826

PartB SPECIAL EDITION: A CELEBRATION OF FEMALE CREATIVITY

Beaver Issue 826 | 03.02.15

the

newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union

‘Glorification of Terrorism’ Sparks Student Complaints Jon Allsop Executive Editor A COMPLAINT HAS BEEN lodged to the Students’ Union against remarks made by external speakers at a joint event hosted by LSESU Feminist Society and LSESU Palestine Society on Tuesday night.

At Thursday’s UGM, General Secretary Nona Buckley-Irvine confirmed that a complaint had been lodged to the SU over the remarks, and that an investigation would shortly follow.

It has been alleged that one speaker at the event ‘Gender and Resistance in Occupied Palestine’ made remarks “glorifying” violence against Israeli soldiers. A report of the event which is being widely circulated on social media claims that the speaker praised specific acts of violence perpetrated by females against the state of Israel, such as a suicide bombing against an Israeli convoy in Southern Lebanon which killed two Israeli soldiers and injured ‘10-12 more’, as “amazing”, “admirable” and worthy of a “standing ovation”.

The speaker, a writer for ‘The Electronic Intifada’, had previously tweeted at the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “@Netanyahu Chutzpah backfires. Learn the Paris lessons ;)” on January 14th 2015, a week after the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo had been attacked by Islamist gunmen.

A further tweet posted since Tuesday’s event, in response to the Israeli Defence Forces spokesperson Peter Lerner confirming the ‘sad news’ of the death of two Israeli soldiers in Hezbollah’s attack on the border with Lebanon, replied “sad for you :-)”.

Video footage attached to the article, meanwhile, shows a different speaker claiming that “rape for Israelis was almost a site of war against Palestinian women”.

The LSESU Israel Society criticised comments, telling The Beaver that “we aare horrified and deeply offended by... the incitement of hatred and glorification of terrorism by the speakers at this event. Advocating the slaughter of Israelis is a direct form of racism and must be dealt with by the university and the Students’ Union.”

The LSESU Feminist Society “apologised unequivocally” and expressed that it was “truly regretful we have caused offence”. The LSESU Palestine Society insisted that it “does not intend to offend anyone on campus”, but also argued that “the complaints regarding the event were in response to a provocative external report which did not accurately depict the message the speaker attempted to portray.”

In an open letter to The Beaver, LSESU Anti-Racism Officer Esther Gross said that “The simple fact that someone was able to stand in front of an assembly of students and declare that it is legitimate to kill someone because of their nationality baffled me.”

On Friday night, LSESU Black and Minority Students Officer Samiha Begum responded to Gross’ letter, arguing that “there is a problem with white privilege extending to having a white woman hold the post to undermine anti-racism struggles on campus, and launching a shamelessly racist attack trying to silence four women of colour speaking about their struggles and resistance”, and calling for a public apology.

Full statements, News Analysis and more, pages 10-11

LSE to Begin Rent Guarantor Scheme After Long Campaign Kanan Parida Deputy News Editor

Sport: Top Catt- LSEAU Women’s Rugby player Rochelle Silva poses with Men’s Rugby World Cup winner Mike Catt. Women’s Rugby won a training session with England on Friday. More p31

Comment The City

Tom Maksymiw on Voter Registration We are employable!

Page 12 Page 32

ON THURSDAY 29TH JANUARY, the LSESU-proposed Rent Guarantor Scheme was finally put to vote in the Finance Committee and passed unilaterally. A huge step for the LSESU, General Secretary Nona Buckley-Irvine says, “It’s important because there is a significant number of students who have real difficulty renting without one, or have to pay six months rent in advance which places them at substantial financial disadvantage”.

Many lease agreements for students require a Rent Guarantor, or a parent/guardian living in the UK who will take responsibility to pay rent in the event that the tenant fails to do so. With the LSE as rent guarantor for students, it is enormously beneficial to international students for whom it may prove difficult to find a guarantor in the UK. Moreover, the rent guarantor scheme means that LSE will be able to sign the tenancy agreement on behalf of students so that they may not have to pay so many months in advance.

With applications opening later this term, students can make full use of the scheme by next year. Now that the Rent Guarantor scheme has passed, however, the issue becomes its implementation. Though this scheme is an enormous step for students and could be potentially tremendously beneficial, it is of little use unless it is executed effectively. When asked about the future plans of the LSESU regarding this scheme, General Secretary BuckleyIrvine stated, “I am absolutely elated that it has been passed but the most important thing for me now is moving on to working with the School on its implementation”.

