Preview

PREVIEW

PREVIEW

2015

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Preview 2015!

Preview is an amazing opportunity offered by Caterham School that allows bright young political minds to express their opinions freely on anything that grasps their attention. We have articles on everything from the CIA and its immorality to who’s going to win the election in 2015.

This year’s edition comes at an interesting time in politics (is there ever not?) with the general election, ever rising tensions internationally, the rise of ISIS (or IS or ISIL or I... no longer have a clue) and the threat of the EU being disbanded.

All this (and more) and the help of some fantastic teaching mean that we, as Caterham School students, have never felt more connected to the political world.

The Caterham School motto, Veritas Sine Timore (Truth Without Fear), has never been more important than it is now. The recent Charlie Hebdo attacks show how truly important it is for the young to be politically free. Join this with Britons’ never-say-die attitude, and you truly have something formidable.

It is because of recent international events that it is more important than ever that young people engage in politics and take an active interest, maybe preventing another generation of Putins and Obamas (yes, I know he’s cool) and allowing for a generation of Malala Yousafzais and Joshua Wongs (both as old as many of the Preview contributors this year).

These two really set the benchmark for political figures - let alone teenagers!

They are both symbols of hope and stoicism against oppression and brutality.

Too many times has our generation had to tolerate negative press. It is time that people stood up and made some positive headlines of their own.

We are described as the ‘connected’ generation; let us use this as a symbol and rallying point. We can be more connected with the world, more connected to what is happening around us and more connected to each other. With this, we can truly start to rebuild the world.

Thank you and here’s to 2015!

Yours Ed.

Front cover illustration by Joe McNeice

A Comedy of Errors by Jonny Hellman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Invasion of the Fruitcakes & Loonies by Jack Medlock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Let ‘em Hang? by Mr Toby Cooper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 ‘If history has taught us anything, we must be vigilant’- . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Anti-Semitism and its effects on Britain by Charlotte Kail What the Frack? by Kelly Gibson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Latin America’s Left by Marco Perasso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Greece by Ewan Davidson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Bievenue au Palais d’Elysee Marine Le Pen by Francesca Rowson . 20 Can Turkey Survive Multiculturalism? by Rain Basaran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Currying Favour by William Paxton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

CIA torture report: the ‘ugly human rights head of the US’? . . . . . . . 26

by Leyla Gimalieva Barrels of Money by Marco Perasso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Mr Obama it’s time to give it back! by Liucija Padolskyte . . . . . . . . . . . 30

A Piece of Peace by Sarah Slater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 ‘It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 imagine the end of capitalism.’ by Liza Tytarenko A Brand New Direction by Carys John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Anarchy Is the Perfect Form of Government by Ben Cowlard . . . . . . 38 Briefing-European Monopolyfobia by Dana Marat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Crisis of Crises by Dan Webb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

A COMEDY

OF ERRORS WHO WILL WIN THE 2015 GENERAL ELECTION?

E

ver since Labour and the Conservatives shifted to occupy the middle ground in British politics, with Tony Blair abandoning Clause IV in 1994 and ushering in a low-tax, business friendly era of New Labour, and the youthful David Cameron putting his party on the path to modernisation after his election as party leader in 2005, you could be forgiven for thinking that there is so little difference between the two main parties that there is no point voting. That may have been true for the last few elections, but that won’t be the case in 2015. With the two main parties now the furthest apart that they’ve been since the days of Margaret Thatcher and Michael Foot in the early 1980s, and with the Liberal Democrats’ decline in conjunction with the rise of UKIP, the general election of 2015 will be the closest and most unpredictable for years. This article will attempt to explain who the winners and losers will be and why.

6

Instead of diving straight into the complexities of who will win in 2015 and why, one must start by looking at which of the two main parties would be best poised to win if it was a straight choice between only Labour and the Conservatives. As far as the leadership is concerned, almost every poll conducted since Miliband’s election as Labour leader has strongly suggested that the public prefers Cameron over Miliband, and that the Labour leader is seen as too weak and not prime ministerial enough. As with any election in any country, the main political issue is a simple one: the economy. If voters feel as though they have more money in their pockets under a certain government, they will often continue to vote for that party, regardless of other less important political issues.

The Conservatives came to power (with the help of the Liberal Democrats) with a mandate of getting the

FROM THE UK economy moving again, of clearing up Labour’s mess as they put it. On the face of it the coalition has certainly done a good job with growth of 3%, inflation of 1% (CPI), unemployment falling to 6% and the deficit cut by a third in 2014 according to the Office for National Statistics. However, these statistics don’t tell the whole story because if ordinary people are struggling to put food on the table for their families, being told by the government that the deficit is shrinking and the economy is growing will be completely irrelevant to them. Therefore, one must look at average wages and inflation; although wages have been falling since the financial crisis, in March 2014 wage growth (1.7%) finally overtook inflation (1.6%). In terms of how the economy will affect the outcome of the next general election, it boils down to this: should wages overtake inflation quickly and with a large enough margin, the Conservatives look set to reap the rewards of their good economic management and win in 2015. However, should it take another year or so for cost of living to improve, Ed Miliband and all his talk of the cost of living crisis stand an excellent chance, despite his personal failings. This has been the case in previous elections; from March 1985 to October 1986, weekly opinion polls gave Labour an average four point lead. Nevertheless, half a year later at the 1987 General Election in June, Thatcher won a comfortable majority with 397 seats, and with 42% of popular vote to Labour’s 30%. The economy is not the only issue however; individual policies such as Labour’s promise to freeze energy prices for twenty months and introduce caps to rent prices as well as the Tories’ pledge of tax cuts for thirty million people will no doubt have an effect. With only a few months until the election and the parties neck and neck in the polls it’s impossible to see which way the election will go, especially since, as Harold Wilson put it, “a week is a long time in politics”.

Labour and the Tories aside, small parties could have a huge impact on the outcome of the next election.

The Liberal Democrats are set to lose out due to their U-turn over tuition fees and their perceived betrayal of their liberal values by forming a coalition to support the Conservatives. Coming out as the main pro-EU party led to near wipeout at the 2014 EU elections and their leader is the most unpopular politician in recent British political history (recent polls suggest even Miliband could not be as unpopular as Clegg).

If the Liberal Democrats do lose out as the polls are suggesting (between 6-10% now compared to 23% in 2010), then the question is where do these masses of ex-Liberal voters go? Whether these voters go to the

other centre-left party, Labour, the other protest party, UKIP, or any of the other parties, including the Greens, could be pivotal in deciding the election. The impact of the Scottish referendum should also be looked at; recent polls are showing that despite the ‘no’ vote, the SNP are set to nearly drive Labour out of Scotland altogether. With close to forty seats lost (as estimated), Labour could be out of power for a long time.

The biggest political story of 2014 was undoubtedly the continuing remarkable rise of UKIP. As the first party other than Labour and the Conservatives to win a national election for more than 100 years, at the EU elections, and bolstered by two defections from the Conservatives, UKIP will no doubt have a significant effect on next year’s election. The normal view of the rise of UKIP was that they would take large numbers of votes off the Tories and hand enough marginals to Labour to give Miliband the keys to Downing Street.

Recently, however, they have also invaded Labour’s traditional heartlands by eating into the ‘white working class’ demographic, which is angered by uncontrolled immigration (“they’re taking our jobs”) and, by extension, of the EU. Cameron has tried to deal with the UKIP threat by promising a renegotiation of the UK’s EU membership followed by a referendum. But will this win back enough ex-Tory voters? Will Labour be able to defend their former strongholds? Will UKIP really poll 15% in the election as the polls are suggesting now? Will Nigel Farage target Labour voters since a Conservative majority will lead to a referendum and a Labour majority won’t? These questions may prove crucial to the outcome of the election.

In conclusion, it seems extremely unlikely that there will be a single party government after 2015.

The winner cannot simply have the most votes; they need to cross the threshold of 326 seats in the House of Commons (usually 38% or so of the popular vote would do it) and right now neither major party looks capable of achieving this. Labour’s leader is weak and unpopular, and the party is set to be wiped out in Scotland. The Conservatives are haemorrhaging votes to UKIP, and the improving economy may come too late to save them. The rise of smaller parties has exposed the problems with the electoral system and we are almost certainly going to see another coalition. Exactly what that coalition looks like remains to be seen. UKIP will support anyone who gives them a referendum, the Liberal Democrats will support anyone so long as they can remain in government and the SNP might support Labour but never the Tories. It seems that post-electoral negotiations could be just as complex and fascinating as the election preceding it.

THE SNP ARE SET TO NEARLY DRIVE LABOUR OUT OF SCOTLAND ALTOGETHER

7

INVASION OF THE FRUITCAKES & LOONIES

By Jack Medlock

C

“

reate an earthquake”. This was the message of UKIP party leader Nigel Farage during 2014 which was both spoken aloud and plastered across the party’s manifesto. However, with UKIP becoming the UK’s biggest member of the European Parliament, winning 27.5% of the vote for European elections in 2014, as well as gaining two MPs, Messrs Carswell and the aptly named Reckless, the party must now be considered a genuine political force in Britain, perhaps even vying with the Liberal Democrats for the dubious award of the UK’s third biggest party. But who exactly are the self-proclaimed People’s Army? And can they be considered as genuine alternatives to ‘evil’ Etonian David Cameron and his band of stale Tories?

The UK Independence Party, as the name would suggest, have one key policy: to leave the European Union as soon as possible. A quick browse of the UKIP manifesto makes it abundantly clear that all the ills of the UK are the responsibility of the wicked bureaucrats in Brussels, whose one single aim is to destroy Britain and all that makes our nation great. The vast majority of the party’s major policies are worryingly dependent on cutting our umbilical cord with Europe. How will the party invest three billion pounds into the NHS? By leaving the EU. How will they fund deficit reduction? By leaving the EU. And how will UKIP boost employment? You guessed it - by leaving the EU. According to UKIP, the party would not seek to keep the UK membership of the European Free Trade Area or Euro-

FROM THE UK

THE IRRELEVANT, RADICAL, RACIST SIDESHOW OF UK POLITICS pean Economic Area, thus allowing the UK to have complete control over her own boarders and immigration control. Moreover, leaving the EU will also allow the UK to save eight billion pounds per year in net contributions, thus boosting business with extra funding and increasing employment for young British workers by allowing businesses to discriminate in favour of British nationals. However, a note of caution must be sounded at this point. All these wonderful promises must be considered with one concerning footnote; the party claim they will ’negotiate a bespoke trade agreement with the EU to enable our businesses to continue trading to mutual advantage’, which is just about as vague as it gets. There is absolutely no mention of how the party would negotiate this treaty and it is even less clear what would happen to British business if Angela Merkel and co. were to stick two fingers up at Mr Farage and say ‘Auf Wiedersehen’.

