XV.IV: Against the Norm

The Observer

XV.IV

Against The Norm

Letter from the Editor

Dear Readers,

Each day, people are bombarded with easily accessible information and a chorus of opinions dictating what to care about and whom to believe. The echo chamber that mainstream media has become can be overwhelming. In Issue XV.IV: Against the Norm, The Observer exposes readers to radical stances and unpopular opinions. Writers were challenged to take up positions on topics contrary to the current narrative presented by mainstream media. In this issue, however, radical does not necessitate ridiculous.

The goal of Against the Norm is for readers to question their own thinking and reconsider their current perspectives. It is unquestionably easier to substantiate arguments supported by popular opinion. However, we often forget that equally valid and logical counterarguments also exist. Against the Norm is meant to challenge what we have accepted, and what we are willing to accept, as the truth.

Ethan Mitchell’s article suggests that shallowness, not socialism, was Venezuela’s downfall.

My article debates remittance dependency in the Philippines, and Sinead O’Hara argues that conservatism is the new counterculture. In a contribution from Jesse Martin, the Observer’s Online Editor-in-Chief, he makes a case for recreational drug legalization. Emma Bouillard looks at the state’s role in exacerbating the racism and marginalization of Romani in Europe, while Harry Fang concludes that the Russian military is not the threat that media portrays them to be. An article from Ryerson University’s Sophie Huang explores the Hong Kong-China separatist movement and why Hong Kong should reconsider independence.

We then have an exciting submission from Melbourne, Australia. Monash University’s Joshua Lim discusses life in the Information Age and the dangers that come with the uncharted territories of cyberspace. Sean Stead-Fecser’s article contends that the vast potential of genetic editing research means that it should not be limited. Two articles constitute our special topic of feminism.

Jacob Ahearn exposes the inadequacy of the #MeToo movement when capturing the experiences of women of colour and other marginalized groups. Angela Feng challenges the effectiveness of gender quotas in improving women’s representation in the workplace.

In our final section, our writers tackle world issues. Alicia Eglin challenges existing definitions of genocide by analyzing the 1980s' HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States. Alec Langlois’ article looks at the Iranian Nuclear Threat and concludes that nuclear proliferation would make the world safer. Finally, Edward Yuan argues that we are pursuing the wrong thing by seeking world peace.

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As with every issue, it is important to note that the views expressed in these articles do not reflect the stance of The Observer or the Queen’s International Affairs Association. In many cases, they may not even reflect the personal opinions of the writers. This year, we hoped to challenge the Observer’s readership to think globally, understand their role in an increasingly chaotic world, and become receptive to new perspectives. It is through this issue that we impart our final message.

It has been an incredible year working with The Observer and I am thankful to both our writers and our readership for contributing to this journey. The American Press Institute states that the purpose of journalism is, “to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments”. I certainly hope that our past four issues were able to achieve this.

For one final time in the 2018-19 year, please enjoy the cover art and design of the talented Art Vijayaratnam and prepare to question your understanding of the world.

Happy Reading!

Sincerely,

Monique Sereneo Editor-in-Chief Applied Economics '19

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Table of Contents 3

Business & Economics

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Swimming in the Shallows: Beneath the Venezuela Crisis

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Ethan Mitchell

Great Expectations, Dismal Reality: Remittances and the Philippine Economy Monique Sereneo

Politics

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The Changing Landscape of Political Culture: Conservatism is the New Counterculture Sinead O’Hara

Drugs: The Least 17 Illicit Bad Policy Jesse Martin

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Roma, Gypsies, Travelers: Eternal Victims of Racism and Populism in Europe Emma Bouillard

Beneath the Parades: A Reality

22 Check for the Russian Military Harry Fang

One Country, Two Systems: Why Hong Kong should reconsider

25 Independence from China

Sophie Huang (Ryerson University)

Science & Technology Offline: A House of Cards,

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Joshua Lim (Monash University)

The Troublesome yet Vast

32 Potential for Genetic Editing Sean Stead-Fecser

Special Topic: Feminism

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A Critical Analysis of the #MeToo Movement

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Angela Feng

Jacob Ahearn

World Issues

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Defining Genocide: The 1980s' HIV/AIDS Epidemic Alicia Eglin

Women’s Representation in the Workplace

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The Case for Iranian Nuclear Weapons: The Paradox of Nuclear Proliferation Alec Langlois

World Peace is Unobtainable and Overrated

48 Edward Yuan

The views expressed by the authors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial board or of the Queen's International Affairs Association.

our team

Print Editorial

Writers

Monique Sereneo Editor-in-Chief

Alec Langlois

Art Vijayaratnam Layout Editor

Angela Feng

Alexander Bernst Assistant Editor Harrison Giovannetti Assistant Editor

Alicia Eglin Edward Yuan Emma Bouillard

Ethan Mitchell

Harry Fang

Mae-Lin DeLange Assistant Editor

Jacob Ahearn

Jacob Ahearn Assistant Editor

Jesse Martin (Editor-in-Chief for The Observer Online)

David Lazzam Assistant Editor

Joshua Lim (Monash University) Sean Stead-Fecser Sinead O'Hara Sophie Huang (Ryerson University)

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Business and Economics

Swimming in the Shallows: Beneath the Venezuela Crisis By: Ethan Mitchell

What wrecked Venezuela? For many people, the answer

comes easily. Socialism, some might say. Or Chavez, or corruption, or populism, or maybe even American interference. When discussing a hugely controversial political issue, blame seems to leap all too quickly to the tongues of spectators, often followed by calls to action.

It is tempting to paper over complicated questions with simple answers. Easy to pin the world’s evils on a moustached face or an ideological boogeyman. Useful to conjure up manichean narratives of good and evil to hurl at your political adversaries.

The situation in Venezuela is only the most recent example of this. In a viciously politicized debate, the

country’s economic crisis has become a battleground of surface-level spin. The President of the United States has been publicly condemning the Maduro government, blaming the country’s ills on the regime’s socialist mission statement, and using it as a political talking point to attack American leftists. Other publications have also used Venezuelan tragedy to attack social democratic and democratic socialist politicians. Some others, such as the Economist, lay the blame mainly on the specific failings of the Bolivarian government, condemning Chavez and Maduro for destroying the country.

As expedient as such cut-and-dried condemnation may be for those pushing political narratives however, it’s not all that useful to anyone who wants to truly understand the situation, or draw any meaningful conclusions from it. To answer the question of what caused Venezuela’s internal collapse, we must look not to surface-level features such as the personal characteristics of the leaders in power or their stated ideological alignment. Although these may very well exert some influence, to truly understand developments in a country, we must look instead to underlying structures.

And when we do, the great fault in the Venezuelan system becomes apparent. It is not socialism, or Chavismo, or the numerous personal flaws of Maduro. It is, in fact, oil.

More specifically, oil dependance. In the 1920s, long before Maduro came to power, and long before Chavez swept into government in his nominally socialist Bolivarian revolution, Venezuela was set off on the slow march to economic destruction.

The country took its first fateful steps in the 1920s, when Venezuela discovered oil. As elites began to reap the profits of the deposits, the economy became more and more geared toward the production and sale of this commodity. It was in the 1950s that Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world, were tied up inexorably with the Venezuelan state. Revenue was concentrated in the

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coffers of state officials, and it seemed a logical progression when the oil industry was nationalized in 1976.

By reaping the huge profits of their oil reserves, Venezuela got rich. It became known as one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations, a success story with a booming economy and a liberal democratic political system. But beneath the success, the Venezuelan economy had been shifting.

The financial yield of oil exports made them the focus of the economy, at the expense of other sectors. The all-consuming growth of the oil industry sucked in the country’s labour and capital, directing workers and resources away from areas such as agriculture and manufacturing and making the entire economy, including government revenue, reliant on the inflow of money from oil sales. The country was developing in such a way that important sectors (like those above) that would have increased the internal health of the economy and driven sustainable growth, were being neglected. Instead, everything came to increasingly rely on whether foreigners wanted to buy Venezuelan oil.

And when we do, the great fault in the Venezuelan system becomes apparent. It is not socialism, or Chavismo, or the numerous personal flaws of Maduro.

It is, in fact, oil.

Despite the attractive numbers, the Venezuelan economy was hanging by a thread. In the 1980s, the Venezuelan people got a taste of what was to come. A slump in world oil prices sent convulsions through the country, with anti-government dissatisfaction culminating in an attempted military coup. The coup, although a failure, launched a new face to the forefront of national politics - that of Hugo Chavez.

After gaining huge amounts of traction through his fiery condemnations of the Venezuelan political elite and American imperialism, Chavez swept to the Presidency in 1999 under a left-wing reformist banner. He introduced a series of social reforms that succeeded in lifting many citizens out of poverty and increasing living standards, and it seemed for a time as if Venezuela was launching itself into a progressive future. But once again, there was trouble beneath the surface.

Despite the successes of Chavez’s social policies, they failed to address the nation’s fatal flaw. In fact, they served to exacerbate it. At the heart of it, the introduction of new social programs heaped an even greater burden on the oil industry. In addition to balancing the country’s economy

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on its shoulders, the state-owned oil company now had to support an enlarged welfare state, and found itself embroiled in political battles with Chavez’s government. Although many peoples’ lives were improved, the economic fault lines that had sent tremors through the country in the ‘80s had only grown deeper.

When the crash finally came, it was catastrophic. From 2014 to 2016, oil prices fell by roughly 70 percent. In a nation where oil sales account for about 98 percent of export revenue and around 50 percent of GDP, this meant total collapse. The thread holding up the country’s economy was cut, and suddenly Venezuela was in freefall.

