WORLD DIFFERENTLY. WE DO NOT RECYCLE BROADSHEET COMMENT.

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EDITORIAL

The inspiration for this term’s theme came from a journalism careers event of all places. When Jack and I were sub-editors last term, we attended a talk given by some journalists working for Reuters – shameless careerists that we are. They were talking about their graduate programme, and outlined what they looked for in potential employees. They trotted out the usual mellifluous clichés about looking for a self-starter who can also work in a team, an individual with an eye for both the minute details and the bigger picture.

A student in the audience pressed them for some more concrete examples, and asked about the kind of practical experience they were looking for. Rather unexpectedly for a global newswire like Reuters they said that, actually, they weren’t looking for anyone who was particularly interested in foreign affairs at this stage. They found that a lot of student level writing on international relations didn’t boast the qualities that they like to see; more than anything there wasn’t enough original research – most people

were content to collate a few broadsheet columnists’ opinions and put their name to it.

So when we became editors, we decided we wanted to prove that this kind of writing didn’t have to be that way. We decided to try and move away from rehashed polemics about the Israeli government, and myopic anti-American diatribes that a lot of this work amounts to.

What we wanted more than anything else was original voices. We wanted people to put in the legwork; hassle sources, get in touch with authorities, be a general nuisance. Or at least give an opinion that we hadn’t heard before, to tell us all about something that we didn’t know anything about. Previous issues of SIR have been grouped around a given abstract theme, we decided we were more interested in putting out work that we wanted to read and that had something to say for itself rather than trying to tie the issue together.

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BEYOND THE WELL-REASONED AND COHERENT ARGUMENTS OF A PPE ESSAY, LENA GETS TO THE HUMAN HEART OF THE ARAB SPRING LEGACY.

pp 4-10 Beyond the Brotherhood Lena Nassanna pp 11-13 Art, Austria and Immigration Nathaniel Whitfield pp 14-15 Spin, Baby, Spin Nino Freuler

We’ll leave you to judge the success, but we feel we had a great response, and we’d like to thank our writers for their sterling work that has been, by turns, heart wrenching, tendentious, and even surprisingly comic. We’ve also been working to capture the voices of others on video for the fist time and have begun working more closely with the International Relations society. We’ve interviewed their speakers Sir Vincent Fean and Michael Hayden already and we’ll be talking to Jim Woolsey soon.

We’d like to thank all of those who have helped us out with funding and producing this, and we hope those reading will want to give us their voice next term.

Jack Barber & Jack Prescott

pp 16- 18 Same Rules Apply?

Mitchell Byrne pp 18-23 In Search of the Middle Kingdom Lilly Bussman pp 24- 26 21st Century Slaves Sophie Lucas

IRSoc is ever growing. We recently went our first trip abroad and have just launched our first internship program with the Ministry of Defense, however the main purpose of the society has always been to listen to and learn from those who shape global affairs. We hear from some incredible people; presidents, journalists and diplomats have shared their thoughts and experiences with us. However it is only in SIR that we get to learn from views of our members. It is in this wonderful journal that we can hear the original voices of Oxford students, without whom IRSoc could never exist.

Naomi Rowe, IRSoc President

EDITORS: JACK BARBER (PRODUCTION) & JACK PRESCOTT (SUBMISSIONS) /// SUB EDITORS: FERGUS PEACE & ISAAC GREENWOOD /// COPY EDITOR: XIN FAN /// FINANCE OFFICER: ARIANE MOSHIRI /// ADDITIONAL ARTWORK: EVIE KITT /// WITH THANKS TO OXFORD IRSOC & MANSFIELD COLLEGE JCR

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B E YO N D T H E B R OT H E R H O O D WOMEN IN EGYPT: WORK, MARRIAGE & FREEDOM

SPEAKING TO WOMEN FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE IN HER HOME CITY, LENA NASSANNA EXPLORES WHAT THE ARAB SPRING HAS MEANT FOR THE WOMEN OF CAIRO

It was almost by accident that I found myself, one evening last November, sitting in the Oxford Union at the TV recording of Al-Jazeera’s head-tohead with Mehdi Hasan. The guest that evening was Mona Al Tahawi, the formidable Egyptian women’s rights activist renowned for consistently stirring up controversy both in the Arab world and the West. I was struck by the eloquence and force of Mona’s words, and walked away from the talk with the question she relentlessly poses – why do they hate us? – ringing insistently in my ears. Mona’s very extreme language, which insists on a fundamental antagonism between men and women, frustrates many of her readers, who sympathise with the essence but not the expression of her activism – she provokes thought at any rate. Arab women in particular complain that she approaches the issue from the outside, as a Westerner, and several women expressed this exact view that evening, at the Union. “My father doesn’t hate me, he’s trying to protect me”; “I want to agree with you but I can’t, men aren’t all evil”.

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I WAS STRUCK BY THE ELOQUENCE AND FORCE OF MONA’S WORDS, AND WITH THE QUESTION SHE RELENTLESSLY POSES IN HER CONTROVERSIAL FOREIGN POLICY PIECE – WHY DO THEY HATE US? – RINGING INSISTENTLY IN MY EARS. Being an Egyptian young woman, this talk was doubly relevant to me, and naturally I applied the issue to my own city, Cairo. Egyptian society is a curious phenomenon: deeply divided, but then thrust together in the chaos of a buzzing metropolis so on a daily basis one encounters a myriad of seeming contradictions; a barefooted child with wild hair begging for money at the window of a Mercedes; a private and exclusive sporting club, and just a few streets away from it, a slum. Gender inequality is certainly among the most pressing of social injustices: it is inscribed within the family laws that deal with issues such as inheritance, divorce and polygamy; and in each of these areas women are at a disadvantage.

I was set alight by the fierce debate that night, and felt compelled to seek an answer in the streets of the great city, in the voices of those very women being spoken for in Oxford. I have never been fond of abstraction, and that is why I truly appreciate having grown up in a city like Cairo, where everything becomes very real, perhaps all too often. And so it was in the words of Rawyah, Ebtisam, Basma, Aida and Um Wa’il that I sought to understand what it means to be an Egyptian woman, and how that is different from being a woman elsewhere in the world.

Basma, my first interviewee, is 22, lives with her parents in the densely populated neighbourhood of Imbaba, is a recent graduate of Cairo University, and now teaches Arabic at the Comboni language school on the affluent island of Zamalek. She talked of her limited personal and social autonomy.

“I have small freedoms. I can go out but can’t stay out too late. I can’t go out every day, so maybe every other day. I obviously can’t be in any relationship, and one-on-one contact with a boy is impossible. I’m free to work, I’m free to wear what I want, but I myself wouldn’t wear anything too tight or that would attract too much attention. And if I did I’d be advised

to change.”

Basma is in many ways very representative of an educated, lower-middle class Egyptian woman. She wears a headscarf, is politically quite disillusioned but sympathises strongly with the Muslim Brotherhood. What, then, is her take on the role of women in society?

“There is no real difference between the role of men and women, their roles should complete each other. The woman does of course have to bring up the children, this is her essential role. Everything else is almost extra and the fact that she balances all that makes her better than a man.”

“The enrolment of girls in universities is much higher now, things have changed. The woman isn’t just a housewife; she can also be educated and work. But women are restricted by their financial dependence on men; some husbands use this against them, as leverage, and as blackmail. They use it to oppress.

