TKO 10.29.13

the

Kenyon Observer October 29, 2013

If You Can Play, You Can Listen Molly O’Connor | Page 8

Kenyon’s Oldest Undergraduate Political and Cultural Magazine www.kenyonobserver.com

Kenyon Observer the

October 29, 2013

The Kenyon Observer October 29, 2013

5 8

6

From the Editors Cover Story Molly O’Connor if you can play, you

can listen

Stewart Pollock Abbot Down Under

10 Max Amberger Syria’s Kurds

12 Sterling Nelson

Editors-in-Chief Jon Green, Sarah Kahwash and Gabriel Rom Featured Contributors Molly O’Connor, Max Amberger, Stewart Pollock, Julia McKay, John Foley and Sterling Nelson Layout Editor John Foley

On Defensive Bullshitting

Art Directors Peter Falls Ethan Primason

14 Julia McKay

Golden Dawn

Faculty Advisor Professor Fred Baumann The Kenyon Observer is a student-run publication that is distributed biweekly on the campus of Kenyon College. The opinions expressed within this publication belong only to the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Observer staff or that of Kenyon College.

The Kenyon Observer will accept submissions and letters-tothe-editor, but reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. All submissions must be received at least a week prior to publication.

Submit to tko@kenyon.edu

Cover Art by Brianne Presley

5

FROM THE EDITORS

Dear Prospective Reader, The Kenyon Observer is proud to put forward our first professionally-printed issue. We look forward to a continuing relationship with Printing Arts Press of Mount Vernon, and to a higher-quality production in general.

Leading off this issue, Molly O’Connor highlights good intentions and unforseen issues surrounding the recent Kenyon Athletes for Equality movement. Also in this issue, Stewart Pollock looks to Australia to discuss recent issues surrounding Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Max Amberger details the oft-ignored plight of the Kurdish minority in Syria, Sterling Nelson exhorts students to take pride in the essays they are assigned to write and Julia McKay details the rise of fascism in Greece and its implications for European democracy.

We invite our readers to consider the topics discussed and the views expressed here, and to use that knowledge to form their own opinions on the matters they find most important. It is our hope that our contributors’ words will provoke debate among students, professors and community members alike.

As always, we welcome letters and full-length submissions, both in response to content and on other topics of interest.

Jon Green, Sarah Kahwash and Gabriel Rom Editors-in-Chief, the Kenyon Observer

6

STEWART POLLOCK

Abbott Down Under From El Capitan in Yosemite, to the base of the Aeolis Mons on Mars, Uncle Sam ground to a halt for the first few weeks of October. But beyond America’s borders, life continued. Even in Syria, public workers still got paid, and for most nations, the political deadlock gripping the United States was nothing but a curiosity. Yet the partial shutdown of the world’s sole hegemon has inevitably caused some awkwardness overseas. The old saying “when America sneezes, the world catches a cold” is a cliché for good reason—every move made by the U.S. has reverberations far beyond Washington. In fact, one of the many effects of the government shutdown has been to show just how significant some of the U.S.’s commitments are, including those down under.

On October 4th, the White House announced that an upcoming trip to an APEC meeting in Southeast Asia by the President would be cancelled. As a consequence, President Obama would miss his first face-to-face meeting with Tony Abbott, the newly elected Prime Minister of Australia. In response, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told reporters, “it is obviously a crucial time for the U.S., but we want to encourage [the U.S.] to continue its rebalancing towards Asia.”

This “rebalancing” term has become a central buzzword when discussing U.S.-Pacific relations, and hides a larger truth: Asia, including Australia, is doing quite a bit of rebalancing of its own. Australia has always been in an unusual place diplomatically, transitioning from a British penal colony to a largely autonomous parliamentary democracy, with a culture incorporating a myriad of Aborigine, Anglo and increasingly Asian features. It remains part of the British Commonwealth, and in 1975, a budget shutdown not unlike the one in Washington was ended when the Governor General, the Queen’s direct representative, fired Parliament and called for new elections.

Yet diplomatically, Australia is closely aligned with the U.S. Since the Second World War and the dissolution of the British Empire, the U.S. has moved to fill the void left in Oceania, both militarily and economically. The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement has kept the U.S. as Australia’s largest foreign investor, although it is not its closest trading partner.

That distinction belongs to China, which has become increasingly concerned about the other major agreement between

Australia and the U.S., the ANZUS treaty.