With the LSE sabbatical officers working on not just the passing of the scheme but also its implementation, the rent guarantor scheme should be in place and effective as scheduled.

Hence, students will be able to reap the benefits of this scheme by the next academic year, making the scramble for private accommodation considerably less difficult.

Room 2.02, Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, LSE Students’ Union London WC2A 2AE

Beaver

the

the

Beaver

Executive Editor Jon Allsop

editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Managing Editor Alexander Fyfe

Tuesday February 3, 2015

Established in 1949 Issue No. 826- Tuesday 3 February 2015 - tinyurl.com/beaver826 Telephone: 0207 955 6705 Email: editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk Website: www.beaveronline.co.uk Twitter: @beaveronline

managing@thebeaveronline.co.uk

News Editor Megan Crockett Mahatir Pasha

news@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Comment Editors Ellen Wilkie

comment@thebeaveronline.co.uk

PartB Editors Jade Jackman Vikki Hui

partb@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The City Editor Mike Morissette

city@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Features Editors Liam Hill George Harrison

features@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The Nab Editor

nab@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Sport Editor Robin Park

sports@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Photo Editor Helen Hasse

editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Design Editor Liam Hill

design@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Online Editor Leen Aghabi

web@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Collective Chair Dorothy Wong

collective@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The Collective:

A Badwe, A Doherty, A Fraser, A Fyfe, A Howells, A Laird, A Leung, A Lulache, A Moro, A Qazilbash, A Santhanham, A Tanwa, A Thomson, B Phillips, C Azizuddin, C Holden, C Hulm, C Loughran, C Morgan, C Naschert, C Hu, D Hung, D Lai, D Sippel, D Tighe, D Wong, E Arnold, E Wilkie, G Cafiero, G Greenwood, G Harrison, G Kist, G Linford-Grayson, G Manners-Armstrong, G Rosser, G Saudelli, H Brentnall, H Prabu, H Toms, I Mosselmans, I Plunkett, J Allsop, J Cusack, J Evans, J Foster, J Grabiner, J Heeks, J Jackman, J Momodu, J Ruther, J Wacket, K Budd, K Kalaichelvan, K Owusu, K Parida, K Quinn, L Hill, L Kang, L Kendall, L Erich, L Mai, L Montebello, L Schofield, L van der Linden, L Weigold, M Akram, M Banerjee-Palmer, M Brien, M Crockett, M Domenech Ensenat, M Gallo, M Jaganmohan, M Johnson, M Malik, M Morissette, M Neergheen, M Pasha, M Pearson, M Pennill, M Petrocheilos, M Rakus, M Rakus, M Strauss, M Warbis, N Antoniou, N Bhaladhare, N BuckleyIrvine, N Stringer, O Hill, O Gleeson, P Amoroso, P Blinkhorn, P Gederi, R Browne, R J Charnock, R Chouglay, R Chua, R Huq, R Kouros, R O’Rourke, R Park, R Serunjogi, R Siddique, R Soni, R Uddin, R Watt, S Ali, S Ash, S Barnett, S BrS Crabbe-Field, S Donszelmann, S Haynes, S Kunovska, S Povey, S Richards, S Sebatindira, S Thandi, T Maksymiw, T Mushtaq, T Odayar, T Poole, V Hui, Z Chan, Z Mahmod Any opinions expressed herein are those of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the LSE Students’ Union or Beaver Editorial Staff.

The Beaver is issued under a Creative Commons license.

Attribution necessary.

Printed at Mortons Printing

Jon Allsop on why we absolutely must inject responsibility into campus debate

From the Executive Editor INEVITABLY IT IS VERY DIFFICULT to talk about the controversy generated by last week’s Feminist Society-Palestine Society joint event without upsetting people. I would thus like to make it clear from the start that I do not intend to take an editorial stance on the meat of the issues at stake here. After spending last year on exchange at Sciences Po’s Middle Eastern campus in Menton I do naturally have views on these issues, although I do not think that my 400 word editorial is an ideal place to convey their nuance satisfactorily.