But when a woman works she has her own life, her own money and as a result can be independent. I have turned down suitors because they demanded I don’t work. I want my children’s lives to be different to mine. I want them to have more freedom and I want them to learn from my example. If I work my daughters will want to work too. And plus, women who stay at home all the time become small-minded and petty. They spend their time gossiping.”

Work is effectively Basma’s only access to true independence. The notion of a young woman leaving her family home to live on her own is entirely out of the question in Egyptian society and more generally in the Arab world. I remember once reading a witty remark that “The Egyptian dream is to move out of your parent’s home” – and whilst it was said facetiously, it does shed light on a reality for both men

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I WAS SET ALIGHT BY THE FIERCE DEBATE THAT NIGHT, AND FELT COMPELLED TO SEEK AN ANSWER IN THE STREETS OF THE GREAT CITY, IN THE VOICES OF THOSE VERY WOMEN BEING SPOKEN FOR IN OXFORD.

and women. It simply isn’t done. Not until one is married and starts a family of their own.

Behind so many of these attitudes to work are essential ideas about masculinity and femininity entrenched deep within the Egyptian mentality. The role of a man is to provide for his family, and failure to do so is in fact one of the few legal grounds on which a woman can appeal for divorce. But more than that, if a man is unable to fulfil this role he loses his honour and sense of worth. Such thinking applies to all strata of society.

I was given a clear sense of this in my interview with Rawyah and her mother, Aida. Both have been selling vegetables from the pavement on a street near my home for as long as I can remember. What began as a few questions addressed at the two women eventually developed into a group discussion involving an unknown female relative of theirs, who took a seat on the curb beside me, a middle-aged man helping them clean and chop their vegetables, and a few random passer-bys, all keen on participating in “the survey”.

All of the women live in a village on the outskirts of Cairo, and make their journey to the city each morning, on a horse-drawn cart, to sell their produce. They were all veiled and dressed traditionally in a black long-sleeved and ankle-length jallabeya. I began with the same question I had

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Young at heart 50% of Egyptians were born after 1990

first asked Basma – what do you have to ask permission for, and who do you ask?

“Most things. Almost everything actually, we have to ask the permission of someone older. A husband, father or older brother.”

Rawyah then added that in some cases, women cannot go out at all without the permission of a man, especially in the village. “But that’s the extreme. Me for instance, I can go about where I live without any problem, doing my errands and everything, even in the evening.”

And at night? The nameless woman spoke for the first time: “We don’t go out at night”.

I asked about their opinion on the role of women in society. The man took initiative and very confidently informed me that it depended on where you were. “In the village it’s different, here in Cairo men and women are the same. In the village things are slightly backwards, many men forbid their women from working.”

Aida interjected: “But so many times in the village women work and men don’t! The men sit at home. Like with Nasma, for instance.”

They began discussing their neighbour Nasma’s case, but the man soon interrupted the babble, with great authority: “Yes but those men are failures. They’re losers. They sit at home while their women earn the bread for the family.” To which Rawyah gleefully added: “And she divorced him in the end!”

22.9 Mother’s median age at time of first birth (2008)

2.9

Total fertility rate per woman (2013)

65.8

% female literacy 15+, compared with 81.7% male literacy

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Despite being around the same age as Basma, Rawyah’s thoughts on work were quite different.

“I don’t want to work once I’m married. I don’t want him to get used to it! I want to raise my kids and take care of my home. A woman should be able to choose which she prefers though – that’s what I’d prefer. Many Egyptian men don’t want their women to work because it’s considered shameful. What would people say?”

What would people say? – a thought ingrained deep within the Egyptian mentality.

What did they think of this? I wondered. “I don’t like it” Rawyah admitted. “As the saying goes, you should do what you want, eat what you want” Her mother disagreed: “Of course it matters!” The man authoritatively concluded the matter: “You cannot judge based on appearances alone. Take for instance clothing: a woman can be wearing a niquab but be very bad deep down. And some women have their hair all down but they are good people. It varies. Respect doesn’t come from what you wear” But, despite his protestations, it still to a certain extent does. Egyptian society judges quite harshly, this was becoming increasingly clear. And because of its very collective nature, so unlike the rugged individualism of Western society, the law of the country becomes secondary to the rules of social propriety. So although a woman can, in theory, appeal to the court for the resolution of a

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million Egyptian women (49% of total populace

family dispute, she will not because of the inevitable stigma that will follow. Such is the case with domestic abuse, which is considered a criminal offense and is punishable by up to three years in prison. It is also a valid reason for a woman to request a divorce. However, the victim will rarely come forward and inform anyone outside her family of the incident because what would people say? And realistically, the authorities to whom she reports the crime, i.e. the police, would in most cases be far from helpful, and might even accuse her of trying to frame her husband. This particular issue was heavily touched on by Um Waa’el.

A widowed mother of seven, Um Waa’el works as a servant in a middle-class family home. She lives in Cairo, but started working very young, meaning that she essentially had no formal education and remains to this day illiterate – along with 26% of the Egyptian populace. Um Waa’el has four daughters, all of whom are married, and three of them have been beaten by their husbands.

“One of them, I spoke to her husband and told him to stop hitting her. I told him its only animals that are hit, not human beings. He stopped, but still shouts at her and insults her when he’s angry.

At least he’s stopped beating her though.”

“With my other two daughters, there’s no hope really. I’ve spoken to their husbands, and so have my sons. The husbands reply saying that she’s their wife and they can do with her as they please.

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Many times I don’t even find out from my daughter but from her children. She doesn’t tell me because she doesn’t want to hurt or upset me.”

“One of my daughters though is married to a teacher, a very good man. He’s never hit her or even insulted her. He shouts sometimes, just like any man does when he’s upset or angry or nervous, but no curses and no beating.”

The greatest cause of dispute between Um Waa’el’s eldest daughter, Hayam, and her husband, is the fact that she works. He has consistently expressed his disagreement, but she persists regardless, mainly for financial reasons. She uses her money to buy things for her house and children. She is not, however, forgiven for the slightest neglect of her household duties. Even just a slightly delayed meal can earn her a beating. For Hayam to appeal to the state for protection would be unthinkable. It simply would not cross her mind, and she is probably unaware that a domestic abuse law

even exists. At any rate, section 60 of the Egyptian criminal code clearly states that a woman can obtain no punitive damages for being beaten so long as it was done with ‘good intentions’ –that is, if the beating was not too severe, and not directed at the face or any fatal areas. The law, then, can hardly be said to protect and empower women: we still have a long way to go.

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The question then remains, what is being done to fight for women’s rights?

behaviour had long been accepted as an unfortunate fact of life – that is, until the issue gained prominence in the extreme cases of January 2011 and onwards. Among the most memorable was that of Lara Logan, the CBS correspondent who was brutally gang raped in Tahrir Square in Febuary 2011. There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that group assaults of this kind were pre-planned and intended to scare women from participating in mass protests, although it is almost impossible to uncover who was behind them.

The struggle, it seems, has been renewed since the 2011 revolution.

Several movements have sprung up in the face of the mass harassment that began as protests swelled in size and number –not that the issue of harassment is a new one in Egypt.