Government pockets were suddenly empty, and the wells of social spending that Chavez had introduced ran dry. GDP contracted, inflation soared, and the standard of living plummeted.

In a desperate bid to keep control over the crumbling nation, Chavez’s successor Nicolas Maduro tightened the government’s grip on power, turning increasingly to repression. Venezuela had descended into chaos.

When we look below the surface, below the inflammatory rhetoric of Chavez, and the reflexive red-scare mentality emanating from so many corners of the Western establishment, we can truly understand the lessons of Venezuela. Venezuela is not an example of the failures of Socialism. It is not a rebuttal to American progressives, and it is not an argument against those who wish to see economic justice in the world. It is rather, just like the conversation surrounding it, an urgent call for all of us to dig beyond the labels, sound-bites, and personalities, and to start looking seriously at economic structures. It is a cry for ordinary people, not just bankers and government ministers, to understand the absolute centrality of economic structure in shaping politics.

It is only by thinking this way that we can see through the political spin, and truly understand the world around us. It is only by thinking this way that we can make lasting change in the world, and even begin to address the many problems within it. Much like the narratives swirling around them, Chavez’s economic reforms were too shallow. And it is that shallowness, not socialism, that was their downfall.

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Great Expectations, Dismal Reality: Remittances and the Philippine Economy By: Monique Sereneo

In recognition of their great contribution to the economy, “Bagong Bayani” or modern-day heroes, was the title given by the Philippine government to the nearly 11 million Filipinos currently living abroad. This number, constituting 10 percent of the country’s population, includes over 5 million emigrants, 4.2 million temporary migrants (of which 2.3 million are overseas Filipino workers, or OFWs), and around 1.1 million unauthorized migrants.

Immigrant Filipinos don’t necessarily seek recognition and praise for sending money home to relatives, however. Some indication that their money was helpful is generally enough.

Likewise, glory isn’t necessarily what OFWs hope to return to - it’s their families. If lucky, a better country. With the current structure of the Philippine economy dependent on remittances, they get neither. In a country where the government’s empty promises fail to solve record account deficits and a steadily increasing number of OFWs, reunions and financial stability remain nothing more than fantasies.

“Tepid” was how Filipino media outlets described remittance growth in early 2019. Alarming for an economy where remittances account for 10 percent of domestic economic consumption.

When figures eventually rose to show year-on-year growth from $10.43 billion to $10.81 billion in April 2019, it was the evidence that Security Bank Chief Economist Dan Roces needed to confirm their overall health. Remittances have a cyclical nature, he explained, and the steady stream of dollars continue to raise the Philippine peso’s purchasing power and increase household consumption

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– thus contributing to economic growth. The country’s struggling export sector can be ignored for the purpose of his explanation.

This reliance on a source of money that requires exporting human capital is precisely the problem. Much like how superficial glory and praise do little to compensate for recurring cycles of family estrangement and financial strain, pretending that remittances are a healthy indicator of economic growth does little to improve the Philippines’ economy.

In 2018, the Philippines was the fourth largest recipient of remittances at $33.8 billion USD, behind Mexico’s $35.7 billion, China’s $67.4 billion, and India’s $78.6 billion. Although the country is not the largest sender of remittances globally, it is the largest organized sender. With the estimated 2.3 million OFWs currently abroad, many Much like how superficial glory of their contracts were set up and facilitated by the government. While other countries in and praise do little to the world may also rely on remittances as part of their GDP, the Philippines’ deliberate use of compensate for recurring cycles labour as a chief export is concerning. of family estrangement and

Understandably, decades-old habits are difficult to break. This perhaps explains the financial strain, pretending that laissez-faire approach that the Philippine govremittances are a healthy ernment has taken on the topic of remittances. While President Rodrigo Duterte has been indicator of economic growth vocal about his plan to protect the welfare of OFWs through policies and the creation of a does little to improve the Department of Overseas Filipinos, his adminPhilippines’ economy. istration – as with previous Philippine administrations – fail to acknowledge the issue with the country needing to export its labour at all. Ambitious infrastructure projects such as Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” program give the appearance that problems – rampant unemployment, widespread poverty, etc. – are being tackled. The consequences of these supposed solutions are rarely, if ever, addressed.

Heavy spending on these infrastructure projects have simply managed to embroil the country in more debt. A shifted foreign policy resulting in over $24 billion USD in investments, credits, and loans from China have yet to pay off. Instead, tensions increase domestically as relaxed visa restrictions – the Philippines’ part in China’s investment deal – bring an influx of Chinese workers into the country. Apparently, these workers find the pay to be better in the Philippines.

The government continues to encourage Filipinos to seek overseas employment while simultaneously bringing in their own foreign workers. If there is logic in this decision, it perhaps gets lost in the government's misunderstood intentions in allowing Chinese investment. It is widely accepted that infrastructure investment leads to job creation. In most cases, the economy benefits as these jobs improve unemployment and consumption domestically. The Philippines is certainly taking a unique approach.

In the figures that aren’t withheld by the government, Filipinos can find temporary hope: the unemployment rate shows a slight improvement. However, more jobs does not necessitate “good”

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jobs. Informal, temporary or casual, and low-paid jobs attract few skilled workers and do little to target poverty. In any case, Filipinos are still leaving the country.

It is important to note that the country lacks neither the resources nor the talent to improve its situation internally. Yet remittances are still necessary for many households to put towards education, land purchases, savings or investments, and to sustain the economy. As the 13th largest economy in Asia and the 34th largest economy in the world, the Philippines is considered a developing country.

With a Human Development Index score of 0.699, the country ranks 113th on the list.

Rooted in a colonial past, the Philippines has been left vulnerable to corruption, wealth disparity, and elitism. This has manifested in its current mismanagement. Decades of policy distortions have slowed growth in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors while a low-skill, low-productivity services sector emerged dominant. With an increasingly consumerist culture and an inward-looking economy, the country has a weak foundation for sustained growth. If other countries are of any indication, its dependency on remittances only exacerbate the problem.

In Mexico, remittances benefited households for decades, helping to address poverty and social marginalization. However, family fragmentation and the government’s lack of a sustainable migration and development policy have contributed to many social and economic challenges. In Turkey, remittances helped to improve the mechanization of agricultural production. However, they did not contribute to job creation. Instead, employment opportunities were reduced, encouraging more people to seek international opportunities. Such consequences are already evident in the Philippines.

Economic and political constraints are often limiting factors for a country. 10 percent of the country’s GDP cannot be replaced overnight. Furthermore, there is nothing inherently wrong with the government protecting overseas Filipinos through policies and a department dedicated to their welfare. However, perpetuating dependency on the remittances that overseas Filipinos send home is not a sustainable approach.

While there is no instant gratification in long-term solutions, that was never the point. The Philippine government will have to re-evaluate and reset its current strategy. This includes reducing excessive spending habits and learning to make profitable investments that create better opportunities for Filipinos rather than sink the country deeper into debt. The manufacturing and agricultural sectors will need to be revitalized and export market entry strategies developed. Ultimately, the country must aim for a positive current account balance without the need for remittances to fill the gaps.

Concluding that a smooth transition to sustainable economic growth depends primarily on the government can be a terrifying notion. Years of corruption and mismanagement are not easily overcome. However, power and influence are probably helpful when seeking to reform a country.

Changing the current mindset is often the first, and most difficult, step.

“Filipinos always find a way to go somewhere,’’ was a statement shared by Ruben Asuncion, Chief Economist of Union Bank in February 2018. He was addressing concerns that remittance growth would be impacted following the government’s ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Kuwait. The ban was President Duterte’s response to the death of seven Filipino workers. Perhaps a better solution, Mr. Asuncion, would be for Filipinos not to feel obligated to go anywhere at all.

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POLITICS

The Changing Landscape of Political Culture: Conservatism is the New Counterculture By: Sinead O’Hara

In the recent wave of conservatism, there is an overwhelming sentiment that conservatives are the new “minority” in the political sphere. This representation is creating an interesting change in political culture, wherein conservative culture presents itself as a counterculture.

The notion of conservatism as counterculture is quite controversial. Counterculture has typically been a way to break long-held social and cultural norms, not about re-establishing the old ones. The opposing representations of liberals and conservatives in the media has followed many tropes: liberals as morally-superior social justice warriors and conservatives as deeply privileged and fiscally-concerned. What happens when people’s political orientations go starkly against these stereotypes? Conservatism as counterculture is exactly that, and it is changing the cultural political landscape drastically.

Conservatism within a North American context is a political doctrine that tends to follow traditional moral values with a focus on individual liberties and freedoms by the means of limited government intervention. It has an important historical significance, particularly because conservatism is intertwined with Christian values, but also because it is reminiscent of simpler times. This nostalgia fuelled the recent wave of conservatism. Even Donald Trump’s infamous tagline “Make America Great Again” has an entire country’s agenda rooted in re-establishing social and cultural norms from decades ago. While Trump supporters are drawn to past political policy and social norms, they also long for the period of time when their political power was irrefutable.

For conservatives, many feel like the new minority. People are feeling deeply misrepresented and unheard in the political sphere, and also culturally disconnected. In the 21st century, North American culture has been relatively left-leaning. The shift occurred through a series of revolutions which made it seem like rapid change. This process left many feeling alienated and has contributed to them identifying with conservatism as counterculture.