A vast array of UKIP policies clearly targets the ordinary British voter which reinforces the party’s reputation for being anti-establishment and the ‘party of the people’. Each vague one-line policy is a shameless attempt to steal voters away from established Westminster parties. The promises to oppose the ‘bedroom tax’ are an appeal to Labour Party supporters and the promise to maintain an overarching, unifying British culture aims to win back potential nationalist voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, what rapidly becomes obvious is the party’s blatant attempts to woo

supporters of the Conservative party, by becoming almost a Conservative Plus party. UKIP promises to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. Think you’ve heard this before? That’s because you have: David Cameron has made an identical promise, should the Conservatives emerge victorious in the General Election. The similarities continue with promises to reduce the deficit, control immigration and protect the NHS and military using language which is eerily similar to Tory Party jargon. This is perhaps also an attempt by the party to distance themselves from their reputation as the irrelevant, radical, racist sideshow of UK politics, in order to make themselves far more attractive to mainstream voters. To this end, there can be no doubting UKIP success with 60% of Conservative voters from the 2010 General Election saying they would consider voting UKIP according to a recent YouGov survey.

The seemingly random, chaotic organisation of UKIP policy is particularly highlighted by its attitude to young voters, which is mixed at best and ludicrous and laughable at worst. UKIP attitudes towards the environment are a sure-fire way to alienate the young voter. UKIP promises to repeal the Climate Change Act of 2008 and scrap green taxes, as well as encouraging the development of the shale gas industry. Key to winning support for the Conservatives amongst young voters pre-2010 was

a positive attitude to protecting the environment so the fact that this has been so blatantly ignored

by UKIP policy makers is simply laughable, especially when UKIP’s unpopularity amongst the youngest voters is considered. But here’s the conflict: UKIP pledge to remove tuition fees (no, Liberal Democrat supporters, your eyes do not deceive you) for those students taking degrees in Science, Medicine, Technology, Engineering and Maths. This policy could be considered a stroke of genius that will go some way to reaching out to the most disenchanted young voters, desperate for a change to the establishment, many of whom feel deeply betrayed by Clegg’s u-turn in 2010. On this front it seems, UKIP will struggle to be bettered.

So, Farage for Prime Minister? Not quite. However, the UKIP leader must be congratulated on an excellent job in transforming his party while simultaneously pulling UKIP into the centre of UK politics and dragging the Conservatives kicking and screaming to the right.

UKIP are beginning to appeal to the ordinary, mainstream voter which makes them more dangerous than ever before for the established Westminster parties. Perhaps this year’s General Election has come too soon for the party since much of its policy is still worryingly vague and has a scattergun feel. But the message to the establishment is clear. With a little refinement, UKIP are coming, referendum or no referendum.

9

By Mr Toby Cooper

A

t 8am on 13th August 1964, Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans took a short walk to the gallows to be hanged for murder. At the time, the deaths of these two petty criminals aroused little attention or comment in Britain. Indeed, few would remember them today other than for the fact that they hold the dubious distinction of being the last two people judicially executed in the UK. 1964 saw a trial suspension of the death penalty which was later permanently banned by Act of Parliament in 1969.

A YouGov poll of 2010 showed that 51% of participants favoured the reintroduction of the death penalty, with only 37% opposed.

On the 50th anniversary of the last execution in August 2014 another survey found that 45% favoured the reintroduction with 39% opposed. Though much can be made of the decline in support over four years, the simple fact remains that a higher proportion of the electorate favour the reintroduction of the death penalty than have voted for any winning party in a general election since the death penalty was suspended, yet the matter seems to be ignored.

Certainly there is evidence of support for the issue in some politicl circles: within one year of the introduction of the government’s e-petition website, 154 petitions had been submitted by the public, received support from the electorate and been rejected for parliamentary debate. In 2011, Andrew Percy MP suggested the public should vote on the matter in a referendum, while other Conservative backbench

MPs, led by Peter Bone, tried to force a debate in the House of Commons in 2013.

So why, despite all this support, has the issue been so little debated in our representative institutions? In part it is because the party leaders are unified in their opposition to it. David Cameron said in an interview with Dylan Jones in 2011 that “in a civilised society like ours you cannot have the death penalty any more” while Ed Milliband has repeatedly deplored the use of the death penalty around the world. It is also largely irrelevant at the moment. As a signatory of the European Convention of Human Rights, the use of the death penalty is expressly banned, so Parliament cannot reintroduce it without overturning the Human Rights Act and leaving the EU, which is why the popular petitions are routinely rejected.

Yet, with the rise of UKIP, growing disillusionment with the EU and frustrations of many Conservatives over restrictions imposed by the ECHR, including Home Secretary Theresa May, could Britain be moving closer to a situation where a reintroduction would be possible?

The last time the matter was debated in Parliament, in 1994, reintroduction was emphatically defeated by 403-159, but if the matter were presented to the public in a referendum, then all polling data would suggest that it would be supported and most likely win.

Before a campaign to let ‘em hang begins, the British public should perhaps take note of some lessons from the only established and properly functioning democracy in the world to routinely implement the death penalty: the USA.

FROM THE UK It is easy to be appalled by images of American citizens celebrating the execution of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh in 2001 and to find the idea of victims watching executions behind a glass screen troubling. To be fair though, the legal rationale for the death penalty in America is not for revenge, but to prevent those who pose a real threat to society from ever being able to cause harm again. This may make rational sense, but since the re-introduction of the death penalty in the US in 1974, life without parole has become a more feasible and permissible punishment. As such, why should the state execute when it can imprison?

One answer is cost; once someone is executed, they are no longer a financial burden on the state, but a prisoner incurs regular costs. Yet with the process of due diligence in America, as a vigorous system of appeals is set out to try to ensure that there are no mistaken executions, typically a death row inmate will serve 25-30 years in prison.

This may not be life, but the annual cost of keeping a prisoner on death row in Kansas is nearly double the cost of those in the general prison population ($49,380 v. $24,690) while in California the difference is $90,000 per year. On this basis, to be of any financial benefit, prisoners would need to typically serve more than 60 years in prison, which seems unlikely, given the nature of prison life and that most convicts are in the late twenties or older by the time they are convicted.

Another issue raised is that the death penalty would deter those thinking of murder. However, the situation in the USA seems

to undermine this point. Violent crimes worthy of the death penalty have actually increased since the 1970s, most notably in those states that have the death penalty. Other factors are responsible for this, but the suggestion is that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to those committing crimes. Those that stop long enough to contemplate the consequences of their actions are as likely to be dissuaded by the prospect of life imprisonment as by the death penalty. It also seems unlikely that perpetrators spend long contemplating the potential punishments, as this requires the assumption that they will be caught and found guilty. This assumes a degree of rationalisation that is usually absent from crimes which are awarded the death penalty.

So, what of the method of executions? In the same YouGov survey of 2014, 68-23% of all British people were opposed to hanging, it was even opposed by 49% of those who favour reintroducing capital punishment. Lethal injection is seen as the most appropriate method, approved of by 51% of the general public and 88% of those pro-reintroduction.

The reason for this is that, despite wanting the death penalty, many feel that the punishment should be delivered humanely.

The US Supreme Court allowed the re-introduction of the death penalty on the basis that lethal injections were not deemed ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ in the way that hanging and the electric chair were. However, the 2014 botched execution in Oklahoma of Clayton Lockett, who was left to die of a heart attack after the failure of a forty minute attempt to execute

him, should give us pause. The first of the three injections administered is a paralytic which is designed to restrict the muscles as the body convulses since this may be distressing for the ‘audience’. In Lockett’s case this injection failed and witnesses described the agony he was clearly suffering with horror. The lethal injection is not the same as putting someone to sleep and with its efficacy in question, the whole system of execution in the USA is in disarray.

Finally, what of the mistakes?

Had there been the death penalty in the 1980s, there is little doubt that the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six would have been executed. All these men and their associates were wrongly imprisoned and convicted.

It is not much compensation, but at least they could be released and live some of their life in freedom.

The admission of DNA evidence since 1989 in America has revealed an error rate of 0.27% in judicial executions. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia described this as ‘an insignificant minimum’. Former justice John Paul Stevens dissented from this view, saying that there is no such thing as an insignificant or acceptable minimum.

Revenge and horror may be powerful motivating forces for many people but if we allow just one innocent person to be executed then we will lose something fundamental and decent from our society and that is a price not worth paying. There seems little to gain from re-introduction and much to lose. If the British public does gain the opportunity to vote on the death penalty, it is to be hoped that they consider the consequences of their actions.

11

By Charlotte Kail

PEOPLE’S NATURAL MISTRUST OF PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT TO THEM MANIFESTED ITSELF IN ANTI-SEMITISM 12

Since the recent and brutal killings of four members of the Jewish community in Paris at the Hyper Casher supermarket, tensions have been rising about the questionable safety of the Jewish community in Europe. This incident has caused particular alarm because it follows a number of attacks against Jewish people in recent years such as the 2012 Toulouse attack on a Jewish school, in which four people including three children (all of whom were Jewish) were killed by an Islamist extremist.

France›s representative for the Jewish Community has stated, ‹we need action because we are in a situation of war› and ‹we must fight in France against the enemies of Judaism›.

In Britain since July 2013, there has been a 400% rise in anti-Semitic incidents. This has, unsurprisingly, brought about great concern regarding the safety of the Jewish community in Britain and highlights how anti-Semitism is indeed a troubling issue across the whole of Europe. Theresa May MP (Britain’s Home Secretary) has described bitter disappointment in the lack of support for minority groups in the UK, saying, “I never thought I’d see the day when members of the Jewish community in the United Kingdom would say they were fearful of remaining here in the United Kingdom”.

FROM THE UK In the UK, children in Jewish schools are being taught how to survive a terrorist attack. This has unsurprisingly deeply saddened many British citizens because these children have been forced to break away from their deserved childhood to deal with the stark reality of possible anti-Semitic attacks.

Actions such as these, as well as installing more police patrols in Jewish areas such as synagogues and schools, are part of May’s essential aims of ‘redoubling our efforts to wipe out anti-Semitism’, to help ensure Jewish safety. Whilst nearly 75% of French Jews are considering emigration, recent polls have discovered that a strong majority of British Jews have not considered ‘quitting the UK’ in search of security, with 88% stating they were happy to remain in the UK, despite a recent YouGov poll which suggested that as much as 45% of British people hold some kind of anti-Semitic views. They asked controversial questions and received equally difficult answers. From the poll it found that one in four Britons believe that ‘Jews chase money more than other British people’ - 39% of these people identified themselves as UKIP voters. In addition, one in six people were under the impression that ‘Jews thought they were better than other people and had too much power in the media’, as well as one in ten claiming they would be ‘unhappy if a relative married a Jew’. From the results, it appeared the area of Britain with the highest anti-Semitic attitude was the North of England (49% of the statements being agreed to) with Scotland showing the lowest signs of anti-Semitism (40%).