According to a 2008 report by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights two thirds of women are harassed on a daily basis. Because these are largely verbal assaults, this kind of

Fortunately, groups such as Anti-harassment, HarassMap and Tahrir bodyguard were quick to form, intervening physically in demonstrations, raising awareness in schools and universities, and teaching women how deal with various situations in which they find themselves vulnerable. What is perhaps most encouraging is that these groups consist mainly of young adults who wish to see a change in

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ONE ELDERLY WOMAN TOLD ME: “IT’S DIFFERENT FROM MY TIME. WE BARELY HAD ANY SCHOOLS, BUT NOW THERE ARE PLENTY AROUND... GIRLS ARE NOW EDUCATED AND WANT TO WORK. Above:

Graffiti in Cairo. Although there is a burgeoning feminist movement, Egypt is not agreed on the postion of women in society.

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Women protest on the streets of Cairo the defining legacy of the Arab Spring?

the culture of acceptance surrounding the general issue of sexual harassment.

The National Council for Women, more closely affiliated with the state, is more political in its focus. I spoke to one activist working with them, Ebtisam, asking her what exactly it was that they did.

“Our main aim is to provide training for women seeking to get into politics, preparing them for elections and parliamentary roles.”

“We also raise awareness in villages, talk to the women there, and help them get IDs. Can you imagine that some don’t even have identification of any sort! We talk to them about FGM, and explain that it isn’t part of Islam and that it’s wrong. We organise lectures in Upper Egypt. We also made a stand against the constitution. Mervat Al Tallawi, the head of the NCW, is in direct contact with Amr Moussa. She takes our complaints to him.”

Ebtisam admitted to frustration

with the attitudes of even the most liberal male politicians. “The liberals sometimes seem worse than the Islamists. Men simply don’t want women in high ranks and ministerial positions. It’s a deep rooted mentality, it’s what they’re used to, but we need to change it.”

In her own life, however, Ebtisam is among the most liberated of Egyptian women. I also spoke to Sherine, who shares a similar background – educated, middle-class, and, relatively speaking, liberal. Sherine is married with two daughters, but has a small decorating business of her own. She works with hotels and shops around Cairo, and sells her products in the up-scale, residential neighbourhood of Mohandiseen.

Unlike all the other women I interviewed, Sherine doesn’t have to ask permission for anything. “It’s only when I travel that I really need to ask, otherwise I do what I like. My husband and I both work. Obviously if I’m out at night I let him know,

just so he doesn’t worry, but that’s normal, it’s not permission I need, I’m just informing him.”

“But a lot of women around me have far less freedom than I do, despite their families being just as educated. So many of them are shocked that my husband doesn’t mind me travelling alone. It’s all about the mentality – even some of my Egyptian relatives living in America think this way!”

Like many wealthier inhabitants of the city, Sherine is committed to social work. She regularly visits a village just outside Cairo called Si’eel with a group from her church. They visit individual families, providing them with financial and emotional support. “Some of the cases there are extraordinary.

I sometimes feel as though I’m in another world. They speak about Cairo as though it’s a whole other country. Most of the women, especially, haven’t left their village. They don’t leave their houses much. Church is their main out-

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THE STRUGGLE TO LIBERATE EGYPTIAN WOMEN IS A STRUGGLE TO ENSURE THEY HAVE SUFFICIENT FREEDOM TO CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES

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Generational divide: an elderly woman looks out on a changing world.

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ing, and banning them from going is a form of punishment.”

Sitting and chatting with one of the families there I really got a sense of what Um Waa’el and Rawyah had been speaking about earlier. In their rural outlook, work was perceived as something to be done out of financial necessity alone, never as a means of independence, let alone liberation. But there also seemed a question of opportunity. What opportunities were there in the village for a woman to pursue a career of her own? And what would possibly encourage her to do so if the women around her rarely continued past high-school and instead sat at home waiting to be married? The influence of the city has, however, spread in recent years. One elderly woman told me: “It’s different from my time. We barely had any schools, but now there are plenty around. And girls all go to school, of course. Many of them now have certificates, diplomas; they’re educated and want to work.

And prices have gone up so much. That’s why so many women have to work.”

Was Mona then really too extreme in posing that very provocative question – why do they hate us? Although hugely inspirational, I was beginning to see why so much of what she says and writes, in the Middle-Eastern context especially, comes across as so far removed from the reality of things – how could women such as Aida or Um Waa’el do anything other than dismiss her ideas as crazed and absurd? We need Mona because she reminds us of the pressing urgency of the matter, and of those extreme cases which seem to embody all the ugliest oppression of women in the Middle East.

But how can we ever hope to gain enough trust to influence the lives of ordinary women if we speak to them in such extreme terms – terms to which they cannot relate?

But I remain hopeful, having witnessed the continued struggle of so many activists. I hope for a constitution that will safeguard the rights of women, and for the success of the groups raising awareness and improving education, who are empowering women to a point where they no longer need always to rely on a man for protection and support. The struggle to liberate Egyptian women is a struggle to ensure they have sufficient freedom to choose for themselves, even if this freedom is not immediately recognised by everyone around them – it will be eventually, but such a change can be realised only from within society. It is, after all, the Egyptian mother that brings up the next generation of Egyptians.

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PLEASE LOVE AUSTRIA RUSKIN STUDENT NATHANIEL WHITFIELD ON BIG BROTHER FOR THE FAR-RIGHT, AND HOW ART ALTERS THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE ‘Please Love Austria - Foreigners out!’ – the weeklong performance / multi-media event by this title was staged in Vienna in 2000 by the German artist film-maker Christoph Schlingensief in his attempt to mobilize public debate about the rise of the FPO (Freedom Party of Austria) and their policies, said to be xenophobic and anti-immigration.

Inspired by the format of Big Brother Schlingensief takes on the role of provocateur within his installation; consisting of a large shipping container in the center of Vienna that served as a temporary dwelling for asylum seekers underneath the blue flag of the FPO and also a banner depicting the slogan ‘Auslander Raus’ (Foreigners Out). The general public were encouraged to vote out their least favorite

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HIS STAGING OF ‘PLEASE LOVE AUSTRIA’ WAS NOT THOUGHT UP AS A PEDAG THE FPO (AND THUS INFORM THE AUDIENCE OF THE DANGERS THEIR POLITIC TERMS WHILST ERASING THE TRADITIONAL BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SPECTAT housemate who would then be sent home with the last one left being declared the winner and be awarded with a large sum of money alongside permission to stay in Austria (if they were able to find an Austrian spouse). The potency of this work can best be understood in the light of the rising xenophobic climate in Austria and also the rise of far-right sentiment in Europe at the time but it also provides an important example of the role a politically engaged mode of performance practise can play in creating a sustained discourse surrounding issues of public concern.

Schlingensief has opted throughout his career to move his work away from the confines of the theatre and out into reality in order to create what he labels as ‘reality theatre’. This, in part, came out of what he saw as a lack of engagement and exchange within the traditional theatrical format of presenting ideas on a stage which, for him, created passive objects out of audience members: “These lying machines bore me in the theatre, where ideas can’t really be grasped, only in an abstract setting.”

His staging of ‘Please Love Austria’ was not thought up as a pedagogical project nor was it simply created to actively criticize the FPO (and thus inform the audience of the dangers their politics represent), but within his expanded parameters of his political theatre Schligensief created a spectacle that not only drew in its audience but sought to engage the FPO on their own terms whilst erasing the traditional boundaries between spectator and performer. In a process he termed as ‘self-provocation’ he actively provoked the audience into thinking for themselves.