ANZUS is the joint defense agreement between Australia, the U.S., and New Zealand. In practice, the treaty has allowed for the stationing of U.S. troops on Australian military bases, especially in the north around Darwin. In 2011, President Obama announced that over 50,000 U.S. Marines would be rotated through Australian Defense Force bases, for training purposes. This provoked a heated response from China’s staterun media, which went so far as to accuse the U.S. of seeking to “encircle” China militarily.

This sort of rhetoric is par for the course in Beijing, where U.S. Asian policy is widely viewed with suspicion if not outright hostility. Yet it is unclear what exactly Beijing’s own designs on Oceania are. Although China’s economy continues to skyrocket, though not nearly as fast as it once did, its international relationships have not expanded accordingly. China can exert a great deal of economic leverage on its neighbors, but it has yet to translate that into meaningful diplomatic relationships. Heavy-handed bullying and petty name-calling have characterized most of the PRC’s efforts to reach southward, and nowhere is this more evident than Australia, where Chinese economic interests, especially in the profitable mining sector, continue to expand.

Different Australian governments have pursued highly divergent policies when dealing with China. John Howard’s reception of the Dalai Lama in 2007 represented a nadir in relations, which had been in decline since the Howard Government had moved closer to the U.S. following 9/11 and Australian involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. (In 2003, noted fake cowboy George Bush referred to Australia as the America’s “deputy sheriff ” in Asia, demonstrating that China is not the only country guilty of diplomatic incompetence.) Under Kevin Rudd, who spoke fluent Mandarin, it was widely hoped that relations would improve, although several high profile corporate espionage cases involving Chinese mining executives soured relations. After Australian businessman Stern Hu, was arrested in China, the countries placed de facto bans on “toplevel” diplomatic visits. Nonetheless, new trade agreements during this period involving natural gas and mining continued to strengthen economic ties, with China having surpassed Ja-

“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”—Charles M. Schulz

7 pan as Australia’s largest trading partner. The clear imbalance between the countries economic and political ties has continued to widen, and thus Australia’s new leader faces a delicate political situation.

Tony Abbott and his (conservative) Liberal Party were elected on, among many other things, the promise to “balance” Australia’s commitments to the U.S. and China. What this means in practice is unclear, especially since the extent of Abbott’s mandate remains opaque. The most recent election was a particularly ugly one, with both sides resorting to populist and vaguely-nativist rhetoric (the catchphrase “Stop the Boats,” referring to asylum seekers from southern Asia, was especially popular), and widespread accusations that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was unfairly covering the election in favor of the opposition. Abbott himself is a complicated figure—a devout Roman Catholic in a country which is almost as secular as Sweden, a prominent advocate for aboriginal issues who is also accused of being an anti-immigrant climatechange denier, he does not easily fit on the American political spectrum.

Only time will tell whether the Londonborn Abbott is the nuanced moderate he claims to be, or the populist demagogue his opponents (and perhaps a few of his supporters) believe him to be.

Meanwhile, the makeup of Australia is changing. The end of the government’s “White Australia policy” in the mid-seventies ushered in an era of immigration, especially from southern Asia. Chinese, Indonesian and Malaysian immigrants have flocked to Australia in the past few decades, having a profound effect on the country’s demographics. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to draw comparisons to the effect of immigration in the U.S., and the political and cultural changes it fosters. How and to what degree this affects the future dynamic between Australia and its neighbors is hard to say, but it is certain to result in a reappraisal of the Australian national identity, either sooner or later. Australia’s new leaders have acknowledged this, with Bishop claiming that Australia’s future would be “less Geneva, more Jakarta”.

Perhaps this means that Abbot has an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. His credentials as a true blue con-

servative mean that he can withstand the inevitable accusations of selling-out to China should he attempt to take meaningful steps to improve relations beyond the silly squabbling of the Rudd and Gillard eras. Meanwhile, he needs to acknowledge the changes taking place in Australia, especially regarding immigration. Xenophobic populism might be good for elections, but it is not solid policy — either for Australia or Arizona, for that matter.

Immigration reform could help ease political tension with Australia’s growing population of ethnic minorities, including its sizable Han population. There does not need to be a contradiction between Australia’s “loyalties”—even though China (and other Asian countries like Indonesia) is where its economic future lies, the U.S. remains the state most capable of providing military support and political clout.