Counterculture is defined as a culture with values and morals that run counter to those of established society. It has had a powerful role in politics for decades, but it has typically been radically left-wing. The most well-known example would be the revolutions of 1968; student demonstrations, the culmination of the civil rights movement, the beginning of the second wave of feminism, and the anti-Vietnam protests are commonly reduced to the hippie movement. This counterculture was essential in these revolutions. It contributed to the dramatic shifts in cultural values and social norms which has affected those landscapes in profound ways. The legacies of the counterculture continued arguably until the Obama administration. However, there came a point where the left-wing ideology

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central to the counterculture became mainstream.

There are startling parallels between the formation of the counterculture of 1968 and the new kinds of conservatism that are emerging. In 1968, the counterculture was in part formed by tensions between the “old left” and the “new left”. The “old lefts” were finding themselves under attack due to opinions on communism and governance. They responded with hostility, leading to the distinction of the “anarchists” in the “new left”. Such differences between the ideologies increased the severity of the divide between them.

This is shockingly similar to the current tensions within the conservative political parties with the rise of populism. There are the “old” conservatives who tend to align with the upper-class, rightwing, in contrast to a group that has been referred to as the “working class hero”. This group identifies with typical conservative values but feels excluded from the polity, and have often suffered economically and socially. This corroborates the serious issue that politics tends to be inaccessible.

Aspects such as the voting process and even the political language exclude large amounts of people. Such problems have united many people under this “new” conservatism.

The iconic counterculture of 1968 followed the transformation of “minority” into a “majority” by uniting people from different backgrounds who experienced multitudes of oppression. These connections allude to conservatism becoming the new counterculture, though many say that it is impossible. The main response is a severe and indignant ‘no’. The main argument being that the historical context of conservatism means it inherently cannot be a counterculture. This is due to its prior cultural dominance, as well as significant [What] would conservatism as relationship with Christianity, which many view counterculture mean in the as the status quo.

People are also wary of validating the “new” political and social sphere? conservatism as counterculture because the idea Would it result in a cultural shift is a strong feature of the alt-right. The alt-right is officially described as a right-wing political that was reminiscent of 1950s – movement whose members reject mainstream poodle skirts sans misogyny? conservative politics and spread extremist beliefs and policies typically centered around white nationalism ideology. A spokesman of the alt-right, Paul Joseph Watson, declared conservatism as the new counterculture, which caused a lot of the concern over this idea.

It is important to stress that the alt-right are not the conservatives being discussed here, and conservative culture does not need to be involved with the alt-right. Nevertheless, the alt-right have created a general fear around conservative culture. This causes many people to be highly defensive against it, especially when associating it with the immense power of a counterculture.

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This raises the question, what would conservatism as counterculture mean in the political and social sphere? Would it result in a cultural shift that was reminiscent of 1950s – poodle skirts sans misogyny? Or, would it be a cultural change through political means?

This could be imminent with the recent increase in political power of right-wing parties. What would the repercussions be in a society so divided by left-right alignment?

There are drastic changes occurring rapidly within political culture which are making political discussions even more intriguing. As much as one can speculate, the key in counterculture movements is the spontaneity.

IlliciT Drugs: The Least Bad Policy By: Jesse Martin

Recreational or Illicit?

Recreational drugs have had a tumultuous history

since the 19th century. Even the hardest of drugs, including cocaine and opium, used to be legal - albeit in less potent forms than today. This was a time before increased government intervention and control over citizens’ lives. In the United States, legality ended in 1914. The Harrison Act was introduced essentially banning drugs like cocaine and heroin, and became more restricted when The Marihuana Tax Act took effect in 1937. Similar measures were taken in Europe near the same time, officially driving recreational drugs into the black market. Recreational drugs were now illicit.

Hardline Attitudes

Beginning in the 1970s, the ‘War on Drugs’ was coined by Richard Nixon marking a clear shift in attitudes towards illicit drugs, which was evident across Europe as well. The theory behind it was that greater deterrence through tougher criminal penalties would result in a drop in drug use as the cost of use would be too great. The ‘War on Drugs’ reached its apex in the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan introduced the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988, cracking down on synthetic drug use, establishing criminal penalties for limited possession, and introducing mandatory minimum sentencing.

Organizations like the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) were also created in this period, which allowed the United States to track down the cartels and every part of the production line in an attempt to reduce production. The largest outcome of the establishment of the DEA was its ability to work with foreign police forces to coordinate drug control enforcement. Since the 1980s this hardline view on drugs has softened with some countries decriminalizing certain drugs, and cannabis becoming legal in a few countries. Yet, general attitudes towards illicit drugs, perhaps with the exception of cannabis in some places, is that they should remain illegal and likely criminalized.

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There is merit to these arguments; despite the blackened name of ‘War on Drugs’, keeping drugs illegal with criminal deterrence should ensure less people are consuming these drugs.

Now, there is considerable evidence to suggest the goal of consumption prevention may not be the most effective. Instead, there have been economic, geopolitical, health-related, and moral arguments for the legalization of all illicit drugs.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

Dating back to the 1960s, Milton Friedman argued for the legalization of drugs through economic principles. These principles illustrate the nonsensical nature of prohibiting drug use. Firstly, the general prohibiting of a product will not eliminate consumption, only shift its place from the free market to the black market. Secondly, by increasing the cost of drug production through deterrence in the form of drug seizures and elimination of easy import methods, different drugs will be created and the number of producers will drop.

Both of these results have been apparent.

As greater enforcement measures were taken in the second half of the 20th century, new drugs like crack, which is considerably cheaper than cocaine, became available. This diversified and increased the market of drugs, creating greater difficulties when preventing drug use. These en-

forcement measures also made it more difficult for small producers to exist as operating costs were too high. Cartels were the only method for drug production to exist, which has resulted in a major disruption to poorer states like Colombia and Afghanistan where much of the illicit drugs are produced.

A Vicious Cycle

Cartels are now so powerful, they are considered non-state actors, committing atrocities and influence states’ foreign policies. With an approximate value of $320 billion USD, the drug trade is a significant part of international politics.

In the Western hemisphere, the United States’ history with its southern neighbours has been largely influenced by issues with drug smuggling and the secondary effects it brings. Some worry of Mexico becoming a ‘Narco-state’. While this is arguably overblown, it nonetheless epitomizes America’s foreign policy towards the country. In Mexico alone, there have been over 200,000 people killed from the ‘War on Drugs’ since 2006. In the Eastern hemisphere, the Taliban has used opium production as a source of revenue, which has contributed to their enduring fight against the United States.

Within the United States, the governments have spent an average of $47 billion per year on the ‘War on Drugs’. In 2017, over 1.6 million people were incarcerated, 1.3 of which were for possession only, with 600,000 of that number for possession of cannabis.

Harm Reduction

Governments are only beginning to see how harm reduction may be a more effective goal than criminalizing drug use. Small steps like clean syringe programs can have a major impact. The

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heroin-assisted treatment program in Switzerland demonstrated that access to syringes can lower HIV incidence among drug users by 80 percent, overdose drops by 50 percent, and general visibility of a drug scene is reduced. The decriminalization of drugs in Portugal has produced numerous positive results: reduced problematic drug use, reduction in overdoses and infectious disease, increased drug treatment rates, and an increased amount of drug seizures. These were accomplished by a combination of decriminalization and shifting funding from enforcement to healthcare.

The Least Bad Policy

Evidently, the legalization of illicit drugs will render a multitude of benefits for all of society.

These benefits should undoubtedly outweigh the costs of legalization.

This article has identified three broad benefits and one underwhelming cost. The economics of legalizing drugs will provide a free market that is not as vulnerable to geopolitical hazards, resource intensive government action, or harm to citizens like the black market is now. This will open the door to resolving decades-old foreign policy enigmas for Western countries. Governments will no longer be spending billions on drug enforcement, but instead will be making a profit from the taxes earned on new free market products. Most importantly, drug users will no longer be perceived as criminals, but as addicts and will be able to use healthcare as a means to becoming rehabilitated. These three facets of improvements empirically compensate for the only cost, which could be increased drug use.

Even this is not clear as to whether it will occur. In Portugal, results have shown that there are small increases in use of drugs. In the Netherlands, cannabis use has shown no signs of increasing, in fact, the statistics show there may be a slight decline. If the principle of increased use with legalization is given for the sake of argument, the results from Portugal that illustrate decreased problematic use of drugs is very telling. Those that will use drugs when decriminalized, will overwhelmingly use them responsibly.

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Political action taken against the largest ethnic minority in Europe is too often inspired by prejudices and racist hate crimes as the anti-Romani state of mind has become banalized. In hard times, they are made scapegoats by opportunist politicians seeking to improve their popularity.

Harsh policies against this population are often justified by a concern for security, while deliberately forcing Romani into situations of insecurity. While held responsible by the state, many are denied some of their most basic rights.

Consisting of a population of 10-12 million in Europe, Romani, also known as Gypsies or Roma, are the largest European minority. Traditionally nomadic, they arrived in Europe nearly a thousand years ago and mostly remained there. However, the stereotypical image of bohemians, musicians, and fortune-tellers traveling in colorful dresses and caravans is far from an accurate portrayal of their lifestyle. They form an incredibly complex community consisting of widely different groups that vary from country to country. Yet, most groups have been involved in ethnic tensions with local populations and considered as an inferior race.

The Roma population has been the subject of forced assimilation, exclusion, and even extermination. In the 1940s, under the Nazi regime, they lived a Holocaust of their own. In Romani, it was called “O Porraimos”, or “The Great Devouring”. Much like the Jewish people, millions died in concentration camps because it was believed that they were of an inferior race. Following O Porraimos however, they received close to no reparations.