Schlingensief ’s recognition of the rise of interactivity as a dominant mode of public discourse alongside the choice to place his work in ‘reality’ meant he gained much notoriety within the media for his undermining of stereotypes and challenging of the status quo. Within ‘Please Love Austria’ Schlingensief ’s utilization of the popular format of Big Brother maximized audience interaction, mesmerizing spectators and critics alike, yet paradoxically these spectators remained fully aware of the constructed nature of the reality on display. He also succeeded in boomeranging the ideology of the FPO, led by Nazi sympathizer Jorg Haider, against itself to ‘play out’ in real space its dystopian vision for Austria“I take Haider’s lines and I simply say I’m playing out Haider.” (The FPO used ‘Foreigners Out’ frequently throughout their election campaign). In doing so he manages to create an aesthetic representation of contemporary politics.

It is here, with this politicization of the aesthetic sphere that I turn, particularly in an age of increasingly paranoid border policies, to look at the containers as pointing to the circumstances of their inhabitants, as asylum seekers, in present day Austria as transient and incarcerated. With this reading the container compound references the transnational flows of human cargo (Immigrants / Asylum seekers / Refugees) becoming the latest wave of people impounded on ships, in detention centers and other spaces of transient life.

Schlingensief has made visible the invisible forces that discriminate between citizens and non-citizens, creating a model of mobility that addresses the withdrawal of political rights from the migrant. Within the work these contemporary Asylum seekers are produced performatively through

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OGICAL PROJECT NOR WAS IT SIMPLY CREATED TO ACTIVELY CRITICIZE S REPRESENT)... BUT SOUGHT TO ENGAGE THE FPO ON THEIR OWN OR AND PERFORMER. Right:

Not such a green and pleasant land, for some.

The border with Switzerland may seem idyllic but the antiimmigration right wing continues to be a vocal part of Austrian political discourse.

21%

The FPO’s share of a September 2013 Opinion Poll indicates the party’s popular position as an anti-establishment alternative (Reuters).

slogans, citations, surveillance and containment.

Standing underneath the blue flag of the FPO, those trapped within the containers become modern versions of the historical outcast with the FPO as clear perpetrators of political exclusion.

Their presence reveals (not just Austria’s) but the West’s power over its non-citizen others. In this light the voting off of a housemate in Big Brother and an Asylum seeker in ‘Please Love Austria’ is shown to amount to the same thing, the exercise of privilege over the other. This radical appropriation of Big Brother gave race ideology a material form gesturing to the social structure of inclusion / exclusion, citizen / foreigner that define a modern sovereign state.

It is this way of working that brings to mind a remark made by Alexander Kluge, “Film is not produced by Auteurs alone but by the dialogue between spectators and authors”. This dialogue is not manifested in its entirety within the film but “in the associations cultivated in the spectators head by ‘the gaps’ between the disparate elements of filmic expression.” The project encouraged its various participants to transcend their engrained habitual perspectives of the world and to question their own socially and culturally determined ways of acting by Schlingensief ’s real ‘playing out’ of the potential of the far right to radically transform dreams of freedom into living hell.

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SPIN, BABY, SPIN

“They happened at the same time, halfway around the globe from each other. They both shook the world”.

Daniel Yergin, founder of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his book The Prize, begins his second book about global energy politics by looking at the catastrophe at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan and the self-immolation of Sidi Bouzid, a Tunisian fruit merchant redited with sparking off the Arab Spring. He highlights the speed with which both events were broadcast around the world, seeping through the media into the public’s consciousness and causing waves of such magnitude as to be able to change world politics.

The pen is mightier than the sword.

This saying has probably never been

truer than today. As Jack Prescott of SIR already remarked in its last issue, the media these days is comprised of powerful political players and modern conflicts are fought on newspaper front pages. It is hard to deny that the media, as the number one informer of the people, is capable of a considerable influence on our opinion formation. It is no hard task to see that newspapers, online blogs and TV programmes are bombarding us with information all day round. A much harder task is to distinguish between pure information, however useful or useless it may be, and the ever- common opinionpresented- as- fact. This second type of information is what truly forms our opinions and hence is able to sway public opinion.

Whilst most examples of areas

covered by the media, such as celebrities, human interest stories, the weather, sports and even international news are edging towards entertainment and the media’s sway has lessened over the years, one area is still incredibly dependent on the media and their respective coverage: energy. Energy has only become a news item relatively recently, with the rise of alternative energies and global worries about sustainability of development, climate change and environmental concerns. However, this relatively new branch of news stories is a perfect example of the opinion forming power of the media. As coverage should have helped policy makers and the public at large to understand these new technologies, news coverage was and still is very often used by lobby groups to stoke up fear for competitors, or

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FROM FUKUSHIMA TO A PROMISED FREEZE ON ENERGY PRICES, THE PRICE AND TYPE OF POWER AVAILABLE IS HITTING THE HEADLINES. NINO FREULER LOOKS AT ENERGY POLITICS IN THE MEDIA.

to hide imperfections. This has been the case for nuclear energy, shale gas, fracking, wind energy, biofuels and solar, to name just a few examples.

In all these cases, media sway has meant either a general liking for the energy type in question (biofuels, wind) or a public demonising of new technologies (shale gas, fracking, nuclear). This is particularly damaging for new technologies, as their development is often very costly and funds required for future developments need to be procured either from governments or private investors. These however often lack quality information, due to the misrepresentation given to these new technology types by the media. This means that already established energy types have it easy compared to new alternative energy sources, fighting a losing battle against public opinion in the hope to establish themselves.

Despite the clear pattern, this is far from organised. Although the media, catering to the needs of their readers, often misrepresent or scandalise certain energy sources, issues such as global warming give established energy sources a bad popular reputation. However, psychologically, we humans can’t aptly register and combine a multitude of things, but find it much easier to lump them together into something bigger and more comprehendible. This is why, for example, cars have been deemed safer then zeppelins, or, for a

10.4 % rise in British Gas electricity prices, on top of gas price hikes

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Ed Miliband has promised to freeze energy prices should Labour win the 2015 UK General Election

more modern example, why oil is deemed safer then nuclear energy. The media alone is therefore not to blame completely; after all it’s a mistake we all make. It could even be argued that it is a result of our modern times, as we nowadays unfortunately don’t have the time to research everything, leaving the media to do the research for us. Whilst this might be a good way for us to gather information on our favourite sports teams or our pop idols, it is more than just a dangerous habit when we rely blindly on what the media present us with.

For the energy industry, it can mean the next contract, the difference between break through and shut down. Do we really want to risk future energy developments on dodgy research by non-specialists?

Addressing this lack of good information must be a key priority of legislators, the media companies, as well as the engineers behind alternative energy programmes. Only if the public at large is provided with accurate information about the merits and drawbacks of different options can we make an informed decision on what our future should look like. Only if we can collectively decide which energy sources to invest in, can we be sure to make lasting impacts. It takes information for understanding. It takes understanding for decisions.

It takes decisions for politics.

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SAME RULES Modern Britain prides itself on being innovative, diverse, and a little bit cool. We, the media-driven, Jägerbomb generation, are growing up.