A typical view of a member of the Jewish community living in Britain is that ‘Jewishness is about a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging’ and, from the figures, it appears that despite Theresa May’s comments and concerns, the majority of Jews in Britain do not feel threatened by the recent anti-Semitic attacks in Paris but simply are on alert. A question that may be in the minds of many however is, why throughout history have the Jews been victims of persecution?

One Jewish man explained his thoughts in an interview: ‘the human psyche is such that we like to feel good about ourselves and one way of doing this is by disliking or thinking worse of other people’. It seems that as well as people wanting to identify themselves as being a part of a strong group of people, ‘Jews [used to be] the only other group living amidst local communities…[so] people’s natural mistrust of people who are different to them manifested itself in anti-Semitism’. He also went on to explain that this ingraining of anti-Semitic feeling over such a long period of history, as well as no opposing action being taken, meant it was unfortunately easier to introduce the Holocaust during World War II as many already had this anti-Semitic attitude; ‘it was natural and normal for people to be anti-Semitic’.

The issue of anti-Semitism has expanded across Britain into a more general issue of the immigrant stamp which we put on anyone from overseas. This issue is not helped by the growing media profile of the UKIP party and the frequent media appearances of Nigel Farage. An example of unacceptable attempted comedy was

Farage blaming late appearances for a TV interview due to traffic jams caused by immigrants. This increasing Eurosceptic feeling in Britain is in many ways diluting traditional anti-Semitic views.

However, it is also causing greater concern over the safety of many different racial demographics.

Whilst Farage’s invitations to high-profile television shows such as ‘Have I Got News for You?’ create an opportunity to ridicule the party leader and his controversial policies, they are actually also creating more opportunities for Farage to voice his opinions and perhaps gain the support of voters who are easily influenced.

The solution to all the anti-Semitism and Euroscepticism, according to Eric Pickles MP the Communities Secretary, is ‘education’. Labour leader Ed Miliband’s strategy is more serious with a ‘zero tolerance approach’ to anti-Semitism and for social networking sites to identify the internet trolls who are targeting the 0.4% of the British population who are Jewish. Pickles and May emphasise regularly that ‘without its Jews, Britain would not be Britain’. With migrants contributing £20 billion to the UK economy this year, according to a study from the University College London, it becomes apparent that what Britain needs is increased knowledge amongst the British public of the great benefits that immigrants and different ethnic groups contribute to the UK to reduce anti-Semitic and Eurosceptic attitudes within Britain, since we should be warmly inviting and appreciating members of both the Jewish community and also those from abroad.

13

By Kelly Gibson

14

FROM THE UK

F

racking (short for hydraulic fracturing) is a process used to extract natural gas and small amounts of oil from underground shale rock. Fracking is commonplace in the USA with over two million wells having been ‘fracked’ there, something which investment in the UK could achieve. The UK unarguably has huge potential; estimates of shale gas reserves range from 150 billion m3 to 50 trillion m3 with the largest reserve predicted to have roughly sixteen times more gas than has been produced from the North Sea in the last forty years. Furthermore, Fracking is estimated to bring investments of up to £3.7 billion per year which will be solidified by the economic benefits from decreasing natural gas imports, currently totaled at around $11 billion. With the creation of up to 74,000 jobs and the reduction of energy costs, investment in fracking would also benefit the everyday consumer. In the US, gas prices are a third of those in the UK, who wouldn’t want that here?

However, fracking is not without problems which need to be considered before planned investment. Firstly, a high pressure mix of water, chemicals and sand is used to open cracks in the rock. This mixture includes many carcinogens that are toxic to both humans and wildlife.

Energy companies claim that chemicals make up only around 1% of the liquid and so pose minimal risk.

However, this translates to roughly 80 tonnes of chemicals being used per well which understandably creates serious concerns for UK investment. After the water mix has been used in the well, the company can do with it what they like but it is usually either just left to evaporate or pumped into underground storage. Evaporation leads to the harmful chemicals being left in open air pools which raises concerns about the negative effects on both the environment and human health. On the other hand, if the water is pumped into underground storage, there is a high risk of earthquakes occurring as a result of the increased pressure created. Therefore what happens to the water mix is also a major pressure point for companies that are hoping to invest in fracking within the UK. Moreover, while underground, there is a high chance that the water-chemical mix or even methane (the primary constituent of natural gas) will pollute underground water stores by travelling through cracks in the rock. In the USA, an investigation found that methane contamination in domestic water, as a result of fracking, was widespread in three States. The impressive videos of the flaming domestic taps in the US which are due to the methane contamination have, un-

surprisingly, caused fear in the UK. Who would want their tap water on fire? Energy companies have fought back by claiming that their wells have a thick concrete lining, which means the gas and the chemicals cannot escape from the well and, as a result, the water pollution is very unlikely to occur. However, another recent report from the US has created further concerns about the chemicals involved. The report found that the amount of airborne carcinogens in residential areas near fracking wells were higher than the country’s air pollution limits. This suggests that potential chemical pollution is not just confined to water.

Fracking also requires a large amount of water; a well can use an average of 4.4 million gallons of water which is equivalent to the daily water consumption of eleven thousand US families. Although the UK is not an arid area, this huge demand for water could pose a threat to our already decreasing water supplies.

Finally, a major concern is the chance of earthquakes since the pumping of the water underground for storage can cause them. Furthermore, earthquakes can also occur alongside the initial fracturing of the rock. We have a right to be concerned because in 2011 two earthquakes were caused by operations at Cuadrilla’s well in Lancashire. They were felt as far away as Blackpool and, although no damage was caused, they forced the company to shut down all except for one of their exploration wells.

These issues have created large public opposition in the UK. Opposition groups such as Frack Off have been growing in numbers and supporting protests at various sites across the country. In 2013, in Balcombe in Sussex, police were called in to remove peaceful protestors. The protest however was a success as Cuadrilla cancelled their plans to explore the shale gas potential in the area.

A poll taken by the Balcombe Parish Council showed that 82% of local residents were opposed to the fracking and this reflects the thoughts of the UK populace.

Despite the opposition, exploration licences are being handed out and wells are being drilled at increasing rates across the country which suggests that fracking may be inevitable. The fuel gains from shale gas are likely to be considered far more important in the future as global gas supplies become scarce. Both energy security and money create well-built arguments for energy companies to invest and, if safety precautions are put in place, the widespread pollution of both water and the air could be limited. However, one thing does need to be considered; fracking uses a lot of water which will be a far more important resource in the long run.

WHO WOULD WANT THEIR TAP WATER ON FIRE?

15

LATIN AMERICA’S LEFT

By Marco Perasso

AROUND THE WORLD

A STRONG LEADER EMERGES AS A ‘CHAMPION OF THE POOR’

T

raditionally when we hear about Latin America’s Left we picture Fidel Castro and Che Guevara hand in hand revolutionising the land. However, the present Latin American left-wing leaders are different from Fidel and Che. Latin American politics is something that is important for the world, as shown by the Brazilian general election when the second round took place recently. The victory of the incumbent leftwing candidate, Dilma Rousseff, suggests that there continues to be an ideological shift to the left wing.

There are many reasons for this political shift, which include economic factors as well as an increasing desire for democracy among Latin Americans.

First we must distinguish amongst different leftist ideologies. The first left-wing supporters were inspired by the socialist and communist ideology but this political stance was modernised and reconstructed by the failure and collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, the Latin American Left is now taking its cues from European Socialist Parties that strongly emphasise economic growth and the redistribution of wealth.

Britain can compare this to Tony Blair’s New Labour regime while the South American example would be the president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet. The Bachelet administrations were democratically elected and adhere to strong market-oriented economic policies.

They also believe in social justice as demonstrated by the increase of anti-poverty programs, healthcare and housing. The other leftist ideology is called Latin American Populism. This is probably the more well known leftist strategy because the more radical leaders have taken this approach. The principle of Populism is that a strong leader emerges as a ‘champion of the poor’. The leader is usually authoritarian in style which implies that they are not always interested in protecting and strengthening democratic institutions and making policies, but rather consolidating power for themselves.

They may, however, be good at giving money to the poor and promoting nationalistic sentiment thanks to their control of the sectors which generate the most revenue. Examples of populist leaders include Evo Morales, who has been leader of Bolivia since 2006, and Hugo Chavez, leader of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. Furthermore, Venezuela has the largest oil energy reserve in the world and there is an increasing amount of gas available in Bolivia which illustrates how important the nationalisation of resources in each country can be for that respective country. It is important to consider why there was this incredible shift

in political ideology in the 1990s, which means that the 1980s must have been a truly horrible decade for Latin America. In fact, Enrique Garcia, a Bolivian politician and economist who is now serving as President of Corporación Andina de Fomento (the Development Bank in Latin America), spoke in a lecture I attended and called the 1980s ‘the Lost Decade’ because of the minimal economic and social progress. These economic factors played a pivotal part in the shift to the left, especially because in the early 1980s the debt crisis in Latin America was astounding. Many countries reached a point where their foreign debt exceeded their revenue from taxes and could therefore not pay it back.

Argentina, for example, experienced hyperinflation from 1975 to 1991 and the overall impact was that one (1992) peso was equal to 100,000,000,000 pre1983 pesos. Moreover, in 1989, the rate of inflation was 12,000%. As a whole, the debt crisis had major effects on the economy such as stagnant economic growth, lower incomes, higher unemployment and ludicrous hyperinflation as mentioned before. The real GDP growth rate for the region was only 2.3% between 1980 -1985, but in per capita terms Latin America experienced negative growth of almost 9 percent.

At the beginning of The Lost Decade, only two South American leaders had been democratically elected and these were in Colombia and Venezuela.

Instead, many countries had repressive military dictatorships which during the 1970s criminalised and fought the left-wing parties and supporters. Because of the horrible economic consequences of the 1980s, many people wanted economic and political change.

Therefore, when the people finally had the chance to elect their leader, they almost automatically chose the left-wing candidate. An example of military dictatorship is General Augusto Pinochet who served as Chile’s leader from 1973 to 1990. Under his regime, 3,000 died or went missing and 200,000 Chileans were exiled. Other examples of military dictatorships in South America include Uruguay from 1973 to 1985 (which was overthrown by political parties and a chance of a referendum to remove the dictatorship) and the Guatemalan dictatorship in 1970 (which lasted until 1986 and took place during the Guatemalan Civil War). As a reaction to the prestigious and oppressive regimes, when democracy was finally available to the people, they instantly distanced themselves away from anything which, even in a small way, represented the old system and so they voted for left-wing governments.

17

By Ewan Davidson

F

ollowing the election of Syriza to the Greek Parliament, the whole Eurozone is waiting with bated breath to see how their somewhat fantastical policies will come to pass. A party forged in the fire of the Greek riots was never going to be one to bring stability to an ailing economy and reassure investors and so the possibility of a Greek defection from the Eurozone – dubbed ’Grexit – has become a genuine possibility.