But Tony Abbott is not the only one who needs to play along. A certain group of old men in Beijing have to be willing to extend the olive branch as well. China is quick to accuse the United States of seeking to box it in; but the truth is that the Politburo has no one to blame but itself for the Middle Kingdom’s relative diplomatic isolation. After spending decades either ignoring or strong-arming their neighbors, China has only recently realized that in order to achieve the regional power status it craves, it needs friends, and not just cronies like North Korea.

Authoritarian states are never good at playing nice with their democratic neighbors, but in light of China’s huge economy and history as a regional hegemon, its inability to establish more concrete relations with its southern neighbors is baffling nonetheless.

If China cannot pursue long-term, mutually beneficial trade with Australia under the Abbott government now, then its longterm political prospects in Canberra seem dim, to say nothing of Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur. Of China’s many wasted opportunities, this would be the worst—a demonstration that China sees its neighbors as little more than sources of cheap minerals.

And, shutdown or not, the U.S. has made it quite clear that its future lies in Asia, from Okinawa to Melbourne. Military and economic cooperation with the U.S. remains generally popular in Australia, and unlike China, the U.S. has made serious and tangible efforts at strengthening ties, both militarily and politically. It is unlikely that Abbott is too worried about being hung out to dry by the Yanks. TKO

T ony A bbott and his ( conservative ) L iber al P arty were elected on , among many other things , the promise to “ balance ” A ustralia ’ s commit ments to the U.S. and C hina .

In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime. —Phyllis McGinley

8

MOLLY O’CONNOR

If You Can Play, You Can Listen Shared Responsibility in Athletic Discourse at Kenyon The Kenyon College Athletes for Equality (KCAE) held their first meeting on Oct. 8, 2013. KCAE aims to promote a safe environment for LGBTQ athletes on campus, specifically through their athletic endeavors. In September, the group released a video featuring several Kenyon athletic teams, coaches and Kenyon Athletic Center (K AC) staff members to introduce the group’s message highlighting the importance of acceptance and the necessity of a safe environment for LGBTQ athletes. In conjunction with National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, KCAE asked students in Peirce to express why they think fostering a safe environment for LGBTQ students and studentathletes is important.

Both of these measures have seen considerable response from the Kenyon community. Few would argue that KCAE and similar groups at other schools are unnecessary. In fact, the necessity of groups with a similar mission has become more and more evident in collegiate and professional athletics. In September, a group of University of Mississippi football players attended a showing of The Laramie Project. The play recounts the events of the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming. The players were seen heckling, laughing and using homophobic slurs.

Instances like this highlight the need for awareness of homophobia and transphobia in college athletics and, more importantly, the need for an initiative to educate students and push for change. The stigmatization of homosexuality can be seen in professional sports as well. Last May, National Basketball Association center Jason Collins used Sports Il-

lustrated as a platform to become the first openly gay male professional athlete. This feature sparked massive debate in the professional athletic community about the acceptance of, or discrimination against, gay professional athletes, specifically males. Collins expressed hopes that his “identity as a gay man wouldn’t hurt him in free agency, especially with his reputation for being a model teammate.”

Nevertheless, Collins remains a free agent nearly six months after his admission. Some members of the athletic community postulate that Collins has yet to be offered a contract because of the attention following his coming out.

In light of a national stigma against LGTBQ athletes, illustrated by Collins, groups like KCAE aim to fill a void in collegiate athletics that is felt on a national level.

Both the cases of the Mississippi football players and of Collins demonstrate issues of homophobia in male athletic organizations; displays of homophobia in female athletics tend to receive less notoriety.

This is not to say that female athletes do not express homophobic sentiments, or that women are immune to discrimination based on sexuality, but the majority of homophobia in sports takes place in exclusively male organizations.

The measures taken by KCAE, which was founded by Avery Anderson and Emilia Louy, have undoubtedly garnered attention around campus. However, the examples above beg the question: have the right people heard them? The national culture of homophobia in athletic organizations demands a substantial change in male athletic discourse.

KCAE’s founding members are both women who have ac-

How does KCAE plan to break down barriers that have been built throughout the history of male-dominated athletics?

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” — Krishnamurti

9

tive or past participation in the athletic community, and the group’s methods may not elicit an adequate response from the students toward whom it is most targeted.

Several trends in the world of professional athletics sugest that women are more likely to accept LGBTQ teammates than men. The WNBA has the largest openly gay population, with seven active players who identify as LGBTQ, while the NBA has only one. How does KCAE plan to break down barriers that have been built throughout the history of maledominated athletics?