Today, the Romani are still often treated as inferiors, targeted by civilians and governments alike. According to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) conducted between 2007 and 2008, one in five Roma experience racist violence. In many cases, there is little change since the 1940s. In 2013, when several caravans parked illegally in the small city of Cholet, France, the situation quickly escalated. Gilles Bourdouleix, the deputy mayor at the time, made the remark: "It's almost as if Hitler didn't kill enough [of them]".

Civic violence against Romani is especially common in countries with increased nationalist sentiment. On several occasions, local communities have conducted a pogrom-like attack on Roma communities. An incident (real or imagined), such as a Roma being accused of having stolen something, usually triggers a manifestation of some kind by locals, who then converge towards the houses of the Roma and inflict damage. In 2012, as reported by Amnesty International, such an occurrence - facilitated by members of the Golden Dawn party, a right-wing extremist party - pushed the whole Roma community out of the town of Etoliko, Greece.

The state is often complicit in targeting Romani people. In Etoliko’s example, the police supervised the start of the protest and did not stop it from reaching the Roma community. In 2006, Michal Habig, the mayor of Ensisheim, France, was condemned for destroying Roma caravans with no By: Emma Bouillard period of notice, after one family filed a complaint. In instances like these,

Roma, Gypsies, Travelers: Eternal Victims of Racism and Populism in Europe

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most Roma families are scared to speak up in fear of retaliation.

It is also often the state who initiates the cycle of discrimination and exclusion. The Roma are disproportionality targeted by expulsions and evictions, actions violating the right of freedom of movement in the EU and in each member state. In Italy, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini announced that he is planning to conduct a census of the foreign Roma inside the country, in order to expel them. In 2010, the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, took similar steps, deporting Romani to Romania and Bulgaria. While the Roma received much collective sympathy, the considerable international backlash Sarkozy faced at the time didn’t deter these action from occuring again.

Government officials only seem to perpetuate the discourse that Romani people are a threat to society. Even the few pro-Roma policies - mostly assimilation policies - tend to backfire and further marginalize the Roma.

While the Council of Europe and several other European institutions have tried to push for the recognition of the Roma minority rights, there has been little success. According to the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), 90 percent of the Roma surveyed have an income below the national poverty threshold. Furthermore, nearly all EU member states are guilty of at least one violation of the Roma's basic human rights. In addition to suffering from deportations, forced evictions, racist attacks, and police brutality, they are often denied social benefits in housing, employment, health care, and education.

In Europe, this exclusion of the Roma – a generalized structural issue, rooted in racist perceptions of this particular ethnic minority – effectively makes them invisible.

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Beneath the Parades: A Reality Check for the Russian Military

By: Harry Fang

It’s the morning of May 9th, 2015 - exact-

ly 70 years after the German Instrument of Surrender was signed, officially ending the Great Patriotic War in a decisive victory for the Soviet Union. As the slow and solemn notes of “The Sacred War” plays, the Victory Banner, a replica of

the flag raised above the Reichstag in 1945, is slowly paraded through the centre of Red Square, beginning one of the largest military parades in Russian history. As the newest main battle tanks, self-propelled artillery pieces, and missiles streamed across the heart of Moscow, the message is a stern warning to those who may defy or threaten Russia. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dark shadow of the “Soviet Steamroller” may be just that - a shadow of its former self.

Even as the Soviet Union is no more, the fear in the West lingers. In 2008, senator and US presidential candidate John McCain still considered Russia to be the greatest geopolitical threat to the United States, and many agreed. Today, the Russian threat continues to be considered as the utmost to NATO and the US; many believe it can sweep across Europe like in 1945. This raises the question of how a state with a lower GDP than Canada, just over 10 percent of the military spending of the US, and a stagnating economy is still considered the greatest threat to the free world. Is it a remnant of the Soviet threat, or something else altogether?

Before discussing Russia, we must dial the clock back to the late 1970s. While an actual ground war has never broken out, the operational theories and warplans made by both sides in the Cold War lends some insight into what was believed to be the likely outcome. The Warsaw Pact used a more sophisticated and modern version of the “Deep Battle” theory - made possible by the significant manpower and material advantages. This theory, first developed in the 1930s, suggests the use of concentrated infantry formations to achieve breakthroughs in the enemy’s defences followed by deep penetration by armored forces to destroy the enemy’s supportive functions (maintenance, supplies, command, etc.). In contrast, NATO at the time employed a doctrine known as “Active Defence”, which recommended a fighting retreat to additional lines of defence while using technologically superior air assets to stop the enemy from reinforcing the front, and counter attacking when an opportunity presents itself.

There are also other factors which made the situation increasingly difficult for NATO: the need to supply and reinforce through the Atlantic, the low national morale after the Vietnam War, and the deployment of new Soviet surface-to-air missiles neutralizing NATO’s air advantage. These factors meant that most Western analysts agreed at the time: Continental Europe to the east of Spain and the Pyrenees was indefensible, and NATO would have to plan a full retreat to the British Isles.

Despite this, what many fail to see is that the Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union. After

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the near-total economic collapse in the post-Soviet years, Russia has only recently begun to recover. The loss of its former Soviet republics meant the economy was highly distorted since the Soviet economy was balanced around the distribution of industries across its constituent republics, and its breakup meant Russia’s economy relied even more heavily on the energy sector. With the collapse of the economy came the military, as the Russian Armed Forces suffered massive budget cuts, from almost $200 billion USD in 1989 to less than $50 billion USD in 1992. The results of the cuts and political turmoil was demonstrated in the First Chechen War, where the federal troops suffered a humiliating defeat against a force magnitudes smaller. While its intervention in Georgia in 2008 was more successful, the casualties suffered against an inferior opponent was still on display. It was only recently, with its operations in Ukraine and Syria, that the Russian military somewhat regained its reputation. So what exactly is still propping up the myth of Russian invincibility? Perhaps it can be explained by the new Russian doctrine of “Hybrid Warfare�.

In a Russian context, hybrid warfare refers to the use of an integrated range of military and nonmilitary means to achieve strategic objectives and ensure favorable outcomes in policy concerns.

This transition was primarily driven by a dramatic shrinking of forces available, and its overwhelming disadvantage in a protracted conflict compared to NATO. Thus, Russian planners recognized that they must economize its use of force and avoid direct intervention if at all possible. Something like the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 would be wholly infeasible for Russia today.

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Today, wherever possible, Russia prefers to avoid using its conventional forces. Skilled soldiers, the backbone of modern conflicts, are a premium for a state which has long relied on conscription as a means to fill its ranks. As seen in Syria and the Donbass, Russia prefers to employ its local paramilitary allies as the bulk of its forces, employing its own military in a more supportive role. On the other side, the nonmilitary portion of its hybrid strategy is responsible for staving off foreign intervention by directing the narrative and popular opinion in its opponent states - much of whom are democracies. By using its disinformation assets, Russia was able to create the narrative that Crimea and the Donbass rebels are freedom fighters rather than Moscow-sponsored groups, thus tilting international opinion away from intervention. Furthermore, by supporting nationalist populism across Europe, it was able to further weaken NATO and collective defence. Lastly, by integrating its nuclear arsenal as its hybrid strategy, it creates a deterrent for intervention, not dissimilar to the popular sentiment of “Why Die for Danzig� in the 1930s.

While it may be difficult to determine the degree to which Russian hybrid warfare will be towards disintegrating NATO and the EU, its effectiveness at limited regional conflicts is undeniable, and the lack of a Western response will likely embolden it to continue. Social media, though an invaluable tool for communication, also opened the floodgates for subversive activities. As the fields of war now reaches beyond the land, sea, and air into cyberspace, it would be worthwhile to consider self-media controls as a means to combat this new style of warfare. Furthermore, it would also be imperative that the mask of the Soviet Union be removed from Russia, and confidence re-instilled in a population who should no longer fear the bear.

It was only recently, with its operations in Ukraine and Syria, that the Russian military somewhat regained its reputation. So what exactly is still propping up the myth of Russian invincibility?

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One Country, Two Systems: Why Hong Kong should reconsider Independence from China By: Sophie Huang (Ryerson University)

For ninety-nine years, the island of Hong Kong was leased to Britain from China after a war fought on the trade of tea and opium. Ninety-nine years later, the Handover of Hong Kong returned the territory’s sovereignty to China. Since then, fears have lingered that these independent powers will be usurped by federal forces and tensions have increasingly called for a separatist movement.

Concerns regarding the loss of independent power was raised by the British prior to the Handover. As a result, a constitutional amendment was created to ensure the city retained some independent executive, legislative, and judicial powers. Their separatist voices were heard during a seventy-seven day protest named the Umbrella Movement in 2014. Hongkongers voiced their dissent on reunification, and argued that different practices and economic advantage granted the territory grounds for autonomy. However, despite the popular call for independence, Hong Kong’s separation from China will not be the solution to their concerns on cultural and economic interests.

Hong Kong is a city that is an anomaly when compared to the rest of China. Linguistically, Hongkongers speak Cantonese rather than the dominant Mandarin spoken in China and culturally, the island has strong remnants of the Western influence that has remained since British rule. Prior to the Handover, it was difficult for Chinese nationals to enter the island - they had to obtain special government permission to receive a visa.

These factors have led to an “us” versus “them” mentality and a sense of pride has been instilled in the identity of the islanders. Since the Handover, a train line has been built to connect Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland and the need for visas has been abolished. Hong Kong residents complain that the influx of Chinese tourists are disruptive, including the fact that the mainlanders speak a different language and their social habits are deemed offensive.