Syriza are a party that came to prominence following the 2008 riots with a name that means ‘a radical coalition of the left’. Their leader and, possibly more importantly, their chief Economics Minister are both former students at Essex University which is regarded by some as a haven for left wing idealists. Their victory has been hailed as the first populist success in Europe in the past decade, which is a claim that perhaps François Hollande would contend but, nevertheless, it is clear that they are serious about their ‘for the people’ attitude. However, it is far easier to ascertain what they stand against than what they stand for, with their anti-austerity rhetoric being a cornerstone of their campaign.

18

Following the downturn of 2008 the Greeks embarked on a policy of austerity. This meant massive spending cuts to reduce a government deficit (all words that will be familiar to anyone who has heard one of George Osborne’s speeches) but in Greece it was on an altogether different scale. The rationale behind it was simple: bring spending down to a sustainable level, pay off outstanding debts and, once the economy is stable, start again. Austerity is essentially a massive reset button for a failing economy. This is all well and good in theory but in practice it often doesn’t work like that and Greece was a petri-dish for everything that could possibly go wrong. As the government cut spending demand, the economy contracted thus reducing its real output. As a result of this, the government had to make further spending cuts to account for the lower level of GDP which led to a negative spiral. This stringent economic policy has resulted in an unemployment rate of 27% and a GDP that has contracted by 25% since 2007; put simply a quarter of Greece’s economy has simply

AROUND THE WORLD

‘A QUARTER OF GREECE’S ECONOMY HAS SIMPLY CEASED TO EXIST’

Could the Grexit Become a Grexodus? ceased to exist. So after nearly a decade of national embarrassment it is hard to judge the Greek people for going to the political poles.

Syriza have vowed to stand against the payback scheme which was introduced by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and are looking for a means which will enable them either to write off or write down the amount they owe. The consequences, should Angela Merkel decide not to oblige, are stark; the Greeks will have no choice but to step out of the Eurozone. This would raise huge issues both inside Greece and across the whole Eurozone. For Greece the process could be intensely painful. All Greek bank accounts would have to be frozen and all Euros converted into a new currency - possibly the Drachma.

However, this currency would have virtually no value on the international market; a country trying to bounce back from a sucker punch will be put on the canvas.

Trust in the Eurozone will also be shot and investors will hasten to move assets into other currencies subsequently devaluing the Euro. This will put further

pressure on the other struggling economies in Europe, most especially the Spanish and Portuguese. A worstcase scenario would see these countries having to forego the Euro, leading to a cull in the Eurozone. In short, the Grexit could cause a Grexodus.

This may seem like a dystopian prediction but, given the popular fervour raised by the passionate arguments of the leaders of Syriza, it is difficult to see how they could temper their objectives. Moreover, the German government has internal political issues that restrict their scope for flexibility. All in all it is easy to see how the war of rhetoric could ratchet up more. So the real question is how will Angela Merkel react? Despite the possible dire picture painted above, my firm opinion is that it is highly unlikely that Greece will be allowed to leave the Eurozone due to the massive risk and the uncertainty of the outcome of their departure. In the meantime, all eyes will be on Athens, Berlin and Brussels to see how they can square the circle of two seemingly intractably opposed approaches to dealing with austerity.

19

BIENVENUE AU PALAIS DE L’ELYSÉE MARINE LE PEN

By Francesca Rowson

20

the country and, as a result, the policies appear very attractive to some of the population. For example, the tragic recent murders of twelve employees of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by jihadists may well have emphasised the risk that religious extremism poses to France (although in reality those individuals do not in any way represent the vast majority of Muslims living peacefully in the country). On top of this, the National Front has recently been revived with a charismatic figurehead and represents an alternative to France’s two main parties. Thus it has attracted so many new supporters because although many do not, perhaps, entirely support its extreme stance, they see it as the best choice given the problems facing the UMP and the Socialist Party.

So it might seem that Marine Le Pen’s chances of victory in 2017 are looking highly promising.

However, it would be wrong to suggest that the National Front is attracting everyone in France. In fact, this is far from the case due to the party’s lingering association with racism.

In its earlier years, led by Marine’s father Jean-Marie, the National Front Party was considered by many to have a racist stance and however hard Marine Le Pen has tried to change this association, it undoubtedly remains in the minds of many voters. This is not helped in the least by Jean-Marie’s frequent and highly-controversial comments (most recently that Ebola could help to solve the problem of the global ‘population explosion’). However, it is not just JeanMarie who holds certain extreme beliefs – Marine herself made the controversial suggestion of bringing back the death penalty (originally banned in 1981) following the Charlie Hebdo shootings. This image of the National Front as an extreme, racist party is certainly alienating many of the French electorate.

Can we predict the outcome of the 2017 elections?

It is nigh-on impossible to imagine what will happen in the next couple of years but, most likely, Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen will be the two candidates who make the second round of voting. Given Hollande’s unpopularity, he could not win another election.

However, another candidate from the Socialist Party could stand a good chance. The only sure thing is that, before the first vote is cast in 2017, all of the parties have a long way to go in convincing the French people that they are the right choice for France.

THE PARTY’S FAR RIGHTWING POLICIES CERTAINLY SEEM TO HAVE CAUGHT THE IMAGINATION OF THE FRENCH POPULATION

21

AROUND THE WORLD

F

rench politics has rarely faced a more uneasy time.

With an estimated approval rating in August 2014 of only 17%, François Hollande is proving to be the most unpopular President of the Republic for many years. On top of this, a gamble with the cabinet reshuffle in the same month has failed to boost Hollande’s popularity. Not to mention Valérie Trierweiler’s highly unflattering book which has revealed details of her affair with him and now threatens to enter cinemas as well as bookshops.

It is not the case that Hollande’s Socialist Party is the only party finding itself in difficulty; the conservative Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) party is also feeling the pressure. Given both the unpopularity of Hollande and the return of former president and leader of the UMP, Nicholas Sarkozy, to politics in September, it might have seemed that the party could see the light at the end of the tunnel for the 2017 elections. However, recent allegations of corruption have damaged France’s trust in the UMP and Jean François Copé, the party’s previous leader, was forced to resign in the summer as a result.

Even Sarkozy himself is under suspicion with respect to a scandal concerning the funding for his 2012 presidential campaign. That said, the convincing majority of 64.5% (ahead of Bruno Le Maire) which Sarkozy gained to be re-elected as leader of the UMP in November following Copé’s resignation would suggest that he still has some popularity at least amongst the party members. Nevertheless, the problems facing both of France’s two main political parties beg the question – are there any other parties which might stand a chance come 2017?

Marine Le Pen’s National Front is a likely contender. The party’s far right-wing policies certainly seem to have caught the imagination of the French population and in September, a poll produced an unprecedented result; it suggested that at that point in time, Le Pen would have beaten Hollande if they had faced each other as the last two candidates standing in the election.

So why are Le Pen and the National Front proving so popular with the French people? It seems to me that the party’s radical policies (such as its tough stance on immigration and religious expression) come at a time when France is experiencing the difficulties that arise from having such a diverse range of cultures in

By Rain Basaran

M

ulticulturalism is undeniably one of the most pressing issues facing the Turkish Republic in the 21st century. Founded on the ruins of a multilingual, multiethnic and multireligious Empire, it is unrealistic to assume that Turkey could follow the trajectory of a modern nation state. The resistance to a nation-state structure has led to polarization within every aspect of Turkish life. However, does this make this country incredibly volatile?

It is important to keep in mind that Turkey’s multicultural structure differs from those of other countries. It does not only consist of different ethnicities and religions, but these are further divided into different branches. Muslims are divided into Sunni, Alevi (a syncretic branch of Islam), Shia; Kurds into those who speak Zazaki and Kurmanji; Turks whose culture is split according to geographic territories. Therefore, when the threat of multiculturalism in Turkey is assessed, it is wrong only to look at the tension between Turks and Kurds or Turks and Armenians, because there lies distrust between Turkish Alevis and Sunnis, or even between different factions of Sunnis.

22

For years, these different communities seemed to live in harmony. Not just in the Turkish Republic, but also in the Ottoman Empire for over 400 years. However, it is clear that these communities are no longer content with being slaves to ’Turkish culture’. There is no point in denying that their cultural heritages have been suppressed over the years. Until 1990, Kurdish was illegal, and even in 2015 Alevi spiritual houses, cemevi, are not recognized as religious temples. Yes, there are advancements such as Kurdish representation in parliament or television channels in 28 minority languages but, nonetheless, when observed more carefully, I think that there may in fact be a correlation between these advancements and government intentions, as incentives are made with the aim of receiving more votes. For example, the Kurdish vote is essential for Erdoğan’s success at the polls, hence why he is currently in peace negotiations with the Kurds.

While the extent of progress is debatable, these peace negotiations and improvements in areas such as education and transport in Kurdish majority cities have created a loyal group of supporters. While the Turkish-

AROUND THE WORLD Kurdish issue is now on the way to resolution, the government makes a habit out of aggravating other communities. Perhaps one of the biggest opposing groups to the Erdoğan regime today is that of the Alevis. Their opposition has less to do with politics and more to do with Erdoğan’s refusal to recognize them as a separate religious society with separate demands as he is a devout Sunni himself. More than that, he has made controversial decisions such as naming the third Bosphorus Bridge ‘Yavuz Sultan Selim’ (a Sultan known for killing many Alevis in the 16th century), or openly making slanderous comments on Alevis in his speeches. The government now has a well-established tendency to expose the differences in communities. By singling out certain groups, not only do these groups feel neglected by the government but also the cultural gaps widen, creating more tension and conflict.

Contradictions in Turkish society are clearly visible, and integration at times seems impossible.

After years of civilians of different ethnic groups

fighting each other, can it really be expected that we live together side by side in peace? Maybe I’m too naïve, but I believe that Turkey can be a fully united country and its multiculturalism only adds to its richness.

The issues facing multiculturalism today do not stem from cultural differences but rather from the conduct of controlling groups (military in the past and government in the present). I think with the Turkish Spring, Turkey has entered a new era, one where society has come together to oppose the flaws of the government. Never did I think that I would see Turks, Armenians, Kurds, Arabs, Alevis, Sunnis, Jews, Christians, gays and many more walk together side by side in Taksim for a single purpose. This proves that we don’t have a problem with each other but that for different reasons we have felt that we have been cheated out of our rights or have been neglected. More importantly, as George Herbert Mead stated, it points out the fact that “society is unity in diversity!”

‘THERE IS NO POINT IN DENYING THAT THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGES HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED OVER THE YEARS’ 23

By William Paxton

22.5 MILLION $52 MILLION 400,000 POUNDS

LITRES OF ILLEGAL ALCOHOL

IN CASH

24

OF MARIJUANA

This national party-and-public farce is nothing on individual candidate corruption with their fanatical obsession towards money outweighing any of the expense and pornography scandals which have rocked the UK. Leader of the third biggest party, Prime Ministerial advisor and former actress Jayaram Jayalalitha was fined 1 billion rupees (£10 million) and given immediate jail time for lifelong embezzlement of funds. This money is on an altogether different scale to the UK, with her embezzled government money spent (over the course of twenty years) on inter alia, her foster son’s 150,000 wedding guests, 10,000 saris and 750 pairs of shoes. The Prime Minister himself is not without dirt having been involved in an anti-Muslim massacre in 2002 and even barred from entering the US due to his criminal record. A lot is said of David Cameron’s prior Oxford toffery but I doubt he would win any election if his past life was stained with racism, bullying and beatings.