In KCAE’s most prominent projects on campus, the male athlete participation has been severely lacking. Of the 67 people who participated in pictures for National Coming Out Day, only seven were male athletes. Additionally, in the video released by Avery and Louy on behalf of KCAE, the majority of the message comes from administrators and coaches.

While coaches must foster an open and safe athletic environment, effective change has to originate from student-athletes. Thus the potential shortcomings of KCAE become not only a question of the group’s inf luence, but of the responsiveness of Kenyon students, and particularly male student-athletes. Moreover, in a community as small as Kenyon’s, students tend to adopt a f lippant attitude towards serious issues. KCAE’s slogan, “If you can play, you can play,” quickly became a joke on campus, which devalued the sentiments of the expression. Instances like this illustrate the difficulty of KCAE’s objective to foster a sincere understanding in all community members.

Furthermore, in addressing the issues of homophobia in Kenyon athletics negative generalizations can be reinforced.

In a recent article released by the Collegian, the K AC was

named as an unsafe corner of campus where “some lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer athletes have reported issues of intolerance and hostility.” The article indicated that not all LGBTQ athletes felt this “intolerance and hostility;” the issue at hand is not the K AC itself, but rather the culture of intolerance embodied by some students who are there often. If people, not places, are the source of the issue, we return to the original problem of creating a culture in which discrimination is socially unacceptable.

KCAE has provoked a discourse on campus about the presence of homophobia in sports, but because of a divided and potentially unreceptive student body, its reach has been somewhat limited.

The group has expanded on efforts of the national athletic community to curb discrimination in collegiate and professional sports. For example, in 2007 the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Center for Lesbian R ights collaborated to host the seminar “Think Tank on Homophobia in Sport”. But the event conference was held in conjunction with a lesbian rights group, not an all-encompassing LGTBQ group, emphasizing the challenges that KCAE will face in coming years, especially in encouraging participation from male athletes. This calls attention to the lack of activism by male athletes, a drawback on which KCAE and similar groups must focus their energies in order to create lasting and sincere acceptance. TKO

While coaches must foster an open and safe athletic environment, effective change has to originate from studentathletes.

“If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.” —

Kurt Lewin

10 MAX AMBERGER

Syria’s Kurds: A Bulwark Against Extremism Ignored The world’s largest stateless nation, Kurds number 30 to 40 million individuals living in a mostly-contiguous area of land known as “Kurdistan.” But due to regional geopolitical machinations, Kurds have seen their homeland forcibly divided into North Kurdistan (Bakûr, in southeast Turkey), South Kurdistan (Baqûr, northern Iraq), East Kurdistan (Rojhelat, northwest Iran) and West Kurdistan (Rojava, northern Syria). Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, they have waged campaigns for self-determination in their own lands against those four occupation governments. Despite many decades of near-constant struggle, the Kurdish movement remains relatively unknown and ill-understood in the West.

As in every state where Kurds constitute a substantial minority, Kurds in Syria have for many years been oppressed by the central government. In 1962, a special census was conducted exclusively in the Kurdish-populated areas in northern Syria. Its goal was to determine whether or not the Kurds living in the area were “real Syrians”, or whether they were recent arrivals from Turkey. Despite the vast majority of Kurds being able to trace their descent on the land back many generations, hundreds of thousands of them were stripped of citizenship, rendering them— and all their descendants—effectively stateless and denying them constitutional rights and even the freedom to move elsewhere.

The ascent of the Arab nationalist Ba’ath Party in 1963 only further enshrined this majoritarian mindset in state policy.

Indeed, Syria’s official name is the “Syrian Arab Republic” in spite of the fact that well over 10% of the country is not Arab.

The teaching of the Kurdish language was banned, and cultural practices such as Newroz, the Perso-Kurdish New Year, were similarly prohibited. All the while, the government promoted an “Arab Belt” policy, in which ethnic Arab settlers were relocated to Syria’s north to dilute Kurdish demographics and ensure a loyal populace.

Beginning in the 1980s, President Hafiz al-Assad sought to distract Syria’s Kurds from oppression at home by supporting leftist insurgent groups in neighboring states, particularly the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, in Turkey. This strategy worked for a while, as thousands of Kurds in Syria joined and fought for the PKK. But in the late 1990s, Damascus and An-

kara sought rapprochement, and Syria pulled the rug out from under the PKK. The Syrian government thus either arrested or handed over to Turkey many PKK fighters as it banned and designated the group as “terrorist.”