Hongkongers fear that with Chinese incorporation, the end result will be the island losing its distinct identity. However, cultural identity is a concept that evolves over time and constantly adapts to social forces. As China continues its immense economic growth, it will continue to be affected by transnational flows. In the coming years, there will be increased migration to China as its economic dominance will provide opportunities that attract foreign nationals. This predicted inflow of diversity will introduce more minority ethnicities and subcultures to the Chinese cultural landscape, and China will have to continue to adjust itself in order to accommodate these changes.

In twenty years, both Hong Kong and China will likely have vastly different cultural values.

However, not because of strongman politics but rather because the forces of globalization will con-

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tinue to change people’s perceptions of their ideals. Even if Hong Kong could avoid being adopted into mainland China, it would have to safeguard itself from other cultural influences to remain unchanged. Yet with Hong Kong’s biggest industry - international finance - dependent on the ease of transnational flows of knowledge and cultural influences in the new digital age, it must remain open to such flows in order to remain competitive in relation to other financial markets.

When the British government obtained what was once a desolate and rocky island from China, it developed and industrialized the territory, providing prosperity to the majority of the residents

there. In comparison to the Chinese, Hongkongers led a better quality of life and had access to better education, which translated into a larger amount of economic opportunities. During this time, the Chinese people were still recovering under a regime that took a heavy economic toll. Many refugees, named the “freedom swimmers,” fled to Hong Kong to seek part of the abundance.

Today, comparing the Hong Kong economy with China leads to a sobering reality. Hong Kong does not hold the economic sway it used to; it has fallen from a peak of 27 percent of China’s GDP

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in 1993 to less than 3 percent in 2017. The reason for the percentage drop is not because of any stall in economic activity. Hong Kong’s biggest industry has always been international finance and the city continues to be appealing to foreign investment because of its proximity and closeness to Asian economic powerhouses. However, mainland China has more than caught up with Hong Kong’s economy.

Although Hong Kong used to be the dominant gateway into Asian economies, nowadays the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen fulfill that role and attract huge foreign investment.

Part of China’s expansionary strategy to stimulate the nation’s economy included a slew of policies, such as free trade zones. Hong Kong failed to change its economic structure to keep par with the rate of growth in China due to a lack of new growth engines. If Hong Kong leaves China, international finance on the island would not draw the same pull from foreign investors. The loss of a partnership with China would mean that investors would lose their ease of access to the world’s second biggest economy, and it would not be difficult for them to direct their money north to Chinese banking cities.

Separatist sentiment is not unique to Hong Kong. Taiwan has governed independently from China since 1949, but China views the island as its own province. This discrepancy, known as the Cross-Strait relations, has led to interactions between the two countries characterized by limited contact, tension, and instability. As part of its military strategy, China has deployed missiles along the Taiwan Strait and has conducted military drills nearby. Taiwan, in retaliation, has continued to purchase arms from the United States. If China were to cede to Hong Kong’s demands for independence, they would face stronger pressure from Taiwan for independence as well. It would take considerable bargaining power for Hong Kong to peacefully separate from China without immediate repercussions, which the island territory cannot afford with their interdependent economic flows.

Separatist movements invoke a strong sense of nationalism. However, cultural and economic protectionism is not going to help and will only create a deeper divide between the relations of Hong Kong and China. Considering the proximity and subsequent economic reliance on their parent country, it would not be practical for Hong Kong to declare independence without developing new growth drivers. The example of Taiwan shows that truly separating from China would be hard, with repercussions that Hong Kong would not be able to afford.

Overall, protecting unique cultural identities is important. However, despite the popular nationalist sentiment that exists on this basis, the fact of the matter is that while transnational flows will change Hong Kong and China both culturally and economically due to their place in a globalised world, Hong Kong cannot avoid these flows if it wishes to preserve its strong economic status. Therefore, Hong Kong should not separate from China.

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C H NOL O G

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Offline: A House of Cards, Divided

The Oxford Dictionary defines an addiction as a physical and mental dependence on a particular substance. These take many different forms and levels, but the one that affects our society the most is an addiction to information.

Like it or not, the free flowing nature of information and information technology is what underpins the entire modern world. The globe is more interconnected, more By: Joshua Lim (Monash University) intertwined, and more tightly-knit than ever before, made possible by the rules-based international order. These are the times we live in - the greatest period of (relative) peace, progress, and prosperity in human history. This is the Information Age - the age of the internet, GPS, automation, cloud storage, social media, smartphones, blockchain, live streaming, big data, cryptocurrencies, smart bombs, drones, and of course, cyberwarfare (remember this last point - we’ll come back to it later).

And all of this is now at risk.

Recent events have challenged the global institutions that have allowed our interconnected world to be... well, interconnected. The future of structures that held together during the Cold War NATO and the WTO to name two - are now in doubt.

Among the most prominent of these challenges is a recent wave of populism. Populism in itself is not a new phenomenon, and its causes and motivations vary for each iteration. All, however, are generally distrustful of the status quo. And their resurgence has come at a time of great stress for our global order. They are symptoms - not necessarily causes - of changing times.

For example, the American brand of populism on both the left and right has gutted both of the country’s major political parties. The US direction going forward is unclear - a return to the established lines is no longer a given, doubly so as both the Democratic and Republican parties struggle to put themselves back together after the chaos of the 2016 election. In Europe, the Brexit movement and the emergence of right-leaning parties elsewhere in Europe have been held up as evidence of growing populist movements.

The result is that countries are becoming increasingly divided along national lines, rather than united along international ones. Globalisation is being disrupted. Terms such as “tariffs” and “tradewars” are re-entering our vocabularies; economic protectionism of the 1930s-variety seems poised to spread across the world once more, as our interconnected world becomes disconnected.

And so the likelihood of conflict increases with it. Already, leading geopolitical specialists have identified several potential flashpoints where, without the oversight of powerful international

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institutions, local disagreements run the risk of spilling over into outright war. Here are two of them:

The Persian Gulf is lined with oil-producing countries that are divided into competing spheres of influence that disagree with each other, sometimes violently. Hosting as it does a very high fraction of the world’s energy production, any conflict that disrupts the flowing of crude would spell disaster for the countries that rely on them the most. Many of these dependents are located in...

The Asia-Pacific, which is now seeing a growing competition between a rising China and a slowly-rearming Japan - both of whom are looking to court friends and partners elsewhere in the region. A full third of global shipping flows through the South China Sea alone. An armed conflict here would send shockwaves across the global economy, dependent on low-risk (and thus, lower-cost) commerce across multinational supply chains.

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Open conflict between industrialised economies has been largely unheard of for many decades, thanks to the same rules-based international order that enables our comfortable, interconnected livelihoods. However, if this should change, our modern lives too may soon become a thing of the past.

We have seen shades of this in recent times. During the ongoing War in Ukraine, local infrastructure has come under repeated cyberattacks. In 2015, over 200,000 people were left without power due to an organised and well-executed cyberattack on the country’s electrical grid. It was the first of its kind in recorded history. Since then, successive waves of cyberattacks have struck banks, government ministries, power providers, and media organisations across the country.

In other words, these central pillars of modern society were not only casualties, but targets in this new age of warfare.

Then there was the infamous WannaCry attacks, in early 2017. The ransomware gained notoriety not (just) for the damage it caused, but for the scale and speed with which it spread within a short amount of time; within 24 hours, it had crippled over 200,000 computer systems in 150 countries.

Essential government services - such as the medical equipment operated by the United Kingdom’s NHS - were disrupted.

Cyberattacks have added a new and terrifying dimension to warfare. Unlike the case with nuclear and chemical weapons, there is no commonly-binding legislation that regulates the use of cyberwarfare tools. And it is these tools that pose the more immediate threat to our lives, which have become so saturated with information and technology.

Our world is more interconnected and intertwined than ever before. The fast, free flow of data and information has embedded itself so deeply into our daily routines - everything from the phones we use, the news we read, the memes we collect, the classes we take, the cars we drive, even the electricity that keeps our lights on. Information is all around us, bombarding us constantly, pervading everything from hospitals to airliners to major corporations. And it truly has made our lives easier, faster, and more connected.

But it has also made us more dependent. More exposed. More fragile. Cyberspace is not a safe place, and there are any number of scenarios that could bring our digitised, interconnected lives crashing down around us.

Uncharted waters are ahead. The torrents of information that weave together our little blue planet are very much a product of our time, and recent events in the world would suggest that time is now ending.

Hope you’ve got a good antivirus.

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CRISPR, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a bacterial defense system which has formed the basis for modern genetic editing technology. While genetic editing is still in its early stages, it has a very bright future that has the capability to completely alter human evolution as we know it.

CRISPR has the power to eliminate diseases or illnesses within people’s existing genes, such as cancer or Alzheimer’s. There are two types of genetic editing: somatic and germline. Somatic genetic editing only happens in one person so the genome sequencing dies with that one person, effectively editing out the “bad” gene. The more ethically grey section occurs when germline editing is used.

Germline editing is when the genes that are passed onto future generations are changed. We could change the genetic code in embryo. Germline editing is much more dangerous as tampering with genetic codes for future generations could have a disastrous effect if one wrong genetic code that was altered was inaccurate. We would also be able to predict the qualities of certain eggs or sperm and the possibility of whether or not each individual one would have a high IQ, be a certain height, have a certain eye colour, etc. This process has been dubbed “designer babies”.

The merits of genetic editing are still being debated, but it has a bright future. While the exact potential of genetic editing is unknown, it deserves to continue to develop before we limit its seemingly endless capabilities.