In this hyperbolically outrageous system, there is one parallel example that shows an immediate democratic difference. The Indian voting electorate can, in theory, vote in any election, be it referendum or general. However, in direct comparison to the UK, the Scottish Independence Referendum begs the question of why the offer of independence is not on the cards for Kashmir. Kashmir is a territory that has over the years been fought over by both Pakistan and India with tens of thousands of deaths from the two IndiaPakistani Wars (1947 and 1965) and the Kargil War in more recent times. India has not offered Kashmir the option of much needed independence to stop further bloodshed even though smaller regions such as East Timor have received such an offer. This is the equivalent in the UK of a referendum on Cornwall’s independence while Scotland is entirely ignored.

Democracy in the UK has many problems as I have mentioned and when researching the Indian political system I was hopeful that I would find solutions in what is seen as the largest democracy in the world. Unfortunately, Indian ‘democracy’ as such does not exist; its leaders are corrupt, its people are bribed into support and it does not allow referenda even in places where independence would end bloodshed. A lesson we can perhaps learn from India is that money corrupts all and maybe the banning of advertised party broadcasts and the fall of the Rupert Murdoch’s dystopian influence may save the UK from this fate.

25

AROUND THE WORLD

L

ast year saw one of the largest democracies in the world participate in a monumental election that was, for the most part, unreported and ignored in the West. From the 7-14th May, the Indian General Election took place seeing Narendra Modi win the votes and hearts of 814 million people and becoming Prime Minister. In a world where we suffer from a participation crisis, with a disenfranchised youth and a plethora of career politicians who are poles apart from the voting population, the fact that 66.6% of the general public turned out to vote in a country of 1.2 billion is frankly extraordinary. However, behind the scenes, there is a seedy undertone to this superficial democracy.

India’s democratic functions hearken back in many respects to a UK parliamentary system. It has a multiparty system with usually two or three front runners.

The voting system is an exact replica of first-past-thepost with 546 separate constituencies each choosing its own MP. There is virtual universal suffrage (just like the UK) since all free, sane persons are able to vote.

There are pros and cons to each of these individual features and maybe India, like the UK, may need to explore concepts like proportional representation, which favours minor parties. However, there are darker troubles than those found in the UK at work.

Political parties take on an almost American level of corruption. In the 2014 election there were more than four dozen officially recognised parties in India and only three extremist parties are not controlled by dynastic rulers. Then you have the elections themselves. Legally it is acceptable for parties to spend as much as they want with some reports saying that, in total, $850 million was spent on advertising alone.

There are also 3,553 allegations of parties illegally paying newspapers and TV channels to give them positive coverage.

Sadly, there is a correlation between party crime and the voting public’s illicit acts. In the 2014 elections, election officials seized 22.5 million litres of illegal alcohol, $52 million in cash and 400,000 pounds of marijuana, all of which acted as bribes to entice voters. This was especially problematic in the 1980s with Booth Capturing - the process where party loyalists capture a polling booth and vote in place of the legitimate voters. This seemed to be a problem of the past until the 2008 and 2009 elections when, maybe unsurprisingly due to recent levels of corruption, it returned despite the even more severe punishments being put in place in 1989.

CIA TORTURE REPORT: THE ‘UGLY HUMAN RIGHTS HEAD OF THE US’?

By Leyla Gimalieva

26

ACROSS THE POND

O

n 9th December 2014, a day before the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention Against Torture, the US Senate released a report on ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ used by the CIA. In the report, there seems to be a stubborn denial to call a spade a spade or to admit that ‘We’ve tortured some folks’ (as the US president Barack Obama has done already). But was it really torture or did Obama use the wrong word?

The Convention itself defines torture as: ‘Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining information or a confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed...’

The definition goes on but from those few lines we already have the impression that we are reading a summary of the report itself, rather than a convention adopted by the United Nations General Assembly some thirty years ago. It then goes on to say that torture can never be justified, no matter the circumstances, including following a war, terrorist acts or any other form of armed conflict. The Convention very specifically states that torture cannot even be justified as a means to protect public safety or to prevent public emergencies. However, the exact tåext of the Convention matters little to the people who saw the Twin Towers collapse on September 11th with all the horrors of human deaths and sorrow that followed and for many, torture can indeed be justified, as recent polls show: according to the Washington Post, 59% of Americans think torture was justified following the 9/11 attacks.

But did torture really begin in 2001?

The answer is obvious, of course it did not. As noted by the Stop the War Coalition, ‘CIA torture predates 9/11 by decades’. It cites the US use of torture during the Vietnam War, when Vietcong prisoners were thrown off helicopters, exposed to electric shocks and threatened with the death of their children. It appears as if the CIA’s techniques have changed little since then, although throwing people from helicopters (which might not go down well with the American public) has been replaced with waterboarding (stimulated drowning), rectal feeding and sleep deprivation for anything up to 180 hours. Turning to El Salvador, we can note the US support for a government that used death squads to torture any opposition to the regime throughout the 1980s. Venezuela, Chile, Cuba, Iraq, Nicaragua... the list goes on, but the point is clear: the 9/11 attacks were not the beginning and, unfortunately, neither were they the end.

Some argue that there was nothing new in the report; the facts of CIA torture had long been out there. You might not have read about them in the mainstream media but horror stories of prisoners being frozen to death, chained to a wall in a standing position for 17 days or placed in a small confinement box with insects were being published by various groups in order to put an end to torture by provoking a public outcry. However, there was no outcry, no indignation, nothing. Even now, after the report in which the CIA officially admits regularly using the so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to obtain intelligence, the silence is deafening. The petition demanding Guantanamo bay to be closed down is left with 3 signatures, Amnesty International’s demand for an enquiry into the UK’s role remains unanswered. It seems like the public just does not care.

It must be noted that the report itself does not condemn the CIA’s use of torture; that is not the purpose. The main theme that runs throughout the report is that the techniques employed were ineffective or the intelligence obtained was not useful- either the CIA already had it, or it could have been obtained avoiding the brutal methods. The US administration does not condemn the CIA either; although President Obama stated that torture is ‘against our values, he failed to show that it is also against the law and hold all those responsible to account. Instead, he reassured the perpetrators of International Criminal Law that ‘those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice... will not be subject to prosecution.’

The question now is how can the United States, after officially admitting to the use of torture by the state intelligence agency and failing to prosecute those involved, remain a role model to the rest of the world on issues of human rights? How can the US demand accountability from human rights abusers after she has abused the rights of so many? How can she rebut claims such as that her government should ‘clean up its own backyard first’ (as suggested by China’s Xinhua news agency) or even refute Hong Kong’s Ta Kong Pao when it states that the report unveils the ‘ugly human rights head of the US’ and will serve as a blow to her ‘credibility and international image’? These questions will never receive an adequate response before and unless we show our condemnation for the actions of the CIA by prosecuting all those involved, no matter whether they gave orders or acted on them, in accordance with the UN Convention Against Torture.

TORTURE CAN NEVER BE JUSTIFIED, NO MATTER THE CIRCUMSTANCES

27

By Marco Perasso

28

ACROSS THE POND

I

n recent US news, all we hear about is the Keystone XL Pipeline and how great it is (or will be) for America. The idea surfaced in 2005, when TransCanada proposed the multi-national pipeline and, three years later, they applied to the State Department for a construction permit. The original plan was that the pipeline would start in Canada, drop off some of the load at refineries in Illinois and Texas and then finally reach its distribution centre in Oklahoma. The proposal of something this drastic has had a significant impact on the US, especially since they are currently selling a gallon of ’gas’ for two dollars. However, it is clear that the President is facing a conflict between his moral conscience and the thought of rolling around in the prestige of having finally found a source of energy to sustain America.

On one hand, Obama has earned a reputation as the most environmental President in the history of the US which was proven when he fenced off over 1.2 million acres of Arctic Land in Alaska which could have been drilled, but on the other hand, inexpensive petrol and the booming surge of the motor industry are far more likely to bolster his popularity than the small act of preserving the Arctic. Keystone faces its biggest

However, there is not enough support from both the House and the Senate to override a presidential veto since a supermajority of two thirds of both chambers is needed. Obama’s veto threat has already caused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to beg the President to re-consider by focusing on the benefits that the Keystone XL Pipeline will bring to America since of course, like any debate, there are both positive and negative aspects to the project.

One positive consequence of the construction of Keystone is that it is an immense job creation scheme, which according to the State Department would create over 42,000 jobs. In addition the State Department’s review declared that the Pipeline would contribute around 3.4 billion dollars to the US economy.

However, there will be problems that arise from the building of the Keystone XL Pipeline such as the issue of climate change. According to Labour Network for Sustainability, the building of Keystone will increase the earth’s temperature by at least 2.5°C thus reducing the USA’s GDP by 2.5% just in the agricultural sector alone. Furthermore, it is probable that the large oil companies will exploit the lack of jobs in the current economy by offering minimum-wage jobs.

THE PIPELINE WOULD CONTRIBUTE AROUND 3.4 BILLION DOLLARS TO THE U.S. ECONOMY opposition from the environmentalists; according to Friends to the Earth, ‘this pipeline could devastate ecosystems, pollute water sources and jeopardize public health’. Furthermore, the US has recently been in major environmental controversy regarding the idea and principle of fracking (which describes the breaking down of rocks using a hydraulically pressurized liquid made of water, sand, and chemicals) and the Keystone XL Pipeline is currently at the second part of the third stage which means that they are currently constructing the pipeline in order to transport this deadly liquid.

On 29th January, the Senate approved the Keystone XL Pipeline with a vote of 62-36 thus creating an opportunity for Obama to use one of his executive vetoes. This would only be his third veto in six years and that would suggest the bi-partisanship nature of US politics. However, in reality, it is a massive façade.

This particular bill has been under construction for three weeks and includes over forty amendments.

This debate has arguably benefitted American politics because both major parties have been working together in order to deny or allow the passing of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Moreover, this debate has drawn praise for the Senate for ignoring all legislative gridlock, which has stymied legislation for years. It has also allowed the minority to influence the policy making.

The biggest risk to the Democrats is that the construction of KXL could hype the image of Republicanism to new heights, and potentially even lead to an elephant in the White House. However, there are Democrats who agree with the passing of the Keystone XL Pipeline (in particular the 28 in the House of Representatives). So to sum up, Obama has received an ultimatum whereby he can choose to be the President that solves the energy crisis or the one who takes the environmental high ground.