Abdulla Öcalan, the group’s leader, fled the country only to be kidnapped by Turkish Special Forces in Kenya. Tensions continued to simmer in west Kurdistan. In 2004, riots broke out during a soccer match in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in Syria’s north after Arab fans of the visiting team from southeast Syria provoked hostility by brandishing portraits of Saddam Hussein, who had ordered the genocide of perhaps 100,000 Kurds in Iraq in the late 1980s. The riots were only quelled with the intervention of regime security forces who fired on the Kurdish crowds after they pulled down a statue of Hafiz al-Assad, killing dozens and wounding hundreds.

The conflict in Syria that broke out in March 2011 was to change this state of affairs drastically. As protests turned into armed clashes, Syria’s Kurds stayed generally quiet, unsure of which of the two sides would better safeguard Kurdish interests. Initially, both the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD)—seen by many as the locally-grown successor of the PKK—and the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Syria joined the government-sanctioned opposition National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB).

Several other Kurdish parties joined the rebel Syrian National Council The KDP-S soon left the NCB and formed the KNC in October 2011 together with a number of other small Kurdish parties close to the South Kurdish. In June 2012, government forces largely pulled out of Kurdish areas in Syria, leaving matters of administration and defense to local Kurdish groups. In an effort to head off tensions between the PYD and the KDP, KRG President Massoud Barzani brokered a power-sharing deal in Erbil, leading to the creation of the Supreme Kurdish Council (Desteya Bilind). The DBK, ostensibly a 50/50 compromise between the PYD and KNC, nominally controls the Asayip police force as well as the People’s Protection Units (Yekîyenên Parasitina Gel, YPG), a predominantly Kurdish militia with a large female component which is by a very large margin the most powerful armed force operating in West Kurdistan.

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” — Mao Zedong

11 Nevertheless, the better-organized PYD has always exerted de facto control over the DBK and its dependent armed forces, relegating the KNC to the status of political opposition.

As the civil war deepens around them, Syria’s Kurds have set about creating a string of relatively stable semi-autonomous enclaves in Kurdish-majority areas across northern Syria.

One is centered around the city of Efrîn (Arabic name: Afrin) in the rugged northwestern corner of Aleppo province, a second comprises the northern neighborhoods of Aleppo city, a third is centered on the northern city of Kobanê (Arabic name: Ayn al-Arab), and a fourth encompasses the northern and eastern parts of oil-rich Hasakah province in Syria’s northeast. Over the summer, the PYD began laying the framework for a transitional democratic self-governance plan to improve living conditions and serve as a model for the rest of Syria. However, this stability has not been unnoticed by other groups in the country. The YPG have fought against government forces and both moderate and radical rebels on numerous occasions throughout the conflict. It is clear, though, that Assad regards fighting with Kurds as a low strategic priority, and prefers to focus his increasingly limited resources on fighting Arab rebels.

The bulk of attacks on Kurdish areas have therefore come from rebels particularly jihadists aligned with al-Qaeda. In the past few months, these attacks have greatly intensified.

Despite being better-armed and better-supported, the jihadists have been regularly routed by the YPG, who have successfully defended most Kurdish areas and even liberated some. But in those Kurdish areas that extremist groups have entered even temporarily, reports of looting, ethnic cleansing and even massacres against Kurdish civilians have surfaced.

Meanwhile, al-Qaida-linked groups continue to easily subjugate “moderate” rebels, who seem to prefer complacency to resistance. So if the Kurds in Syria represent the only antiAssad group that actively and effectively oppose al-Qaida domination, unlike Senator John McCain’s vaunted “moderates,” why have they been almost totally neglected by our government?

Perhaps the primary obstacle to any U.S. or Western assistance to Kurds in Syria is the fear of offending fellow NATO

member and E.U. candidate Turkey, who continues to this day to actively suppress its large Kurdish minority (though less so than in years past). Having listed the PKK as a “terrorist” group largely to appease Turkish state interests and so ensure further strategic cooperation with our only Muslim ally, the US and EU are reticent to deal directly with the PYD. This designation makes it difficult for the West to encourage effective democratic change in Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkey has gone from terror state to state sponsor of terror in its ongoing campaign to deny human rights to its Kurds. While the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (aka al-Qaeda in Iraq) was able to establish a presence in the towns of Jarablus and Tal Abyad on the border with Turkey without Ankara making the slightest sound of protest, the efforts of Kurds in northern Syria to establish peaceful self-rule have triggered loud condemnations from the Turkish government.