The first case of documented CRISPR genetically-edited babies was in November 2018. A Chinese scientist named He Jianku edited two twin girls’ DNA. The Chinese government has conducted an investigation on Jianku, as it is not yet legal to genetically alter children around the globe.

Jianku tried to disable a gene called CCR5 which would make the girls resistant to infection with HIV/ AIDS. The father of the twins has HIV so he wanted to make sure his children didn’t suffer from the disease the same way he did.

There was an outcry in the scientific community after news broke out about Jianku’s actions as CRISPR still is a very new technology with the majority of experiments having been made on mice.

This was the first major experiment that took place on actual human embryos. While some scientists condemn Jianku’s actions saying it was too risky as changing one cell could have numerous side effects that are yet unknown, some scientists approve his behavior claiming that we do need advancements in human trials if we are to bring this technology to the next level and use it to its full potential.

Now that CRISPR technology is more affordable than ever, anyone can purchase their own CRISPR starter kit on the internet. Many people have taken CRISPR into their own hands and have made their own bio-technological experiments.

CRISPR technology has a multitude of different uses beyond altering humans' genetic coding. CRISPR has the potential to enlarge the catalog of designer chemicals, molecules, and materials that biorefineries can produce, including such things as self-healing concrete, fire-resistant, plant-based By: Sean Stead-Fecser

The Troublesome yet Vast Potential for Genetic Editing

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building materials lighter than aluminum, and fully biodegradable plastics. The limits are truly unknown but with more advancement of the biotech, these dreams could one day become a reality.

The practice of eugenics is already a form of genetic editing that has been in place for decades. Eugenics is the science of mating certain individuals with specific desirable traits, aiming to breed out disease and disability from the general population. This practice can be seen in animal breeding - for example, in breeds of dogs trying to keep a certain breed purebred. This can also be seen most recently in humans regarding prenatal testing, which is a form of eugenics.

In Iceland, they are systematically attempting to eradicate Down syndrome by aborting children with a high percentage of risk.

Since 2000, the majority of women in Iceland, reaching close to 100 percent, chose to terminate their pregnancy with those who tested positive with Down syndrome. While the prenatal screening tests are optional, the government mandates that each expectant mother must be informed of the availability of the prenatal screening test, which includes the likelihood of the child having Down syndrome.

Many people with Down syndrome and Down syndrome advocates around the world are condemning Iceland’s actions, claiming a Down syndrome genocide and proving that people with Down syndrome can still live long and happy lives.

This is an example of the moral ethics behind genetic editing.

When do we cross the line in interfering with our genetic code? If scientists could cure certain diseases through genetic editing, would it create a snowball effect and completely eliminate certain people or features? Since this technology is very advanced and would have to account for many genetic variables, being able to genetically alter one’s own baby would be very costly in the future. If it becomes legal, it would only be accessible by the wealthy in society which would give the economically privileged another advantage to life which was originally by chance.

There are many things to consider as this technology moves forward. That being said, I personally do not think we should try to completely restrict this technology as it has numerous advantages and limitless potential that have yet to be found. Perhaps making certain legislation regarding particular aspects of this technology specifically with germline editing, to prevent serious disadvantages with children in the future generations - would be the best way to allow for genetic equality.

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Special Topic: Feminism

A Critical Analysis of the #MeToo Movement By: Jacob Ahearn

Until of late, women often had their experiences pertaining to sexual harassment and assault obscured and misunderstood. An enormous credibility gap, making it difficult for women who had been victimized in this way to have their voices heard, existed due to a lack of hermeneutical resources. In other words, women lacked the tools required to understand and name their experiences, and therefore struggled in enabling others to understand their experiences. However, in 2016, the millions of injustices that had built up over the years spilled over and were manifested in the social movement known as #MeToo. This was a collective movement that women could stand with and use as a tool to have their experiences heard and understood. It finally seemed as if hermeneutical injustices were being rectified. The tools and resources required for women to name their experiences were finally being manifested in two simple words: #MeToo.

The #MeToo movement emerged after sexual assault allegations came forward against Harvey Weinstein and other big name Hollywood stars. Countless women were tired of the abuse and harassment they faced at the hands of strangers, bosses, and partners and decided to mobilize. This collective sentiment that focused on promoting female voices in their fight against sexual abuse and harassment was pervasive. It led to the mobilization of women all across the world and has had great success in not only forcing big names in media and politics to step down from their roles, but has transcended the boundaries of Hollywood and ignited a worldwide feminist conversation.

Overall, the movement has denounced sexual assault and harassment and held perpetrators accountable for their actions. However, despite the success of the #MeToo movement, and despite popular belief that it has been wholly positive, the #MeToo movement has been inadequate. When one digs deeper, the #MeToo movement has ultimately failed to address experiences of discrimination and hermeneutical injustice that are unique to coloured women.

Many scholars, especially Elizabeth Crenshaw, have employed a theory coined intersectionality, which holds that some identity groups are confronted with interlocking forms of oppression. Two such groups include Black women and Indigenous women. When problems of discrimination arise against Black women, Crenshaw argues that the single-axis framework for discrimination focuses on either exclusively sex, or exclusively race, but fails to acknowledge the multilayered forms of oppression that Black women face. Moreover, this dominant discrimination discourse limits inquiry to the more privileged people in each group. This is manifested in historical court cases such as Moore v. Hughes Helicopter. Black women, despite bringing the case forward solely in their interest, were dismissed on the basis that they were unable to represent all women or Black men.

Indigenous women face the same type of intersectional oppression. During European colonization, patriarchy and sexism infiltrated Indigenous communities that had mostly existed as matriar-

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chies prior to European contact. Various sexist government policies implemented in Canada and the United States exacerbated this trend. Today, patriarchal tendencies still exist. Similarly to the case of Black women, the single-axis framework for discrimination treats race and sex as mutually exclusive categories and limits inquiry into discrimination to the more privileged members of each group. This was manifested during the Charlottetown Accord negotiations that occurred in Canada. Indigenous women were expected to align with women’s groups, spearheaded by white women, or Indigenous

groups, dictated and controlled by Indigenous men.

Therefore, as intersectionality theory illustrates, the dominant discrimination discourse is narrow. Its cognisance of intersectional oppression is non-existent, as displayed by it treating sex and race as mutually exclusive. As part of its failure to be aware of such intersectional oppression, it focuses its inquiry of discrimination on whether privileged members of either the Black or Indigenous community, or women, are represented, unable to conceptualize the fact that Black or Indigenous women can be discriminated against in their own right and have interests solely applicable to them.

Therefore, both groups are forced to choose between a white feminism, or an Indigenous or Black liberation movement that is spearheaded by men.

The failure to understand the unique social experiences of Black women has acted to diminish their credibility and such a hermeneutical injustice has left them more vulnerable to victimization. In the United States between 2012 and 2016, Black women were three times more likely to file a sexual

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harassment charge in comparison to white, non-hispanic women. Similarly, Indigenous women in the United States were found to be two and a half times more likely to be raped than white women.

Furthermore, in Canada, eight in ten Indigenous women will be beaten or sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Both racism and sexism are ongoing factors in this victimization, meaning that intersectional oppression plays a large role in perpetuating it.

The #MeToo movement has not done enough in regards to discrimination against coloured women and has therefore failed to address the hermeneutical injustices that these women face. It has not taken intersectionality into account and this is apparent when the nature of the movement is explored. The #MeToo movement is spearheaded by white women who are rich and privileged. Arguments have stated that this can potentially have a negative hermeneutical effect on poor women and that the #MeToo movement, rather than speak for marginalized communities, should speak to them.

However, the fact that the #MeToo movement only became popular with white and rich celebrities, despite being coined many years prior by a Black woman, is in itself problematic. Poor, coloured women have struggled against sexual harassment and assault for years, yet it took rich and white women to create headlines. Therefore, speaking to these women will not be adequate. The coloured women must initiate and represent the fight against systemic and intersectional oppression, and be self-sufficient in obtaining hermeneutical justice pertaining to their distinctive experiences.

The Times Up movement is an example of a #MeToo movement that was created by Hollywood celebrities on behalf of poor, largely minority women that have faced sexual harassment or assault. However, white and rich celebrities advocating on behalf of such minority groups is a topdown approach that fails to truly address the systemic nature of the problem. If anything, it continues to perpetuate the single-axis framework for discrimination. A bottom-up, race intensive approach, that addresses intersectionality and hermeneutical injustices against coloured women, must be taken to ultimately eliminate their victimization and disproportionate levels of sexual harassment and assault. Until then, despite the success that the #MeToo has had and the mainstream belief that the #MeToo movement has been wholly positive, its failure to address the hermeneutical injustices and intersectionality that coloured women face, specifically Black and Indigenous women, demonstrates that the #MeToo movement has fallen short.

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Women’s Representation in the Workplace

Although women have seen many advancements which facilitate their equal participation in society such as universal suffrage, access to education, and professional development, women still lack representation in the professional sphere, particularly By: Angela Fang in business leadership. As of 2018, women’s participation in the labour force is 48.3 percent compared to 75.0 percent of men. Women are also rarely seen in positions of seniority in the corporate sphere. For instance, the 2018 Fortune list only featured 24 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Women occupy less than 24 percent of senior roles globally. Gender quotas have been employed since 2003 in an attempt to deliver gender equality to the workplace. They are put in place temporarily to ensure qualified women are not denied access to management positions because of gender and lifted once equal treatment, interpreted by international courts of human rights, is achieved.