29

MR OBAMA, IT’S TIM

By Liucija Padolskyte

I

n 2009, Barack Obama, a man who’d been President of the United States for two weeks, was nominated and, half a year later, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Some perceived this as ironic and some saw it as very binding or even embarrassing for the President as he had just received an award for peace, something which he was neither entitled nor able to provide, since at that time he was dealing with two wars. So the question is, when T. Jagland, Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, asked Mr. Obama to return his Nobel Peace Prize, would it have been the correct thing for him to do?

When President Obama came into office, he had a very bright vision for the future of America, a future which he held right in his hands. He was keen to make some radical changes but, more than anything, he wanted to refine international peace and heal the wounds left by previous presidents. Therefore, it is accurate to say that this award was given as a means to provide momentum to the President’s actions to progress towards the peace promised to the people of America. Nevertheless, as promising as his claims sounded, they appear to be just a façade that President Obama made people believe in, with the help of his words of persuasion. It has now been six years since Obama has been in charge of the US and, unfortunately, contrary to his promises, the record of his achievements promoting peace has not been that successful: Guantanamo is still open, there is bombing in Libya, Osama bin Laden was killed 30

rather than put on trial, and the massive disrespect shown to Kim Jong-un has established tensions between the US and North Korea.

It cannot be denied that in the beginning of his presidency Obama was ambitious in his disarmament goals, which led to one of his major achievements: the New START treaty, (signed with the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in 2009) which agreed to reduce deployed strategic nuclear weapons by half on both sides. However, disappointingly, his recent decision to spend $84 billion to upgrade nuclear weapons contradicts the concept of a peace prize winner and devalues his previous achievements.

Yet the factor that has to be taken into consideration is that Obama is Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation, meaning that it is his duty to grant the security of the country and it is extremely difficult – potentially impossible – to compromise between war and peace. Therefore, it is not just the ignorance of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s selection process, it is also the fact that they have put a lot of controversy in the nature of the award and inflicted a tough situation upon President Obama.

President Obama has surely done some great things for the sake of America and improved its international image by means such as ending the war in Iraq. He has also been a great inspiration for everyone due to his remarkable efforts to strengthen international diplomacy.

Nevertheless, this is arguably not strong enough to put him in line with other winners of the Nobel

Peace Prize. Here we are talking about some influential individuals, such as Martin Luther King, the man that changed history and became a symbol of inspiration for millions of people seeking equality, or Mother Theresa, for her complete dedication to the poor in Calcutta’s slums; their achievements are in a different league to President Obama’s. On the other hand, there have been some other very controversial award winners and nominees that have been widely criticised. Awarding Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 is now described as the biggest mistake made by the Nobel Prize committee to date, as he was accused of war crimes due to his actions in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. Moreover, the nomination of the Russian president Vladimir Putin received even more criticism and was described as an absolute peak of ludicrousness since Putin received his award for one peaceful achievement, despite 999 misconducts.

These very controversial cases therefore suggest that rather than blaming Obama for his inability to fulfill expectations set by having been given the award, it is the erosion of the Nobel Prize process that is to blame for its inability to nominate the right individuals.

Another explanation for why Obama was awarded the Peace Prize is that he was rewarded not for solid achievement but for creating hope. Simply not being George W. Bush (who was described as the most damaging president of the past hundred years) is what made him a strong candidate

for the Peace Prize. Many people saw Obama as a new opportunity to get US’s foreign policy back on its feet and to an extent he was relatively successful. The final withdrawal of troops from Iraq in December 2011 symbolised one of his greatest achievements ending a war which had lasted for nearly nine years, having had irreversible consequences and leaving permanent scars on the history of the US. Nevertheless, President Obama is not as virtuous as initially thought and at some points his actions seem to be as cruel and destructive as Bush’s. The negative images that sully Obama’s reputation largely relate to the drone attacks in the Middle East; the number of strikes on Pakistan and Yemen since Obama’s inauguration in 2009 is daunting (reaching 28 and 330 respectively) whereas the administration of George W. Bush only conducted 52 strikes in total. During Obama’s presidency, around 3,000 people have died due to drone attacks. So who is the real figure of immorality and does this data reflect a true Peace Prize winner?

Even Obama himself stated, “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honoured by this prize”. And this is in fact true; there is no justification for Obama to receive an award that symbolises global peace and morality when he lacks the true valiance of a worthy recipient. A recipient who is able to inspire humanity instead of deceiving the people of America who had put their faith in him.

31

ACROSS THE POND

ME TO GIVE IT BACK!

A PIECE OF PEACE

By Sarah Slater

32

GOING GLOBAL

A

lfred Nobel was an exceedingly talented Swedish chemist, speaking five languages fluently by the age of seventeen, and went on to invent dynamite amongst a whole host (355) of other patented ideas.

This incredibly intelligent man died very wealthy, to the sum of 31 million SEK (roughly £175 million in today’s money) and from these riches he founded the Nobel Prize. Individuals have been receiving this prize for achievements in chemistry, physics, literature, medicine and work towards greater peace since 1901.

The Noble Peace Prize is a huge accolade which has been awarded 95 times to 128 Nobel Laureates. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received the award three times. The presentation of the award in 1917 marked the ICRC as the only recipient of the peace prize during the years of the First World War but could there really have been applaudable peace in those times of such suffering and global unrest?

The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided in 1944 that the criteria laid out in Nobel’s will was not met and so no-one received the prize, but it was belatedly awarded to the Red Cross for the second time in 1945. In 1963, ICRC and its sister organisation, The League of Red Cross Societies, were presented with the award to mark their 100th anniversary. Part of the speech at the ceremony concluded that “if young women and men are taught in schools that we are all ‘tutti fratelli’ (brothers) and that little deeds of friendships and little words of love should bind the world together, the ideas of Nobel will triumph.”

The International Red Cross held its inaugural Conference in 1867, three years after the humanitarian organisation was founded by the Swiss Dunant and Moynier. Since then the movement has increased exponentially, now counting around 97 million members, volunteers and staff across the globe. The work of Dunant’s NGO is undoubtedly worthy of the three-time recognition when considering the inspirational work carried out during the World Wars for which their first two awards were presented. The ICRC delegate Friedrich Born demonstrated this by his actions in Budapest, saving 15,000 Jewish lives from Hitler’s anti-Semitic regime. Furthermore, their efforts in Afghanistan have saved thousands of lives, with six rehabilitation centres set-up to heal all and any party harmed by the Guerilla warfare that is wreaking havoc

in the country. However, can we consider all winners to be such pioneering and influential powers in creating and maintaining peace?

The award has been criticised as a reactionary congratulation to contemporary efforts and as being overly politicised. The presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize to Carter (President of the USA from 1977-81) in 2002 for ‘decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development’ was widely regarded as an entirely deserved selection. However, it is pretty evident that this award has become a savage political tool, giving those five committee members who decide on the award a huge amount of clout. At the time of the award, G. W. Bush had moved to enter Iraq with or without U.N backing, to the dismay of much of the world.

Mandela (a former winner) said that Carter most definitely deserved the award especially “now when President Bush has taken that belligerent attitude, he has condemned him.” This is a sentiment shared by chairman of the prize committee, Gunnar Berge, who replied when asked if the award was also a message to the Bush administration of the time, that in no uncertain terms, “yes!” - showing how the award is used not just as praise but also harsh condemnation. This sort of controversy, expected in the political field, is again exemplified in no greater way than the public regrets expressed by Committee members in hindsight regarding Mahatma Ghandi’s omission from the Laureates list, having been nominated five times, all without fruition.

With winners varying from Yasser Arafat to Mother Theresa to the European Union it is perhaps not unreasonable to question Nobel’s criteria and how well the Committee have adhered to them in the last century. Can the infamous line, “I have a dream”, spoken out against African-American segregation by recipient Martin Luther King Jr. be considered in the same vain as the understated yet powerful words: “one book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world” as heard from the seventeen year-old Malala Yousafzai? According to the criteria laid out in Nobel’s will, ‘the person who shall have done the most or best work for fraternity between nations’, perhaps not.

THIS AWARD HAS BECOME A SAVAGE POLITICAL TOOL

33

‘IT’S EASIER TO IMAGINE THE END OF THE WORLD THAN TO IMAGINE THE END OF CAPITALISM.’

By Liza Tytarenko

T

he statement comes from Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek and it is usually discredited for its extremism by capitalist thinkers. However, although capitalism is officially defined as an economic system with its elements found in the political system, what role does it have in our everyday life both in philosophical and moral terms, and can it be possible to separate it from the political system?

Capitalism can be described as a metanarrative for its attempt to take into account every aspect of a society, aiming to explain everything that happens in it. However, it no longer describes economic and political systems. Instead, it has become a framework to prescribe human behaviour, a social system. As a result of ‘market triumphalism’, which was successfully established by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, capitalism has been embraced in every social structure and we have shifted from having a market economy to being a market society There is a problem with the fact that market reasoning dominates humanity because it is fundamentally undermined by core human value systems as encapsulated by the concept of axiology, outlined by German philosopher Georg Hegel. In his principal political work Philosophy of Right (1821), Hegel identified three main ‘moments’ of humanity, namely family, civil society and the state, which were interpreted into intrinsic, extrinsic and systemic values respectively. Intrinsic values involve a ‘particular altruism’, where people set aside their own preferences for the good of others whereas extrinsic values are based on the idea of ‘universal egoism’ in which personal preferences are the most important and usually involve monetary values. Systemic values are characterised by ‘universal altruism’; underpinning ethical communities and establishing the idea of national identity. Those values ought to create a rational 34

system, which interprets the whole process of human history into the progress of absolute mind towards selfrealisation. Since the establishment of market reasoning, the rational system has become diminished with capitalism taking over systemic values and transferring intrinsic into extrinsic values and vice versa. As a result, capitalism has replaced the rational system, becoming a state of mind of modern society or ‘capitalist realism’.

Capitalist realism, unlike the common assumption of reality as immovable and solid, is more like a plastic reality. According to Jameson’s essay ‘The Antimonies of the Postmodern’, it ‘can be preceded and remade at its will’. This reality has numerous options but no final decision being made with short-term memory because any event can be quickly and easily recalled. As a result (as Mark Fisher pointed out in his essay ‘Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?’) the era of late capitalism evolved a strategy of accepting senselessness without question and forgetting everything that does not undergo conditions of ontological precarity. The best example of such behaviour was Prime Minister Gordon Brown who tried to recreate his personal identity for a political framework. John Newsinger highlighted this ‘collective memory disorder’ in his article in International Socialism where he stated that ‘whereas, for Blair, the embrace of neoliberalism involved no personal struggle because he had no previous beliefs to dispose of, for Brown it involved a deliberate decision to change sides, damaging his personality’. This example illustrates a new growing phenomenon in the political sphere which is the way in which individuals force themselves to fit the market-dominated political mechanism.