Turkey remains a major transit hub for foreign jihadists heading for Syria, and reports abound of Turkish soldiers having cut gaps in the barbed-wire and cleared paths through the minefields along the border with Syria’s Kurdish areas to allow their passage. Pro al-Qaeda fighters wounded in clashes with the YPG make regular appearances in Turkish hospitals near the border only to be sent back through these secret crossing points. The Turkish government officially denies such allegations, but fails to build any convincing case to defend itself. Indeed, the US government has even confronted Turkey in closed-door diplomatic meetings over its support of such radical elements. Another roadblock is the generally Kurdophobic attitude of the Syrian opposition, both “moderates” and radicals alike.

Despite the rebels’ opposition to the regime of Bashar alAssad, most Kurds do not see a substantive difference between the policies of the Ba’ath regime and the mentalities of the rebels; Turkey’s staunch support of the opposition further intensifies the animosity on both sides. The West has heretofore thrown its support behind these groups—in spite of the rapid proliferation of radical Islamist ideologies amongst them and the inability of supposed moderates to contain this dangerous trend. TKO

If the West wishes to regard itself as any force for positive, democratic change in Syria—indeed, in the entire region—it must embrace the Kurds as equal partners in any dialogue.

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” — Plato

12

STERLING NELSON

You’re Better than That: On Defensive Bullshitting “I finished it, I finished the essay at, like, 2 am last night. Yeah, I writing is a valuable and useful skill. We’ve all written an essay mean, it’s bullshit, but at least it’s finished. Yeah, I did it all last night, I or a paper in a rush the night before it’s due. But this isn’t about don’t even remember typing parts of it. Yeah, I read over it, but I didn’t, quick writing, this is about how we talk about our writing. How you know, edit it really.” we talk about our ideas and how we talk about thoughts. It’s very These words have probably come out of every Kenyon stu- easy to write yourself off. It’s easy to say that everyone else is dents’ mouth at some point during their four years here. Ken- better than you, it’s easy to lower expectations. But we came to yon students, on the whole, generally spew expectation-lowering Kenyon because we didn’t like it easy. We took hard classes in rhetoric about the quality of their essays. We spend so much high school, we were involved in clubs and sports, we survived time separating ourselves from our work, we don’t realize that on little sleep. we’re actually pretty smart, that our But that’s part of the problem, isn’t ideas may actually be profound, and it? We liked the challenges that we could that we may actually have something overcome. Most of us didn’t fail at anyproductive and intelligent to say. thing in high school. We successfully The Class of 2017’s admissions balanced varsity sports with AP classes statistics are impressive to say the and National Honor Society. It was a least. 21 percent in the top 1 percent challenge, sure, but it was a challenge of their class, 61 percent in the top that we overcame. We beat it. We like 10 percent, 42 percent had a GPA the challenge, but we seem to only emof 4.0 or higher, and the average brace the challenges we can win. first year took 4.8 AP classes. Other As a first year community advisor, I classes here have just as academihad an opportunity to give some “words cally impressive statistics. Not to of wisdom” to the incoming class their toot our own horn, but we’re some first night here. Here’s what I told them, of the best from our respective high and it applies to all who study at Kenschools and if you’re anything like yon. me, that’s become your identity. In Kenyon is hard. I’m sure you all high school, many of us were laknow that, because you probably cartoon by Peter Falls beled as “smarter than the rest.” It wouldn’t be here if it was easy. Classes was true then, and that’s why we ended up are going to challenge you, making new friends is in Gambier. going to challenge you, college life is going to challenge you.