We’re engaging in politics, we’re protesting about broken promises; it’s all very new and exciting. If someone says something ignorant on Twitter, we pounce; if Bojo does something stupid on camera, we hound him; and if we find out a dirty old man touched up a child in the 70s, we don’t just dance on his grave, we launch a national enquiry and uproot the foundations of the entire British media.

In France, this treatment is so old, it’s dull: you don’t get to the Fifth Republic without taking time and effort to disagree fervently with the previous four. And by the time you get to five, you’re tired, you want a break: maybe you just sit this century out and re-

WHY THE FRENCH ARE NAUGHTIER THAN US AND IT IS VERY MUCH STILL ‘RULE BRITANNIA’.

MITCHELL BYRNE HAS AN IRREVERENT LOOK AT FRANCO-BRITISH RELATIONS

assess things in the 22nd. That’s not to say you don’t get angry and moan and march and grumble and strike and hold things up. It’s just to say that you do these things without really questioning why. You merely indulge in the excuse for a few days off work.

France has stopped asking why on many levels and Britain is just beginning to. We ask questions, we recognise problems, we identify solutions, and we adapt.

Linguistically, Britain is the Jaguar bounding past the chugging Citroën.

Every year we add roughly five times as many new words to our dictionary as they do theirs. Here, I can – grammatically – take a selfie of myself twerking and tweet it to my friends in the hope of piquing their FOMO. In France, the Académie Française (keepers of the key to the dictionary)

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WE ARE QUITE ENGLISH ABOUT SEX, THINKING THAT WHAT SOMEBODY DOES IN THE BEDROOM DIRECTLY AFFECTS THEIR ABILITY TO DO THEIR JOB. THE FRENCH DON’T SEEM TO THINK SO.

A P P LY ? would have a lot to say about that.

The French language is firmly grounded in its roots.

But because of its grounding, it’s unchallengeable, and so the language is spoken as though ideas and thoughts are also beyond question. The language is like the thinking: a priori. If you listen carefully, you will hear that, day-to-day, the French tend to utter these two words to a point of excess. In Britain, we the people don’t much care for pretentious Latin expressions: they’re reductive and exclusive. The French love them and they love this one most, because it means that what they are about to say is blessed with logic and reason.

It’s generally not, but the linguistic trick works.

In English, we couldn’t give a damn about an a priori logic. We break the rules: we use new words because we like the sound of them and because there’s a demand for them. No self-respecting native English speaker could tell you the first thing about verb conjugations because they are not a slave to their language.

The language serves them, not the other way around.

Let’s not be coy though, French is a sexy language.

There’s something about it that’s poetic, romantic, and

a little bit erotic. When it comes to sex, the French wrote the rules. Home to the Marquis de Sade, sexually, nothing can shock France. Sixty years before Heathcliff and Cathy were exchanging lusting looks across the moors, Valmont was seducing a married Catholic with a letter he wrote on the back of the whore he was rogering. Christian Grey, the Anglo-Saxon paragon of BDSM, is to the average French person either unknown or out-dated.

We have always regarded the French as libertines, rule-breakers. While our monarchs were busy keeping it in the family, theirs liked to keep it in as many families as possible. When we take a look at our modern leaders, we blushed at Prince Harry in Vegas, sacked Boris from the shadow cabinet in 2004, and almost let Profumo topple the government.

Presently, the French are faced with a scandal the likes of which would ruin Cameron. Yes, Hollande (‘Flanby’), the man with about as much personality as a blancmange, has found time to be unfaithful to the woman for whom he left his wife. The French jump up and down a bit, but this rule is so often broken that no-

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body really cares. When asked what she thought of this, one Parisian I asked said: “I don’t give a damn who he sleeps with, I just want him to do something about the economy”.

And how is the economy over there? According to the press, ours is blossoming best in Europe; France is dragging its heels somewhat.

In France, a jobless man is a homeless man; in Britain a jobless man is housed comfortably by the government. In France, an employed man is employed for life, regardless of possible mediocrity; in Britain, an employed man is not quite so safe. This is likely because nature of business in the UK demands we innovate and find better ways of doing things.

While our French counterparts are resting happily on the laurels of existential thought and the cabaret, we are busy getting on with things. Suffice to say, bureaucracy is not an English word. That’s not to say we don’t dabble, it is to say that we don’t drag out. In France, anything that can be made harder, longer, filed, refiled and filed again, is. Opening a bank account, finding accommodation, firing an employee, breathing, all require painful bureaucratic protraction. The French don’t question it: they accept it without hint of complaint.

Subsequently, the wealthiest French people now live in London. Fleeing the paperwork, the 75% income tax, enticed by the relative ease of running a start-up, they have upped and left. Entrepreneur is as good an English word as ale.

What divides us, fundamentally, is a tendency to break rules, but not to break the same rules. We are quite English about sex, thinking that what somebody does in the bedroom directly affects their ability to do their job. The French don’t seem to think so. But they do seem to think that everyday rules, like verb endings and filling out forms, are to be obeyed. In modern Britain, we’re not okay with that.

Bussman has held posts at the World Economic Forum, the UN Development Programme in Beijing and Bundshop, a startup that claims ‘Made in China is Dead. Designed by China Killed It.’

680m

The number of Chinese people who have been lifted out of poverty since the 1970s

$1.25 13% of the population live on less than $1.25 per day

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China realised the millenium goal of fighting extreme poverty before any other developing country

We are told two very different stories about China. The first one is about China’s authoritarian regime.

The second one is about China’s breathtaking economic development. But for some reason, these two stories never seem to go hand in hand. Western media either discusses China’s ‘oppressive government’ or otherwise its ‘marvelous economic growth’; they are treated as separate stories, not to be mentioned in the same breath. However, in this essay, I argue that these two stories are intimately related and that, if we are to understand China, we need to be honest about the trade-offs they entail.

So, let’s consider the first story that we are being told. This is the story about China’s authoritarianism.

Pieced together by current news headings, that story goes something like this: China does not hold na-

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THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

“” LILLY BUSSMAN

ONE STORY IS ABOUT CHINA’S AUTHORITARIAN REGIME. THE SECOND IS ABOUT CHINA’S BREATHTAKING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. BUT FOR SOME REASON, THESE TWO STORIES NEVER SEEM TO GO HAND IN HAND. tional democratic elections. As a consequence, it is perpetually oppressing its people. For example, news reports link abortion and infanticide to China’s ‘inhumane’ one-child policy. Political dissidents are imprisoned. Liu Xiaobo, China’s only Nobel Peace Prize winner, is ‘rotting’ in a jail. Tibetan self-immolation, Chinese cyber-warfare and most recently, China’s ‘hegemonic’ aspirations in the South China Sea and… the list goes on. In short, through the lens of much of Western commentary, life in China seems ‘nasty, brutish and short’ with the all-powerful Leviathan state turning its weapons back on its own subjects.