As there are no effective human barriers to prevent capitalism spreading into the political system, it is completely driven by market reasoning and since the market encourages competition and creates better

GOING GLOBAL quality, it now controls public services that traditionally were delivered by the state. This process is called commodification and can be defined as a spread of market practices into non-market spheres. Such practice tends to be carried out by businesses and corporations and be highly supported by the government. For example, in the US the Supreme Court heard the case of Citizens United vs. FEC (2011), stating that corporations have the same human rights as citizens when it comes to freedom of speech. This decision overruled hundreds of years of opposition to viewing corporations as people as confirmed in the 1907 Tillman Act. This shows how the current political systems protect market reasoning by supporting large multinationals. The danger of investing in such measures is that, as opposed to the implied equality in representation of human rights, corporations do not in fact represent the body of people that make them up. Instead, they act upon the interests of an elite group of executives or technocrats in response to their ‘expert knowledge’. Although, political support for multinationals can be seen to be beneficial for the economy as it leads to greater economic efficiency, the downside is the subsequent spread of market practices into spheres where it does not naturally operate.

We see this most dramatically in the establishment of the ‘janitors’ insurance’, which allowed corporations to claim life insurance for their workers, even if some of them quit these job years before their death. For example, Filipe Tillman, who worked briefly in Camelot Music store died from AIDS at the age of 29. Although he never bought life insurance for himself, Camelot Music Company did and received $339, 302 as a death benefit. The moral objection of this practice is the lack of consent of the worker, who is not accounted for in the dealings between the two parties that are deciding upon the value of his life, the company that buys the insurance and the insurance company that sells it.

As we live in the age of finance, markets are based on two main objections, coercion and corruption. The unfairness of coercion is based on the lack of consent, meaning that the decision process itself was not voluntary. The corruption objection is more about the nature of a ‘product’ and refers to buying and selling a product that should not be up for sale. For this to be feasible in the market place, i.e., for it to happen at all, it requires a change in the attitude towards that particular product. This means that the very nature of the product is fundamentally distorted because it persuades people to re-evaluate an intrinsic value as an extrinsic one. As a result, a corrupted good is ‘treated to a lower norm than is appropriate to it.’

Hence, in the example of life insurance, workers are objectified as they are treated as a commodity rather than employees whose work is valued by corporations when they are alive. Moreover, this diminishes the purpose of life insurance by making it a new source of profit for corporations as opposed to its natural proposition, security for an individual’s family.

Although, it is possible to imagine the end of capitalism, it is almost impossible to put it into practice due to the problematic and human clash between reality and the ideal. The increasing humanisation of corporations which denies the economic abstract interests that they represent leads people into a mindset of ‘collective irresponsibility’ where they are invited to ignore the fact that they are co-creators and co-participants of the same system and subsequently distracted from the possibilities for different alternatives or at least their power to make adjustments to the current framework. A logical move towards addressing these issues can ironically be found in honouring the practice of reasoning previously exercised by Socrates by questioning the intrinsic value and productivity in every part of our social framework.

35

SEC T I O N T I T LE

A BRAND NEW

By Carys John

E

mma Watson, Angelina Jolie, Russell Brand; they are just some of the celebrities using their stratospheric profiles to catapult a cause into the spotlight. At first glance, fantastic! Any supporter of democracy wants political issues broadcast and discussed among as many people as possible. However, what does it say about our current society that we rely on actors and television personalities to enthuse current affairs?

Celebrities dabbling in politics is nothing new.

Most famously, Ronald Reagan (described by IMDB as ‘one of the most successful actors in history’) starred in over fifty films before he became the 40th President of the United States. Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger have also both held political positions over the pond while, closer to home, Sebastian Coe, Esther Rantzen and Glenda Jackson have all made names for themselves in UK politics.

But this new wave of politically involved celebrities is something completely different. These stars, instead of seeking out traditional political roles, continue to 36

enjoy the height of success in their respective careers and have absorbed their new pursuits into what they already do. As a result, causes have come to be treated as ad-campaigns with the celebrities acting as spokesmen.

The United Nations have hit upon this trend with their Goodwill Ambassadors including the aforementioned Jolie and Watson as well as other household names such as David Beckham, Nicole Kidman, Jackie Chan and Shakira. It is admirable that these celebrities use their stardom to do good but articles such as Spike TV’s ‘Top 10 Sexiest U.N. Goodwill Ambassadors’ with its tagline, ‘celebrities [who] donate their time to making the world a better place...and look hot doing it’ ,showcase the problem with such a system. This issue was highlighted again in September last year when the Daily Mail chose to focus on how Emma Watson looked ‘smart and sophisticated in a belted white coat dress’ at the launch of the HeForShe Campaign rather than the event itself – the irony of such an article was clearly lost on the editor. Unfortunately, such headlines were not limited to that one news outlet and although

GOING GLOBAL

CAUSES HAVE COME TO BE TREATED AS AD-CAMPAIGNS WITH THE CELEBRITIES ACTING AS SPOKESMEN

W DIRECTION it is the responsibility of the media to report on the important as opposed to the vacuous, perhaps flooding campaigns with so many big names clouds the original issue and indulges such shallow reporting.

Just as the Goodwill Ambassadors can be categorised as ‘celebrity diplomats’, stars such as Russell Brand and George Clooney are part of another subset which one might call ‘celebrity activists’. With his new book, Revolution, Brand wants us to throw the political machine out the window just as we would if our ‘vacuum cleaner went nuts and forced [us] to live in economic slavery’. Although many deem his philosophy laughable and his policy of encouraging people not to vote is certainly questionable, Brand has framed the debate and successfully turned attention to this issue. This was most notably demonstrated by the unprecedented coverage, both in newspapers and on the social media, of his most recent appearance on Question Time. While Clooney has kept a much lower profile in terms of his activism, he is undoubtedly just as passionate as Brand about current affairs.

Last September the actor voiced his support for the protesters in Ukraine and in 2012 he was arrested for his part in a demonstration outside the Sudanese Embassy against South Sudan’s President, Omar alBashir. Leonardo DiCaprio has made waves amongst environmental NGOs with his eponymous Foundation started in 1998 which last year raised $25million from the inaugural gala alone.

Have celebrities made politics cool again? We are in the midst of a participation crisis (only 44% of under 25s voted in the last general election) and with such strong focus on Westminster and its ‘posh boys’ playground’ image, we won’t escape that. It is a comfort that prominent celebrities accept the responsibility that comes with the pedestal and endeavour to do good. Indeed, political awareness, especially amongst young people, has improved as a result. But it is time to find a middle ground which gives a voice to professional CEOs and charity chairpersons. We need to make way for experts because celebrities have a place in politics but it is not at the centre.

37

ANARCHY IS THE PERFECT FORM OF GOVERNMENT

By Ben Cowlard

38

GOING GLOBAL

W

hat is the perfect form of government? Since has the right to control any other. That would have been mankind could reason, this has been the question an entertaining headline: Abraham Lincoln admits to on the lips of every man, woman and child with being an Anarchist, but I digress, with these facts; life even the slightest interest in politics. Is it Socialism? does not exist to be controlled and restricted, no man A form of government where all are equal but society should have the authority to control their fellow man, is shackled by mediocrity. Could it be Fascism? The and Abraham Lincoln was an anarchist! totalitarian rule of a single dictator that leads inevitably Anarchism has received a somewhat dirtied to oppression. Or is it somewhere in the middle? A perception in modern society. With individuals such as concept the Western world have called democracy then Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious claiming to be anarchists, proceeded to ram down the throat of the less developed who can blame the public from viewing anarchism as parts of the globe. How ironic, when democracy is nothing more than an excuse to be loud, obnoxious supposed to be the rule of the people deriving from the and break the rules? Anarchism, as I view it, directly Greek words demos (common people) and kratos (rule). translates into freedom: freedom from oppression, However, there is one form of government that has freedom from restriction, and most of all, freedom from never been tried, and I think it is because we have not ourselves. There is one reason and one reason alone why no previous forms of government evolved far enough as a species to have worked, one common handle it yet, but now, or in the denominator in the failure of every very near future, humanity will be single form of government that able to handle the perfect form of has attempted to be implemented, government, anarchy. and that denominator is humans.

Anarchism, by definition, is Human greed corrupts everything. ‘the belief in the abolition of all Fascism can’t work because government and the organisation greed turns the dictator into an of society on a voluntary, oppressor. Socialism can’t work cooperative basis without because equality is an impossible recourse to force or compulsion.’ concept for those greedy elites Anarchism is often partnered with who are only satisfied when they the slogan ’no gods, no masters’. I have more than everyone else. will steer away from the ‘no gods’ Even our own UK democracy aspect of anarchism because that cannot work because greed has is an issue for another day, and corrupted every single detail. one that is definitely impossible to Look no further than the countless cram into seven hundred words!

PETER KROPOTKIN incidents of lobbying, where The part I will focus more on is wealthy individuals can influence the ‘no masters’ angle. Ever since the dawn of life, when the first living being took a breath, legislation by ’donating‘ money to the party in power or the aim has been survival. Survival and reproduction, ’gifting’ an MP with a luxury holiday. Human greed will the sequence for overcoming adversity and continuing corrupt every form of government that we attempt to to live in order to reproduce and continue the bloodline, govern society with. Therefore there are two solutions, these are basic instincts, universal for all life. Nowhere identify and remove the ’greed’ gene in every human in the instinct rulebook of humanity - or any other on earth (which seems unlikely) or have no government species for that matter - does it say ‘survive, reproduce, at all. Anarchy is the only way we can make sure that and obey’, since humans indeed have not evolved to be the greed that is present in every human being, does not slaves. As much as we hate to admit it, any government rule society. is slavery -it’s just that some are disguised better than Humans exist to be free, not shackled by the others. Dictatorships aren’t disguised very well but twisted illusion that it is OK and fair to be ruled by democracies are masked so well they’ve even got us humans who are no better than ourselves. Total voting for our oppressors! Abraham Lincoln once said: liberation from oppression and greed can only come “No man is good enough to govern another man.” This with absolute anarchy where nobody is oppressed and is the basis of anarchy, the idea that no one individual everyone is free.

WHERE THERE IS AUTHORITY, THERE IS NO FREEDOM

39

By Dana Marat

E

urope’s attempts to avoid being plunged into the whirlpool of excess external influence as a result of globalisation are gaining momentum with the European Commission’s policies directed at monopolies.

The actions are taking more of a desperate stance.

A recent case was the resolution which was voted for on 27th November, which aimed at ‘unbundling search engines from their commercial services’ and, although no names were mentioned, was quite clearly directed at Google. Through a long process of scrutiny dating from 2010, Google was accused of favouring its own products over the competitors’ and, as the antitrust regulation concludes, ‘indexation, evaluation, presentation and ranking by search engines must be unbiased and transparent’. Although the European Commission mentions privacy and industrial policies being abused by the market power of the digital monopolies (Google owns 67% of the global search market and 90% of the market in Europe), it is clear that Europe’s main concern is ensuring prominence for its own digital companies, alongside Google, rather than protecting consumers, which is unnecessary in the light of Google being able to produce services, such as definitions, calculations and detailed map directions given out as a quick reference and save the consumer time. Furthermore, the previous Chief Commissioner Mr Almunia opened a case against Google, suspecting that it used Android to discriminate against competitors, which does not qualify clearly as an abuse with other digital companies using Android for the development of their own products and thus businesses. Hence, the resolution aims primarily at protecting the European companies and attracting more consumers to using European digital products.