But Kenyon is a whole different ballgame. Everyone at Ken- And you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to write a bad yon was smarter-than-the rest in high school, but not sure where paper. You’re going to screw up a midterm. Some of you may they stand now. That intelligent, smarter-than-everyone-else drink way too much at a party. Mistakes are going to happen. identity seems to disappear, and now we have to reinvent who Failure is going to happen. And that is okay. Here’s the thing, we think we are. you deserve to be here. And here’s the bigger thing: At some Our confidence influences how we talk about our work and point or another everyone will feel just as scared as you. ourselves. As first years, Kenyon shakes that confidence and Everyone is afraid of failure and screwing up and mistakes suddenly, instead of walking around, proud of our thoughts and and not having friends and not finding a job after graduation. ideas we lower expectations. We become afraid of failure and You deserve Kenyon and you are not alone. afraid of being wrong and afraid of our own ideas. So we hide So own your fantastic paper. Own those ideas. They’re them under persistent claims of bullshit and inadequacy. We in- wrong? So what? That’s how you learn. No one will think you’re tentionally set the bar low so that if we are wrong, it wasn’t stupid or dumb, because you put it out there. I’m telling you this because of a lack of intelligence, it was because we bullshitted because no one told me: you’ve worked hard to get here and you the essay. deserve to be here. TKO I understand that not every Kenyon student is like this. With Kenyon’s sometimes-large workload, quick and last minute essay

“Shine bright, shine far, don’t be shy, be a star.” — Tyra Banks

13

14

JULIA MCKAY

Golden Dawn Most Americans are familiar with the economic meltdown occurring in Greece. Government overspending and widespread tax evasion created an overwhelming debt that forced Greece to default on their loans. As the meltdown began, tough austerity measures were enacted by Parliament under Prime Minister Antonis Samara to restore financial confidence and to pay back some of Greece’s mounting debt. These actions harmed Greece’s economy, raised unemployment rates and lowered living standards.

R ising frustration with the government has spread throughout Greece. Public response included riots in Athens and other cities throughout Greece protesting the passage of strict budgets.

Many people turned to violence to express their frustrations. These frustrations have given rise to the Golden Dawn Party, known a for their far right extremist ideals and anti-immigrant platform.

Golden Dawn represents a rise in support for hypernationist and anti-immigrant ideals throughout Europe, caused by increased economic uncertainty, a disturbing trend that could take root in America.

In 2009, support for the party was 0.3%, but frustration over austerity measures in Greece increased those numbers to 7 percent during the 2012 elections, giving the party 18 seats of the total 300 in Parliament. However, polls have seen support grow as high as 12 percent according to a Sept.

29th CNN article.

The party’s barely disguised neo-Nazism paired with its often-violent tactics has been a nightmare for immigrants. Golden Dawn vigilantes have been

involved in a swath of anti-immigrant hate crimes.

Threats towards immigrants such as “You need to leave the country or we will burn your store down” were reported by the New York Times in July 2012.

While there is no official data on the number of such crimes, Human R ights Watch report published in 2012 “Hate on the Streets: Xenophobic violence in Greece” described abuses of immigrants and stated, “migrants and asylum seekers spoke to Human R ights Watch of virtual no-go areas in Athens after dark because of fear of attacks by often blackclad groups of Greeks intent on violence.”

The report also condemned local authorities for turning a blind eye towards the crimes. Weak border security and European Union deportation laws make Greece a hotspot for illegal immigrants looking for jobs, often forcing them to settle in poor neighbors filled with crime.

The presence of immigrants in low wage jobs provide an easy scapegoat during the mounting economic crisis. The Golden Dawn’s toxic policies creates turmoil in the streets and harm Greek democracy. They draw dangerous parallels to the Nazi party, with their militaristic management and party symbol bearing a striking resemblance to a swastika. Their use of vigilante “justice” to abuse immigrants proves that they have little respect for the Greek judicial system. Golden Dawn has demonstrated that they are willing to cross any line to reach their goals, no matter how harmful their goals might be to Greek democracy.

Recently, the killing of Pavlos Fyssas, an antifascist rapper by Golden Dawn thugs triggered in-

“Fascism is just Socialism with shareholders.” -Victor Aguilar

15

ternational outrage. According to the Economist, amidst increasing protests over the party’s actions, the Greek government arrested members of the Golden Dawn Party, including leader Nikos Michaloliakos, four MPs and fourteen others. The charges include murder, conspiracy and other criminal activities. However, critics fear that if the charges are not legitimate, the arrests may only fuel support for the party. The Greek constitution prevents the banning of political parties. If the crackdown is not successful then the Golden Dawn Party will be allowed to continue and possibly be stronger than ever. The Party would be able to use the trial to rally supporters, using the failed crackdown as proof that their party is just and the government simply are persecuting them.

Ultra right-wing parties are growing all across Europe. According to Aljazeera, parties such as the Progress Party in Norway, the Party of Freedom in the Netherlands and the Swiss People’s Party have strong anti-immigrant views and are gaining support.