But there is another story we are being told. This second story concerns China’s impressive economic development: Since the late 70s, China has lifted more than 680 million people out of extreme poverty, reducing the number of people living on less than

$1.25/day from 85% to 13% in less than 30 years. Indeed, according to the World Bank, China accounts for three quarters of the world’s reduction in poverty in that same period. In 2011, the United Nations announced China to be the first developing country to have realised the U.N. Millennium Goal – eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. All children get a primary school education, child mortality rates are down by half and whilst gender equality is certainly not great, the percentage of female MPs in China is the same as in the UK. In short, in terms of development, the numbers speak for themselves. Yet, it is striking that these two stories never seem to go hand in hand. The first story is the story of China as a human rights violating and therefore deeply morally objectionable regime. The second story, however, is undeniably the story of a country

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MIGRATION CONTROL IS VITAL TO MAINTAINING SOCIAL STABILITY. IF THE H PEOPLE WOULD MIGRATE TO CHINA’S CITIES IN THE SEARCH OF BETTER EMP THE NUMERICAL EQUIVALENT OF THIS IS THE WHOLE POPULATION OF THE UN that has overseen the greatest and most successful poverty reduction program in world history.

What has motivated me to write this particular essay then is the tendency of Western commentators to view these two stories as entirely distinct. The underlying assumption of much Western commentary seems to be that whilst China’s economic success should be celebrated and welcomed, its authoritarianism stands to be judged in an entirely different realm: it is judged as categorically wrong, atrocious and under no circumstances justified. However, to take this view is to greatly oversimplify a much more complicated reality, because it fails to appreciate the intricate relationship that exists between China’s authoritarianism and its impressive development record.

In order to illuminate this intricate relationship, I will discuss two Chinese policies that – in the eyes of the West – have repeatedly been red-lighted as transgressions. I have chosen to focus this essay on the discussion of two particular policies – as opposed to an abstract general discussion – because I believe that picking apart two specific examples best serves the purpose of pointing towards a wider trend. First, China’s one-child policy. Second, China’s household registration system. I intend to demonstrate that, against the mainstream assessment of these policies, it is neither (a) obvious that they are unjustified nor (b) obvious that there is a superior democratic alternative.

First, the one-child policy. In the late 70s, the Chinese government introduced the one-child policy in order to improve the standard of living through population control. Essentially, this means that the state does not allow more than one child per

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Shanghai topped the World Education Rankings in 2013 (source: BBC) _

family. Whilst many exceptions to this rule are granted today, fines in the case of non-compliance remain harsh. Given the nature of the policy, it is quite obvious that no such policy could have ever passed through a democratic system. At the same time, it is not equally obvious that the Chinese people would have been better off without the one-child policy.

Here’s why. Overpopulation. In the decades prior to the policy, an average of six children were born to every Chinese woman. If you take huge overpopulation and combine it with low productivity levels and bad harvest you get permanent food shortage, high risk of famine and ubiquitous poor living standards. In response, the government introduced the one-child policy so that – simply put – China’s limited resources had to feed fewer people.

It goes without saying that the one-child policy sits awkwardly with our basic intuitions about the kinds of rights and freedoms people ought to enjoy: the freedom of choice and specifically, the freedom to choose to have more than one child.

It must further be said that there are many undesirable side effects to this policy: high rates of abortion, gender imbalance, under-funded pension schemes and, in many cases, harsh fines in the case of non-compliance.

As lamentable as these consequences are, however, it is not clear that the alternative is any more attractive. Consider India: similar to China, India has undergone impressive growth rates and is comparable in size. Whilst China implemented the one-child policy, India’s population grew from roughly 360 million in 1951 to just over 1.2 billion in 2011 – that’s a 235% increase in 60 years.

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UKOU SYSTEM WAS TO BE DISMANTLED OVER NIGHT, MORE THAN 300M LOYMENT. 300 MILLION PEOPLE TAKING FLIGHT TO CHINA’S CITIES – ITED KINGDOM, TIMES FIVE. This, in turn, has significantly contributed to India’s natural resource depletion, deficient water supplies and the fact that nearly half of India’s children today are malnourished. Thus, as much suffering as the one-child policy causes in the fates of individual families, it cannot simply be declared unjustified on the basis that it frustrates our liberal intuitions.

Let us now turn to the second policy, the household registration system – also commonly referred to as the ‘hukou system’. Essentially, the hukou system divides the Chinese population into two classes of citizenship – rural citizenship and urban citizenship. Usually, whether a person is assigned a rural or urban citizenship depends on her parents’ birthplace. Based on this mechanism, citizens are limited to access government services from the specific region that they have been assigned to. In other words, it is a system in which rural citizen are forced to access education, healthcare and welfare benefits from rural areas only. Since the countryside is economically less developed, government services in these areas are meagre and opportunities limited.

Being born to parents that are from Beijing or Shanghai, on the other hand, is like winning the jackpot, because both cities have by far the best healthcare, education and wel-

fare system.

For these reasons, the hukou system has been criticised as inhumane, forcing millions of rural Chinese into what is effectively a second-class citizenship. Most certainly, if China did have democratic elections, the hukou system would have never been implemented: that’s because the rural population then greatly outnumbered its urban counterparts. Based on this reasoning, Western media has repeatedly compared the hukou system to South Africa under apartheid and criticised it as yet another expression of China’s oppressive government; and yes, there is a lot of truth to these claims. It is unfair that people should have access to vastly different advantages and opportunities based on a morally arbitrary criterion such as birthplace. It is also unfair that millions of peasants dream about ‘making it in the city’ when their ambitions will ultimately be frustrated by an unfeeling bureaucracy. And it is heart-breaking that the children of migrant workers are either denied an education or otherwise separated from their parents to receive schooling in the countryside.

At the same time, it would be wrong to dismiss the hukou system as nothing more than the sinister ambitions of the Communist Party in

an effort to control the masses. A fair assessment can only be made if we are fully aware of what might happen without the hukou system.

Of course, as with all hypothetical statements, it is hard to know how exactly that counterfactual would play out. Nevertheless, in the following section, I will discuss three issues that are worth considering; issues which might prompt some of us to re-evaluate whether something much like the hukou system must always be deemed unjustified.

The first issue is that of social instability. The Chinese government – alongside many well-respected academics, both Western and Chinese – argues that migration control is vital to maintaining social stability. Some estimates show that, if the hukou system was to be dismantled over night, more than 300 million people would migrate to China’s cities in the search of better employment. 300 million people taking flight to China’s cities – the numerical equivalent of this is the whole population of the United Kingdom, times five. Social unrest, infrastructural breakdown and an endless list of health hazards – these are all likely consequences of the above scenario. In short, conditions similar to those we would expect in a civil war zone.

The second issue is that of shanty-

22 towns. Let us, for a moment, assume that the scenario just mentioned is not going to play out and instead, let us imagine that 300 million migrants will peacefully settle in China’s urban centres. In that case, however, China would face a different problem: namely, the problem of essentially entrenching shantytowns much like those outside of Mumbai, Jakarta and Rio de Janeiro. In other words, if China’s rural population were free to move wherever they wanted to, huge shantytowns would spring up outside of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and the like.

That this would be an undesirable consequence is rather obvious: shantytowns display high rates of crime, suicide, drug use and disease whilst generation after generation of shantytown dwellers are stuck in cycles of poverty with no education or prospect of upward mobility whatsoever.

Under China’s hukou system, on the other hand, migrant workers often return back to their villages, because they know that it is only there that the government pays for their children’s education, healthcare and other welfare benefits. That’s why they are called China’s ‘floating population’. Thus, whilst there is a significant number of Chinese migrant workers that, in virtue of living in the city, have to endure substandard living conditions, the problem is not nearly as bad as in other developing countries such as Brazil or India.