Gender quotas are widely believed to be effective policy practices to resolve gender inequality in business leadership and introduce diverse perspectives into the workplace to enhance performance and innovation. A study examining 1700 companies from 8 different countries found diverse management teams led to 19 percent higher revenue thanks to improved innovation. The support for gender quotas is reflected in the increasing amount of countries implementing such corporate policies. Norway was the first country to introduce formal legislation that enforced a gender quota on top corporate boards in 2003 which required listed companies to reserve at least 40 percent of director seats for women. Since then, an abundance of other European countries such as Belgium, France, Finland, Switzerland, and Italy followed setting quotas at 30 percent to 40 percent with fines or penalties for existing directors should companies fail to oblige.

Although these serve as advantages for women in the corporate sphere, gender quotas may not be the answer to resolving gender inequalities. Gender inequalities do not stem from the process of recruitment or promotions but rather the culture that creates barriers for women in the workforce and perpetuates mindsets that hinder their professional advancement.

First and foremost, gender quotas can potentially undermine meritocracy. Career-driven women want to be valued for their experience and skills rather than being a token employee to fulfill a gender quote. Employing gender as an exclusive qualifier for a position undermines the ability, experiences, and talents women bring to the table. Being hired to fulfill a quota rather than based on merit is offensive and belittles women and their professional aspirations, abilities, and efforts. Additionally, it is a loss for companies or political processes to deny qualified candidates opportunities because of their gender. Such discriminatory practices may foster hostilities between genders and perpetuate the inequalities women face, which further undermines the authority of qualified women in the workplace. Often, gender quotas is tokenism that neither gender needs or appreciates.

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We cannot exclusively rely on increasing the number of women in the workplace to effectively change power relations between the genders.

Norway exemplifies this major downfall of Gender inequalities do not stem gender quotas. Studies from the University of from the process of recruitment Chicago indicate that although Norway saw an increase of women in executive boards, there were or promotions but rather the no lasting changes in the gender wage gap or feculture that creates barriers for male representation in senior positions. The competitive dynamics of majority rules that dominate women in the workforce and the decision making processes on boards continued to undermine and isolate women. Princeton perpetuates mindsets that University political scientist Tali Mendelberg conhinder their professional cluded women are “less likely than men to assert themselves: to speak, to advocate for their views, advancement. and to be recognized by other members as influential.” Women continued to struggle to assert their legitimacy in the workplace. Women who achieved quota positions, despite being fully qualified for them, were degraded as “golden skirts”.

Additionally, reports have also found no improvement to the overall performance of companies because standards must be lowered to find female board candidates to fulfill the gender quota law.

More important than implementing a gender quota is recognizing, understanding, and addressing the heteronormative gender norms that continue to dictate a woman’s involvement in the workforce. Six out of ten women attribute their non-involvement in the workplace to familial duties.

Corporations should focus on implementing policies that support maternity leave, ease re-entry into the workplace for new parents, and understand and accommodate the responsibilities and needs of new parents. However, when it comes to matters such as parental leave, the focus should be expanded from new mothers to include new fathers as well. For instance, Sweden provides a shared accumulative 480 days of parental leave for both parents. Such gender inclusive practices that promote a healthy work-life balance makes Sweden a leader of workplace equality.

Although gender quotas may have sparked a shift in attitudes and practices surrounding gender in the corporate sphere, quotas alone are not the solution to a far more complex problem.

Competence is not founded in one’s gender. Gender inequality cannot be resolved by artificially increasing the number of female members in the workplace. It can be solved with a comprehensive approach that considers all aspects of the heteronormative standards that produce barriers for women founded in gender-based biases.

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World Issues

It is difficult to overstate the effect that the 1980s' HIV and AIDS epidemic had on the gay community. Its fallout is still present in modern society, even if those who lived through it are less visible. It is important to understand the consequences of former US President Ronald Reagan’s administration in its consistent, pervasive, and more importantly, intentional lack of response and outright exacerbation of the crisis. While the HIV/AIDS epidemic is frequently understood as a tragedy of natural causes, its full potential was only reached due to human intervention.

Genocide is not a term one throws around lightly. Yet the actions and policies of the Reagan administration could certainly be understood as an act of extermination based on homophobic and bigoted sentiments, much like a genocide. This article discusses how the HIV/AIDS epidemic can, and should, be understood as a genocide, rather than as a natural occurrence.

Genocide is a complicated term to use. It has significant roots in strict legal definitions but has come to mean much more than its confinements thought up in the Genocide Convention of 1948. In Daniel Feierstein’s “Genocide as Social Practice”, he outlines several approaches to understanding genocide. While most people agree on the prerequisite systematic destruction of a people, there are three areas of contention: the intent of the perpetrator, the nature of which groups can be affected by genocide, and the requirement of actual annihilation from the perpetrator. These issues are mostly in relation to the current legal definition in the 1948 Genocide Convention: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

This definition, while mostly acceptable, is a face value description of the events that constitute genocide. Most academic debate on the topic has focused on similar grounds. Feierstein offers a more comprehensive account of genocide based on social relationships and practices that reflects a different understanding: that of the effect on the victim.

Feierstein identifies two key components to the social practice of genocide. The first is that it destroys social relationships by annihilating a large portion of the population of interest and secondly, uses annihilation to redefine the victim’s social relationships and identity. This definition is far more accurate to the effect of genocide than to the act, and reflects how social groups are transformed by such traumatic events. This reframing of our understanding of genocide fixes a lot of the issues with previous definitions as it was created in response to a very specific set of events and not out of the general history of targeted atrocities. Modern genocides do not always target the protected groups nor do they necessarily aim for total eradication,

Defining Genocide: The 1980s' HIV/AIDS Epidemic By: Alicia Eglin

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but they have always tried to eradicate social relationships and identities. That is their true power over the victims.

Debates about genocide frequently resort to identifying the intent to commit genocide and sometimes acknowledging hatred towards the targeted group. This is what defines the debate around the Holodomor, a genocide committed in the 1930s by the USSR against Ukrainians through a great famine. The famine, caused by land reform and collectivised farming, came in the midst of a wider Stalinist crack down on Ukrainian nationalism and their national identity. This entailed an attack on Ukrainian cultural and religious institutions as well as the intelligentsia. The explicit purpose of the famine was to redefine and sculpt a new identity in the Ukraine, or more accurately, destroy the current identity that was in place. It seems readily apparent that while the Holodomor is contested as a genocide, it is mostly along lines of denying that the event took place or that it was simply a part of a larger pan-USSR famine. However, these accounts fail to weigh the social impact of genocide, in that Russian, Belarusian, and Kazakhstani nationalities weren’t nearly as changed after the fact.

A similarly devastating famine, the Irish Potato Famine, or Great Famine, took place in Ireland nearly a hundred years before the Holodomor and is hotly contested as a genocide. It undeniably changed the social relationships and identities forged by the Irish. Furthermore, the Great Famine is almost entirely a result of British actions and was further exacerbated by their ineffective response.

The famine is not considered a genocide however, since it was not an intentional and hateful act; it was an apathetic response to a tragedy.

The Holodomor and Potato Famine are relevant to this discussion because they exemplify how and why we classify certain events the way we do. Using these two debates as an informal criterion and the definitions as a formal one, we can analyse the HIV/AIDS crisis and asses its place as a genocide. It is no understatement to say that the Reagan administration performed abysmally in their relief efforts, but it would be something else to suggest that this is due to the government’s blatent homophobia and intent to harm the gay community. While it certainly wasn’t stated as overtly as with the Holodomor, the ways in which the government handled the situation reveal their homophobic tendencies. Calling it “the gay disease”, and intentionally falsifying and diminishing its danger, all contributed to an anti-gay narrative that gave rise to the “punishment from God” theory so often spouted by right-wing hate groups. It is easy to see how the Reagan administration intentionally tried to change and redefine what it means to be gay by killing a large portion of the community. Furthermore, it did so intentionally out of hate. It is for these reasons that we should consider the HIV/AIDS epidemic a genocide.

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The Case for Iranian Nuclear Weapons: The Paradox of Nuclear Proliferation By: Alec Langlois

Political commentary about the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially in light of the Iran nuclear deal and America’s withdrawal from the agreement, consistently presupposes a nation constantly seeking to develop and potentially wield nuclear weapons.

Former US President Barack Obama, US President Donald Trump, and major figures seeking to be nominated as the 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate have discussed the plan with this assumption in mind, no matter their party or ideology. Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister of Israel, has claimed that Iranian nuclear weapons would be an existential danger for the world. Such consistent messaging leaves little doubt that Iran is indeed on the path to becoming a nuclear power, and that achieving such a status would significantly disrupt world safety. Further examination, however, reveals that there is no compelling evidence for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has investigated Iran’s nuclear energy program and found no evidence of coordinated attempts at developing nuclear weapons since 2003, and no evidence of any movements toward nuclear weapon development since 2009. Additionally, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa publicly in 2003 against the development of nuclear weapons. Fatwas indicate opinion on Islamic law, meaning that the theocratic leader of Iran has claimed that possession of nuclear weapons would be disallowed in his interpretation of Islam. These facts stand in stark contrast with the public position of the United States - that a nuclear Iran is imminent and must be prevented through harsh sanctioning. Privately, it is certain.

The other assumption implicit in commentary about Iran is that if they were to obtain nuclear weapons, the Middle East and the world would become unsafe. Deeper examination reveals that this assumption is flawed as well. If anything, nuclear weapons are a political and military necessity for the Islamic Republic. Consequently, they should develop them as quickly and secretly as possible.