While many of these political parties are not as extreme as Golden Dawn, their views trend towardsfarright extremism, nativism and racism. People across Europe have become disillusioned the E.U., and with politics in general. This frustration has led many to turn to extremism, when conventional policies do not appear to be effective people often take extreme positions to enact change. The British think tank Demos, found in a 2011 study called the “New Face of Digital Populism” that support for far-right parties has increased since the onset of economic trouble in the Euro zone and the rise of social media. They found an increase in feelings of anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic sentiments, along with fear of losing national identity within the subjects respective nations.

These developments –in Greece and elsewhere in Europe – lead one to consider whether such right wing extremist views could take hold in American politics.

The Minuteman Project, a hardline anti-immigration group, saw relative popularity in the early 2000’s and exhibited many similar characteristics to Golden Dawn.

Headed by Jim Gilchrist the project gathered citizen volunteers with guns to guard the Mexican-American border. The project has since dissolved due to infighting but many of the former members have been absorbed into the Tea Party. There seems to be no question that powerful anti-immigrant sentiment is present in America today.

Conditions in America are not currently as dire as those in Greece but the presence of groups like the Minuteman Project shows how a worsening of economic conditions can bring otherwise extreme sentiments into the mainstream of American politics. Any country, placed under similar economic pressures, is likely to witness the rise of groups like the Golden Dawn.

Hard economic times are able to bring extreme policy into a mainstream government in almost any nation; this raises the question of how governments will cope with political parties that become so extreme that their views are harmful to particular citizens. It remains to be seen whether the Greek government will be successful in their attempt to end the Golden Dawn Party’s inf luence. The recent shutdown of the American government is evidence that America can be held powerless when a small minority hijacks the policymaking agenda. Economic conditions can allow relatively small groups to gain a foothold when they are loud enough. The Golden Dawn Party is an example of citizens no longer believing that their government can or will protect their interests, and turning to radical ideals that they may have rejected under more stable circumstances. This however, is a natural danger of living under a democracy. TKO

With hard economic times able to bring extreme policy into a mainstream government in almost any nation, it raises the question of how governments will cope with political parties that become so extreme that their views are harmful to groups of citizens.

“Collective fear stimulates heard instinct” –Bertrand Russell

JOHN FOLEY

The Last Word John, you say coyly, as we sip our cappuccinos, I want to read sophisticated literature. I understand, friend. So do I. The only thing any of us wants in this world, aside from beauty, is to appear smart in front of friends and acquaintances. But John, you interject rudely, I am vapid and have a tragically short attention span. So am I, friend, and so do I. How can anyone possibly sit through reading books like The Secret Garden and Charlotte’s Web without getting headaches?

I’ve had variations of this same conversation countless times. Friends want to acquire knowledge for dinner parties and job interviews, but invariably hate reading, especially books by dead people. This is an age old dilemma. Murals found in caves accross the world depict the first peoples of this earth struggling to get through Great Expectations and Sense and Sensibility. A giant statue on Easter Island depicts a woman yawning as she struggles to finish Middlemarch.

Luckily, this problem has a solution. We live in a time and culture that offers us plenty of opportunities to enrich ourselves without dying of boredom or crying blood. Many television shows, films and contemporary books offer similar themes and social commentaries as the classics, without all the extra words. Here are a few of the best.

If you want something like...

A Tale of Two Cities In this classic British novel, Charles Dickens mines the depths of social inequality in Paris and London during the time of the French Revolution.

Paradise Lost A timeless tale of Good versus Evil.

May I suggest...

Sex and the City, Season 3, Episode 14, “Sex and Another City” In this classic episode, Carrie and the Girls visit Los Angeles, learn about the downsides of Brazillian waxing and “overdose on health food.”

The Hills, Season 2, Episodes 6 to 9, Heidi and Lauren’s Fight A timeless tale of Good versus Evil.

The collected works of the Bronte Sisters These novels deal with the brutality of adolescent life in early industrial Britain and the isolation felt by female protagonists whose life choices are limited by their gender.

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants I actually don’t have anything snarky to say about this book series. It very touchingly deals with adolescent life at the start of the 21st century. Those pants fit all of them! And I cried when Bailey died.

A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf brilliantly articulates how women need to create their own spaces in order to thrive creatively, professionally and personally.

HGTV’s “House Hunters” Rich homebuyers tour mansions and complain when they don’t have stainless steel appliances.

Editors note: Ryan Mach is in India this week. TKO