Third and finally, tax burdens. The economic reality of China today simply makes it impossible to guarantee all Chinese the same welfare provisions that city dwellers enjoy.

Consider that a migrant worker earns about 300 pounds a month.

The income tax on these 300 pounds is minimal such that migrant labour only provides for a tiny amount in tax revenues. At the same time,

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CHINA’S ONE-CHILD POLICY AND HOUSEHOLD REGISTRATION SYSTEM ARE THE RESULT OF WELL-CONSIDERED PUBLIC POLICY CHOICES... ...I AM NOT ADVOCATING (AND DO NOT WISH TO ADVOCATE) THE COMPLETE VINDICATION OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY AND I AM NOT TRYING TO IMPLY THAT CHINA WILL NECESSARILY REMAIN AUTHORITARIAN IN THE FUTURE

equal welfare provisions for all would require the same standard of healthcare, education and welfare services for urban as well as rural citizens. The tax revenues that such a welfare system would necessitate, however, cannot be covered by China’s middle classes which – though it is growing rapidly – still only makes up about 20% of the entire population.

This is not a moral argument, but a basic numbers game: a group of 300 million middle class Chinese simply cannot cover the welfare, healthcare and education costs of a group that is more than three times its own size. Taxing the super rich more heavily is not going to help either: with an income tax rate of 50%, higher taxation is likely to lead to capital flight, more corruption and fewer hours spent working. In other words, taxing the super rich more heavily is risking the decrease,

not increase of overall tax revenue.

In short, the two-class system that is China’s reality today is an ugly one, but it is one that, to a large degree, is borne out of economic necessity.

So, what have I argued thus far?

I have argued that (1) China’s one-child policy and household registration system are the result of well-considered public policy choices (2) media representations that outright dismiss these policies as unjustified do a disservice to the people they are meant to inform and educate.

However, I want to stress that (3) I am not advocating (and do not wish to advocate) the complete vindication of the Chinese Communist Party and that (4) I am not trying to imply that China will necessarily remain authoritarian in the future.

Before concluding then, let’s look at the last two of these points.

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Right:

Ai Weiwei is one of the most prominent antiestablishment activists in China.

Bussman argues that whlst there are significant flaws in the regime, it is not all bad in authoritarian China.

The Chinese government is not vindicated, because it has committed a great number of horrific crimes that do not stand to be excused in the same way: torture, abduction, murder, racial oppression and, at times, overly nationalistic foreign policy all belong on that list. The limits that are put on the freedom of speech might belong on that list too. What I have argued, however, is that there are a great number of authoritarian policies – such as the one-child policy, the hukou system and perhaps also the limits that are put on freedom of assembly and property ownership, that can forcefully be defended against standard liberal objections.

It is, of course, entirely understandable that our liberal political sensibilities revolt against any such admission: both policies fundamentally contradict the freedoms we

hold most dearly: freedom of movement, freedom of choice and the freedom to privacy. It is a difficult admission, because we are asked to accept that there might be a point at which the priority of these freedoms must be conceded; and it is a particularly difficult admission against the background of our own Western experience of democratisation: a historically specific experience in which industrialisation and democratisation seemed to be if not always an easy, certainly a more natural fit than is the case in China.

Now, whether or not China is likely to democratise in the future is, as far as I can see, an entirely open question. There are good arguments on both sides of the debate. The above discussion, however, has been concerned with China’s past trade-offs between democracy and development. Whether these trade-offs will remain salient in the future, has to

be seen. China’s future is open-ended. It will be shaped by China’s aspiring migrant workers, its rising middle classes, innovative entrepreneurs, hard-working peasants and political leaders.

In conclusion then, why does all of this matter? It matters because by 2030, 65% of the world’s middle classes will be Asian; and it is these people that will be driving global consumption, media, development and trade. Given that the West entertains very different normative and cultural values, this posits great challenges in the realm of international cooperation and our own self-conception in the international community. How exactly the West should cope with these changing power shifts, I do not know. In this essay, however, I have put to you that it starts with rejecting simple narratives about China.

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THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE LIVING ENSLAVED TODAY THAN AT ANY POINT IN HUMAN HISTORY. SOPHIE LUCAS LOOKS AT THE SCALE OF MAN’S DARK SECRET The red light districts of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris and Antwerp are renowned for attracting thousands of tourists each year. Visitors can buy sexual services from girls displayed in window parlours or ‘aquariums’. Men on stag-dos, students, tourists and businessmen see the farcical side of such explicit freedom from sexual taboos and restrictions. However the dark truth is that at least 75 per cent of prostitutes in Amsterdam’s red light district are believed to have been trafficked as sex slaves. In light of this, the trivialization of one of the world’s fasted growing crimes quickly loses its humorous aspect. Over sixty years after Article 4 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery, it is estimated that over 29 million victims of slavery still remain worldwide.

Sex trafficking accounts for over 70 per cent of these cases. With an approximate total market value of $39 billion, human trafficking has become a highly lucrative and rapidly expanding crime. It is therefore es-

sential to ask why the UN has in effect failed to trigger a cooperative global response to a violation of human rights that is shocking in its prevalence.

The emotive power of slavery as a concept, accompanied by such incredible statistics, can often obscure the raw truth. Perceptions of underground criminal gangs operating brothels in European suburbs do not accurately reflect what has become much more than an amateur urban crime. Human trafficking is professionally managed, with sophisticated and efficient strategies producing a greater profit margin than almost any other industry in the world. Sensationalist anti-trafficking campaigns appear not to have grasped the full scale of the issue. More importantly, they do not realize the expertise with which trafficking is conducted, which makes it hugely difficult to observe, let alone eradicate. The danger is that by de-politicizing the issue and treating it as merely another social evil

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(one that we can ‘contain’, with the right level of support), both the sheer magnitude and the complexity of the problem are hugely underestimated.

What makes human trafficking distinct from other transnational crimes is that the ‘product’ is reusable. Drugs are taken once; a human can be sold multiple times. Several criminal groups can therefore benefit from the same ‘commodity’.

The concealed nature of human trafficking has rendered it almost immune to successful investigation.

A combination of well-managed operations and apathetic police forces, as well as the reluctance of victims to testify against their abusers, has led to a self-perpetuating cycle of undetected corruption. Even in the unlikely case that human trafficking is exposed, low conviction rates and the relatively inconsequential nature of paper penalties are insufficient

deterrents. With 16 per cent of affected countries failing to record a single conviction between 2007 and 2010, a crime of vicious magnitude is flourishing in the absence of effective preventative measures.

Why have concerted international attempts to fight human trafficking been so appallingly futile?

The 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime recognized this affront to human rights; in particular its Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. This protocol established a generally accepted definition of ‘trafficking’, the importance of which cannot be overstated. Yet though it set out to be the first comprehensive anti-trafficking agreement, it has proved little more than a symbolic gesture.

Permissive phrases, such as that nation states should “endeavor to” or

“consider implementing” provisions outlined for victims, have predictably led to low levels of compliance.