An earlier case involves Microsoft Corp in the period between 2004-2007, which began with 40

EUROPEAN Novell complaining to the European Commission for Competition about Microsoft’s deliberate abuse of market power because allegedly the company had applied its own policies which were targeted at reducing the development opportunities of their competitors. One of the abuses mentioned was the licensed obligation of the supplier of Microsoft’s operating systems to provide royalties for every unit of product sold regardless whether it actually contained the Windows operating system. Later, in 1998, Sun Microsystems raised the issue of Microsoft disclosing information on its interface from its competitors.

The decision on the case after a long procedure was that Microsoft had to provide a version of Windows without Windows Media Player, named ‘Windows XP N’ and had to provide information for the competing networking softwares about Windows desktops and servers for full interaction. The following year, after the deadline for the fulfilment of the ruling, Microsoft was not able to present the court with the sufficient evidence of having carried out the judgement. This subsequently led to a number of fines and legal charges, mounting up to a few billion pounds more than the original fine of £381 million since a number of rulings were decided on at various times additional to the original anti-trust decision.

Aside from the constant antitrust policies against the American companies, the European Commission for Competition, under the leadership of Almunia, accused the Russian state-owned natural gas producer of monopolising its dominant position in Eastern Europe due to political changes. Gazprom accounts for 36% of EU’s natural gas, in particular 82% of Poland’s gas, 83% of Hungarian gas and 69% for the Czech Republic, along with the other Eastern European countries, such as Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia and

GOING GLOBAL

N MONOPOLYFOBIA Slovakia. After the attempts to diversify the supply routes away from Ukraine (the main transit point) due to disputes between the two countries in 2011, the antitrust probe directed at Gazprom received much focus. Multiple claims from the governments of the importing countries led to the i vestigation listing the final accusations, which are summarised by Gazprom’s failure to guarantee access to its produce for the distributors, cutting the supply for rival companies and basing the gas prices on the oil prices, hence leading to the undesirably high price for gas throughout Europe.

The company’s officials responded to the accusations, saying that the probe was merely an attempt by the EU to decrease the prices, which have always been based on the difference in the changes of the oil prices, but the problem stemmed from the large increase of oil prices in 2012. The Commission still regarded the case as anticompetitive behaviour, claiming fines would be imposed, comprising 10% of Gazprom’s annual revenue in the EU. There have been numerous other cases such as Intel, which had to pay the largest fine ever issued by the EU for ‘restricting and foreclosing competitors from the market’, or the case of the Hungarian state investments worth £100 million to aid Audi expansion in the country, which endangered the local market shares of Volkswagen and BMW. The actions undertaken by the EU Commission could be justified under an intention to create a market with lower entry barriers in which virtually any business would be able to exploit its resources, achieve economies of scale and contribute to the market. However, the policies could be argued to be rather protectionist of the European

businesses, which are unable to expand and improve their efficiency to gain more market share, hence the EU tries to prevent intervention in their market.

But are monopolies really that harmful? As Peter Thiel explained, monopolies are the driving force of innovation for many reasons. Primarily, this is due to a short life span of monopolies, as was demonstrated by the high popularity of Apple and Samsung leaping behind. Hence, this shows that constant innovation is necessary for the monopolies to retain their position, allowing for technological and other types of progress and methods of increasing efficiency. Due to their certainty, stronger confidence in the future and lack of focus solely on revenue, monopolies are able to plan in advance and allow themselves to engage in activities directed at moral issues, which most of the ‘businesses locked in competition cannot dream of’. Furthermore, he argued that most monopolies, especially the digital ones, cannot be called monopolies by definition, as there is quite a low amount of selling occurring and they mostly dominate a fraction of a market, restricting their market power. Additionally, it is mostly consumers that allow digital monopolies to grow, as they are not locked in on most of the platforms, such as Google, and so consumers are free to switch from one platform to another at any given time.

Thus, the EU is advised to attempt to increase chances and opportunities for the businesses to develop in other ways, apart from restricting monopolies.

Furthermore, as evident from the Google case, the issues of the ‘right to be forgotten’ should be emphasised more and more data protection should be offered to the European consumers.

MONOPOLIES ARE THE DRIVING FORCE OF INNOVATION 41

THE CRISIS OF CRISES

By Dan Webb

AMERICA AND NATO CONTINUE TO DRAW LINES IN THE SAND AND EVENTUALLY RUSSIA WILL CROSS ONE TOO MANY 42

GOING GLOBAL

I

n today’s world we are constantly bombarded by nauseating yellow ticket press screaming the word ‘crisis’ into our head. There seems to be an unfathomable number of ‘crises’, home and abroad, that sap important time and resources. Before I launch into this article I think that it is important to point out that of course there are going to be genuine crises such as the Ebola outbreak and humanitarian disasters such as the abductions by Boko Haram. Yet I find these are somewhat diminished by the sheer number of ‘crises’ there are in the world today. The press coverage of these two examples has nearly ceased since people quite simply have got bored and so we are left with news covering scandals.

In 2014 alone, according to the five largest newspapers in the UK, we encountered over 52 different crises; to sum it up as The Huffington Post put it, ‘the world is spinning into crisis everywhere’. People are being constantly fed different stories such as ‘Israel vs. Hamas’ and ‘Ukraine vs. Russia’. ‘Unaccompanied minors at the Texas border’; ‘Syria in flames, with a militant ‘caliphate’ at the door’; ‘Iran stalling for time on nukes’; ‘A rising China sowing fear throughout the rest of Asia’; the list is endless.

International relations have arguably reached an all time high in terms of complexity, making the work of diplomats nearly impossible. This is primarily down to the huge rise in Non-State Actors (NSAs) - highly ironic when talking about crises to mention the NSA I know.

People are more involved in politics than ever, but less involved in government and running the country. This is because people ‘do’ their politics through terrorist groups, political factions, pressure groups, lobbies and non-profit charities. The rise of social media and in particular the growing popularity of the ‘deep web’ has led to the growth of ignorant political dissatisfaction.

Anyone now can be a keyboard warrior and has the power to do so.

The example set by the great powers in the world is one of recklessness. The world of international relations, or lack of, is deeply troubling at the moment with many countries seeing it as more fruitful to provoke one another in an ultimate game of chicken. This is leading to numerous flashpoint situations each year; most clearly seen with the Ukrainian crisis at present.

The world sits and waits while Russia dares America to make a big bold move. Now I hope that human nature

itself can prevent us from slipping into what could be a huge scale conflict which would be highly unlikely.

However, America and NATO continue to draw lines in the sand and eventually Russia will cross one too many and leave the United States with little in the way of options. This recklessness also leads to a multitude of different opinions being thrown around the political arena which hype up issues that otherwise would die down. For me, the Russian issue is a particularly troubling one. The results of the sanctions put in place on Russia have already had dramatic effects upon the ruble, particularly in countries such as Belarus - ‘a crisis equivalent to that of 1998’ as claimed by The Guardian. Another European recession would all but cripple the European Union which would mean one of the greatest mediators of stability and peace within this continent would have failed.

These harum-scarum tactics played by the press also put off potential investors because the papers present opinion as fact.

This yellow-ticket press on a home front which is due to sensationalism and arguably the radicalisation of the proletariat is also worrying. The growth in tabloid and opinionated press has meant that people have become more entrenched with their views as they are never exposed to new ideas. For example, take your average UKIP voter: ‘below-average income, white and angry’. People like this on social media can sign up to pages such as ‘Ban the Burkha’ and Britain First, whilst reading ‘The Daily Mail’ and ‘The Sun’ and being late to work due to ‘immigration’. The sheer amount of ‘crises’ that these types of newspapers spawn is frankly ridiculous. It is no wonder that so many of the British public are starting to become xenophobes when all they are fed is sensationalism.

Because of all this, the Average Joe in today’s society is only exposed to extremes, simple blackand-white politics. This is creating a simple blackand-white state of arguments and a dumbing down of complex and difficult issues to yes-or-no debates. It is so important that the British public should be exposed to a variety of different views to create a variety of different people otherwise we will sink into the political abyss of one side of our society being overtly liberal and the other being overtly conservative which will create a situation in which bipartisan politics is nigh-on impossible.

THE WORLD IS SPINNING INTO CRISIS EVERYWHERE

43

THE PREVIEW MAGAZINE TEAM 2015 Dan Webb OVERAMBITION: BIGGEST FEAR:

To become a knight (with horse and armour)

Ed Milliband elected Prime Minister

GUILTY PLEASURE: FAVOURITE JOKE:

The Fault In Our Stars

UKIP’s manifesto

Carys John POLITICAL CRUSH:

Jeremy Paxman

TOP OF YOUR BUCKET LIST:

Sky dive on my birthday!

IF YOU COULD LIVE ANYWHERE: FAVOURITE JOKE:

Beach hut in Panama

How do you make Welsh cheese?... Caerphilly

Joe McNeice POLITICAL CRUSH:

Miss Rogers

GUILTY PLEASURE:

The Great British Bake Off

IF YOU COULD LIVE ANYWHERE: FAVOURITE JOKE:

New York Penthouse

Have you heard the story of the bed?

I haven’t made it up yet. *applause*

Sarah Slater POLITICAL CRUSH: BIGGEST FEAR:

Clowns

GUILTY PLEASURE: FAVOURITE JOKE:

44

Reagan (circa 1930s)

All things cheesy

Nigel Farage

William Paxton POLITICAL CRUSH: OVERAMBITION:

Head of Channel 4

GUILTY PLEASURE: WORST FOOD:

Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge

American Chat Shows

Cauliflower

Luca Ingrassia POLITICAL CRUSH: PARTY TRICK:

Tony Blair

An amusing lack of coordination

TOP OF YOUR BUCKET LIST: FAVOURITE JOKE:

A night in a Las Vegas casino

A dyslexic walks into a bra

Ewan Davidson POLITICAL CRUSH: I think this question is the exact reason we have so few women in Parliament OVERAMBITION: ‘Overambitious’ would imply that I could fail at something. This is not the case.

PARTY TRICK:

I can eat a whole cake in thirty seconds

TOP OF YOUR BUCKET LIST:

Watch England win a Rugby World Cup

Special thanks to Rob Salem, Alan Howe, Mark Nightingale and Toby Cooper for their invaluable help.

45

The Preview Team, Caterham School, Harestone Valley Road, Caterham Surrey CR3 6YA Telephone: 01883 343028 Email: enquiries@caterhamschool.co.uk Web: www.caterhamschool.co.uk