Deterrence is a crucial reason that any country, especially those opposed by the United States and its proxies, should seek to develop nuclear weapons. Any nation under threat would be wise to note that no country possessing nuclear weapons has been invaded. The example of Libya is very instructive, especially when contrasted with a nation like North Korea. Libya, under Muammar Gaddafi, maintained a substantial array of weapons of mass destruction (although nuclear weapons were not a part of that array) until the early 2000s. Less than a decade later, NATO and the United States undertook a military intervention against Gaddafi’s Libya, deposing his regime. Apologetics for Gaddafi are not necessary to acknowledge that he would likely have retained power if he had the leverage of weapons of mass destruction.

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The Kim regime in North Korea, undoubtedly a more brutal and criminal regime than Gaddafi’s, has stood since its production of nuclear weapons in 2003. The reason that US strategy with North Korea has moved to negotiation rather than warfare and threats is not due to greater approval of Kim over someone like Gaddafi. Rather, it is the deterrent of potential South Korean and American lives lost to a nuclear weapon. Iran would be wise to follow North Korea’s example and develop the capability to threaten defensive total destruction of American forces or of a nearby American ally in the case of a military invasion. Instead of destabilizing the world and the region as is suggested

by Netanyahu, a nuclear Iran would prevent the US from invading yet another nation in the Middle East. Considering the long-lasting impact of previous American interventions, prevention of further military activity is favourable for the world.

The most significant existential threat to Iran is the presence of a belligerent, imperial nation of Israel. This nation has pursued a covert expansionist agenda into Palestine, while developing secret nuclear weapons. While Iranian leaders do claim to desire to see the end of the Israeli state, they have very little means to do so and have not engaged in direct conflict with Israel. In fact, the current Islamic Republic of Iran has never invaded a country or engaged in a non-defensive war, although they have supported allies in certain conflicts. On the other hand, Israel is capable of applying the most total form of destruction to Iran, and has been willing in the past to aggressively invade countries in its vicinity. The nation did so during the Suez Crisis and the Six Day War in which Israel conquered parts of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, some of which it still occupies today. Iran and Israel mutually vocalize threats, but there is a severe imbalance Apologetics for Gaddafi in the power underlying those threats. This is even without considering the implicit threat of American force joining are not necessary to Israel in any military intervention in Iran. If Iran could deacknowledge that he velop nuclear weapons, they would be at much less risk of suffering destruction at the hands of their regional rivals. would likely have

Of course there are real drawbacks to having nuretained power if he had clear weapons and publicly announcing them. Foremost among those drawbacks are sanctions or the possibility of the leverage of weapons of retaliation. Despite the aforementioned lack of a nuclear mass destruction. program at all in Iran, the US is in the midst of a “maximum pressure” sanctions regime on the nation. They would certainly maintain or expand sanctions if nuclear weapons were threatening American hegemony in the Middle East or its main ally in the region, Israel. Before the signing of the Iran nuclear deal, Iranian exports to the US were essentially none, and the country managed to survive economically. China, one of Iran’s allies, is constantly growing as an economic power and augmenting its relationship with the Islamic Republic. This relationship could balance economic losses from additional sanctions - although the current sanctions are quite extensive already. Retaliation through invasion would be extremely difficult due to the geography of

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the region. It is also unlikely that the West would be willing to fight another war in the Middle East, especially against a modern sophisticated military like Iran’s when wars against failed states like Iraq and Afghanistan were already so costly.

If Iran wishes to maintain its place in the Middle East as a bulwark against US imperialism and the actions of its proxies like Saudi Arabia and Israel, it must develop or obtain a nuclear weapon.

The risks of aggressive use by Iran are extremely low, as playing the nuclear card is a waste of its core purpose – deterrence. The Middle East, and indeed the world, would benefit in heightened stability from the deterrent against further American intervention in the region. Paradoxically, nuclear proliferation could make the world safer.

World Peace is Unobtainable and Overrated By: Edward Yuan

On August 5th, 1914, the Times newspaper published some of the most famous words in history: “Britain At War”. Four years later, the Great War, described as “the war to end war”, would officially come to a close. The League of Nations, founded in the aftermath of this horrendous conflict, declared its goal as the prevention of war. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, or Pact of Paris, signed in 1928 and remaining in effect to this day, officially marked the formal renunciation of the use of war in favor of peaceful conflict resolution by 56 states. These institutions however, would not hold.

Time and time again, they were subverted with seldom recourse by other states - from Japan’s takeover of Manchuria, to Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland. Enabled by a generation of leaders who, remembering the recent great conflict, had no stomach for war and acted in ways through which they could to avoid it. One such example was the United States in the 1930s, one of the world’s growing superpowers, beginning a policy of isolationism and non-intervention. Finally, 19 years after the formal end of the Great War, Japan initiated the Marco Polo Bridge incident, beginning the conflict that would later evolve into the Second World War. The unwillingness of world leaders to take up arms once again only played into to the demands of the power-hungry mad men.

This unwillingness has been recurring throughout history. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the bloodiest conflict of the 19th century, the Congress of Vienna established the Concert of Europe.

Created in the hope that should Europe edge towards a conflict as vicious the last, the Great Powers of Europe - Prussia, Russia, Britain, France and Austria - would convene to solve the issue through diplomatic means. As time passed, this rule was upheld; time and time again, member countries arrived to prevent the flames of war from torching the continent.

Though small conflicts continued wage, there was a time of relative peace; nothing close to the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars came to pass. Eventually however, the cracks would begin to show. In 1822, Great Britain withdrew from the Concert, initiating a policy of non-intervention in matters they believed to be none of their concern. Consequently, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire sought to re-establish themselves with the annexation of Bosnia in 1909, they found little opposition.

Yet, when five years later this led to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, war seemed inevitable. This event, mixed with the ineptitude of the new generation of diplomats, saw the breakdown of the Concert of Europe. So peaceful it had been since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, none truly understood the meaning of a modern war between modern nations.

The United Nations is the most recent attempt to achieve world peace through collective security. Created after the Second World War, it was the successor organisation to the League of Nations and the Concert of Europe, made to remedy the failures of its predecessors. Though history shows there is still much to be desired, to quote Harvard professor Steven Pinker, “violence has been

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in decline over long stretches of time, and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence”. The chances of a violent death have greatly decreased from historic trends. Even now, of the ongoing armed conflicts worldwide, only two are between two separate countries according to the Council on Foreign Relations' Global Conflict Tracker.

Civil conflicts, as a rule, tend to be less violent as no faction has complete access to the state’s full resources. Furthermore, one of the only ongoing interstate conflicts, the Kashmir conflict, is currently undergoing a mediated ceasefire. Though considered one of the most dangerous places in the world, it is far from the killing grounds that characterized the traditional battlefields of earlier centuries. To place things in perspective, the deadliest ongoing conflict is the war in Afghanistan, with an estimated two million fatalities since it began in 1978. The Korean War that began just 28 years prior, killed an estimated three to four million people in its three-year run, the majority of whom were civilians.

The general trend has been one to two major wars every century, each one revolutionizing the

political landscape, introducing new rules and new players, and removing old ones. The Thirty Years’ War of the 17th century ended in the Peace of Westphalia. The Seven Years’ War of the 18th century, considered World War Zero, led to a global reshuffling of power that created the British hegemony.

The Napoleonic Wars of the 19th century resulted in the Concert of Europe and almost 100 years of relative peace and stability. The First and Second World Wars of the 20th century marked the end of the old Empires of Europe and established the modern era. Without a comparable conflict in the 21st century, progress seems tangible - but why is this?

The first possible answer is that globalisation has made economic goals better achieved though purchases on the global market than by conquest, making trade preferable. The next is the

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establishment of international institutions such as the United Nations that have provided means of resolving and mediating inter and intranational conflicts, while maintaining the ability to enforce its orders. Perhaps most importantly, is democratisation.

The significance of democratisation lies in the shift in what historically has been the aim of foreign policy prior to the Second World War. While in the pre-modern era, foreign policy was used as a tool by autocrats to further their own interests, the spread of democracy has come to play a significant role in modern policy making. Leading up to the First World War, world leaders were all too cavalier at the prospect of a war between the great powers in the name of achieving their various goals. Yet, it was their unwillingness to defend the hard-fought for peace that opened the door for the atrocities committed during the Second World War. However, in the post-World War II era, goals of peace and limited self-interest took a back seat to ideological principles of liberty and freedom.

It is this pursuit of abstract ideas and the willingness to defend them that has created this current era of peace and stability. The goal then, should not be world peace.

If that were truly the goal, surrender is the fastest way to achieve peace.

Instead, the goal should be the preservation of liberty and freedom.

With the rise of challenges to these ideals, it becomes more imperative than ever to keep strong in the face of these oppositions.

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675,000 # of people who have died in the United States as of 2016 since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic 70 % - amount that oil prices fell between 2014 and 2016 in Venezuela

2003 - Year that Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons 3 Times more likely for Black women to file a sexual harassment charge vs. white, non-hispanic women in the United States (between 2012 and 2016) 100% termination rate virtually reached in the pregnancies of Icelandic women whose fetuses test positive for Down syndrome 2,000,000 - # of estimated fatalities since 1978 in the ongoing War in Afghanistan 47,000,000,000 - $ spent by the US government each year on the ‘War on Drugs’ 10% of the United States’ military budget equivalently spent by the Russian military 200,000 - # of computer systems crippled within 24 hours by the 2017 WannaCry attacks 77 Days of protest in the 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong 48.3% female participation in the labour force as of 2018 10-12 Million Romani estimated to live in Europe