The wide scope for reinterpretation in domestic law has, in practice, dashed hopes for a uniform mechanism, one that would enable greater criminal investigation and higher conviction rates. Considering that human trafficking affects every UN member in some way, such ambiguous and ineffective legislation is an unequivocally inadequate response to a global scourge.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) works to galvanize support, implement a preventative framework and raise global awareness. Disappointingly, the 2009 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons revealed that two-fifths of all countries covered in the report had never recorded a single case of trafficking – a poor reflection on the UNODC’s efforts

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THE INESCAPABLE REALITY, THE HEART OF CURRENT PAINS IN OUR GLOBAL EFFORTS, IS THAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING REMAINS UNSEEN AND UNHEARD. to encourage greater vigilance of and prosecutions for human trafficking. This is partly due to insufficient financing: units working on trafficking receive no regular budget funding. As part of the UNODC’s ‘Comprehensive Strategy’ it is recognized as “uniquely positioned to ensure an effective criminal justice response”. However, as of yet, very little about this strategy can be considered ‘effective’.

The UNODC also works alongside the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) and the Inter-Agency Coordination Group Against Trafficking (ICAT). The partnership between these agencies has been fragmented. Absence of a clear mandate and mission has resulted in weak coordination. Underfunded and relatively inactive, ICAT has not, as it intended, improved methods of communication between UN agencies. Without solid management and a unified strategy, these organizations have proved essentially passive and are very far from achieving their aims.

The consequence of all this is that the multilateral global response to trafficking is shockingly weak and ineffective. Across six agencies, the total staff engaged in anti-trafficking work numbers little more than twenty. Heightened media exposure and well-meaning charity work only go so far; they are by no means sufficient solutions to a vast international problem.

There is no obvious strategy or clear-cut procedure for abolition, but there is an undeniable and desperate need to make research and eradication of human trafficking a much higher priority within the UN. It is an indictment of the global body that anti-trafficking is not a core concern and that member states are not aligned towards a clear course of action.

Recognizing human trafficking for what it is – a so-

phisticated business – means approaches should involve targeting its key vulnerability: its illicit nature. The risk of exposure must be increased to the point at which it compromises profits. The current minimal risk involved means retail prices of a sex act, for example, are at an all time low. This lack of economic forfeit must be tackled by inverting the current risk-reward balance. The elasticity of demand in human trafficking makes hitting its profitability through harsher penalties and stricter law enforcement the best preventative method. In India, for example, the penalty for owning a brothel is only a $44 fine. Even if all owners of brothels were convicted, it would still be a high-profit business: its yearly income is 291 times the potential penalty.

A targeted economic strategy as opposed to merely ‘disrupting’ the human trafficking process is imperative. There is no simplistic formula for eliminating a transnational crime so covert and inextricably linked to wider judicial corruption. However, what is clear is the very pressing need for a both more proactive global response led by the UN and a greater sense of urgency in analyzing and combatting this malign assault on human dignity.

In his speech at the Clinton Global Initiative on Human Trafficking, President Barack Obama professed his commitment to the cause by declaring, “to the millions enslaved around the world – we see you. We hear you. We insist on your dignity”. However, the inescapable reality, the heart of current pains in our global efforts, is that human trafficking remains unseen and unheard. To expose the crime, the international community must strongly insist on putting concrete preventative action right at the front of our minds.

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Sir, ALL I HAVE IS A VOICE W.H. AUDEN SIR Image Attribution Cover photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/5437142747/sizes/l/ in/photolist-9hsM7t-dSTv1N-6PrcZT-mx4jz-eE4Bm-D9rbJ-Def2Q-3tGoEN-Def48-5JPtwT-9SnRMp8XT6w7-53sy1k-53wQ5G-2B111v-9oTA6h-h6w4a5-aFn35z-4GhmQi-9Fhtsc-8CBmGq-8yiCfC-4Cojxd9EyjjJ-5GmTbT-9ieYMV-adezeD-5p2HMd-g4miTG-gRqJgY-cS3AVW-dSMUTT-dSMSWg-dSMTir-dSTu95dMbpc-5HPygM-5wAHUG-2x899x-7Z8tHd-7Z8v81-7Z8tGh-4mXE8P-9ovB2t-5cLPMV-PWNE8-dQBu13iMuRV-886cqR-7aF3uc-7aBxG8/ Graffiti Egypt woman (Beyond the Brotherhood) http://www.flickr.com/photos/66944824@N05/6346565413/in/photolist-aEPNMB-aEPNDB-aEPP8R-aEPMNP-aEPNqx-atmZNN-bz9Dpc-dH8isn-aEPYTM-aEPVon-aEPSG2-aETCBA-aETKho-aEPUQi-aETCiJ-aEPPZB-aETLSq-aETHyL-aETLbu-aETLBG-aEPMXg-aEPPHp-aETK2u-aETDWC-aETLKu-aEPUWV-aETEh7-d81gs1-aEPUER-aEPW4c-9ckJ4f-9d2Ub8-bKb8VK-aWY962-ae7PBk-hHShJ2-aBnR1R-aBqk1U-aBqydW-aBqhpC-aFZdz6-aFZ9yv-aFYb4R-aFZ5VM-aFYh8t-aFYfwz-aFYa48-aFgAr7-aJpq6D-aFcM8M-aFYgiV Egypt international women’s day http://www.flickr.com/photos/aslanmedia_official/6996450174/in/photolist-bEfCTh-5JProD-b97dyr85DXBe-brhn1-b8C4SX-7HJLsS-4TX67w-5jancP-bkZR3J-5heyAE-byUHvM-bkZQAY-bkZRfQ-bkZQEY-byUJbv-7Czuij-bonkQY-9egSih-5nEwBQ-5HYrhD-aYzb7k-5uaKsU-deymBR-5JTHM1-eJtVrr-LwNnf-6t95PL5GYNxF-681sd5-7TL5P8-8gcMPP-55isYV-9dENnD-9oU2kb-84Jd3m-wry74-fHhARU-wrDaG-aN3JrR8SL7HR-e5hKoh-usHcS-e5cdYt-agYGiV-DeeCs-5YTUCp-9veqjM-bg9GXK-7h4qNr-bmFZGU/lightbox/ Additional photos provided by Lena Nassanna

Austria Big Brother: Evie Kitt artwork Austria border photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/kecko/15957725/ Wind turbine Photo: CGP Grey, Taken Jul. 12, 2009 - Creative Commons http://www.gravel2gavel.com/wind%20turbine.jpg Francois Hollande: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Fran%C3%A7ois_Hollande_-_Janvier_2012.jpg Matthieu Riegler Shanghai skyline: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32029534@N00/4137091275/in/photolist-7izF6VdKpjL9-dKiRy8-dzCZGp-dzJtjC-9gsxh9-dKpjEb-9gppD6-eTQQxX-aueM35-bz7jEf-eTQHXk-ayjEW1-9zbzAZgDPMhm-dzCY28-fQJdjo-eXQouw-86T2dM-eTQPZ4-eU3bnm-eU3cBS-g5dJqu-agrAMj-9gsFSy-8MhsKLe4bP41-eU3dHo-8MhrV7-86T21M-iuTu8J-gB4AMz-iuT7PP-9Cs3zf-dKpjVA-fJWMb6-9rS9bf-agoRz8-dKpjCo-9To3wR-8VikJ8-dKpjEs-e1d26H-c2Wt73-dKiRHT-dKiREi-dKpjSS-dKiRve-8MNXgo-dMpC8h-9mjSBW Free ai weiwei Duyanpili http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ai_weiwei-.jpg