I feel, however, that I cannot stay silent about the manner in which the debate over the fallout from last week’s controversy has been handled. Quite frankly, I have found much of the back and forth on this issue to be thoroughly depressing. Israel-Palestine is clearly amongst the most emotive of issues to enliven our campus politics and so I would never seek to completely dampen the fires of a debate that is, and indeed ought to be, passionate and contentious.

In the wake of this particular episode, however, much of what I have seen and read has crossed what I see as a red line into ad hominem attacks and venomous vitriol that should have no place on our campus.

Accusations of ‘racism’ have

been bandied about with what in my view amounts to reckless abandon. ‘Israel-Palestine’ as an issue should not be used as a cover for the assertion of very serious allegations unless they have been properly thought through and reasonably articulated. This is not just because questions of ‘race’ in what is an inherently multifaceted conflict are extremely definitionally contestable. It is because there is a real worry that too many on our campus, on both sides of the argument see the ‘Israel-Palestine’ defence as a way of avoiding accountability for their words, knowing full well that it is nigh on impossible for a Students’ Union to act in this area without being accused of bias or playing politics. This is not to say that the SU should be excused if it does not conduct a suitably thorough and consistent investigation into these issues. It is rather to say that all parties involved have a keen responsibility to think before opening their mouths. The logical endpoint of the bitterness we have seen explode this week is too nasty to contemplate.

I feel I have already made it sufficiently clear that I don’t wish to take sides here, but I must also say that I found some of our BME Officer Samiha Begum’s response to Esther Gross’ open letter (read both on page 14) to be deeply

unsettling. Begum has the right to represent BME students on campus and has the right to criticise Gross’ tenure on their behalf should she so choose. Just before going to print we squeezed in a story on an Instagram post the latter shared (p5) which is clearly utterly indefensible. Begum should not, however, have the right to suggest that Gross’ holding of the position of Anti-Racism Officer as a “white woman” undermines the struggle of the marginalised on campus when this can clearly at least be interpreted as saying that Jewish people are not an oppressed minority and therefore not deserving of representation by the Anti-Racism Officer.

This is a crass, staggering and extremely dangerous viewpoint which flies in the face of history and lived experience. It is an irresponsible and ignorant thing for anyone to say, let alone an elected official of our Union, and let alone someone elected to represent the marginalised. Sadly, it is indicative of the broader debate here.

If this is what our campus culture has come to, at an institution that should be striving to solve geopolitical problems, then we might as well all give him. Let’s debate contentious issues responsibly. We at least owe it to ourselves to do that much.

From the Managing Editor Alexander Fyfe on the udderly-scandalous state of milk prices in the UK I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT many things, but until last Thursday, student politics was not one of them. Yes, I have lost my UGM virginity, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Engaging with my interlocutors was great fun, and I recommend that you get yourself down to the Old Theatre pronto.

I enjoyed myself so much in fact, that I am actually considering proposing my own motion at UGM. The topic of my first foray into the political scene will be one very close to my own heart, and one that I hope the LSE community will get behind wholeheart-

edly. Naturally, I am proposing a motion about milk.

You may not realise it, but the latte you’re quaffing is resulting in the ruinification of the British countryside. Our pleasant and verdant lands are being destroyed by the preponderance of the cosmopolitan elite to demand a Pret white filter for 99p. Why? Because milk prices are set so low, dairy farmers are going out of business and cows are disappearing from our fields. Twenty thousand dairy farms have disappeared in sixteen years, yet retailer profits have sex-

tupled. The majority of farmers are paid just 25p per litre, 10p below the production cost of the white stuff. Our pastures are under threat, and it is time the LSE stood up and supported our bovine buddies and our ruddy-faced farmers.

The nations udders are under attack, so I propose we have a UGM motion to compel the LSESU to purchase its milk at farm friendly prices. And if it turns out we already pay a fair price, then we can at least have a motion condemning those who do not. See you in the Old Theatre.

2

Letter to the editor Jon, I note interesting articles that appear to confuse the Ethics Policy with the Socially Responsible Investment Policy.

For clarification, the School’s Policy on Socially Responsible (Ethical) Investment last reviewed by Finance Committee in March 2013 still explicitly refers to the previous version of the School’s Ethics Policy, in particular in paragraph 9, and the assertions made that it has been watered down are incorrect.

It is acknowledged that the wording needs to be tidied up, as the cross reference to the Ethics Policy is out of date, but you and your readers can be assured that there is no intent to water down paragraph 9 at all.

I look forward to interesting discussions about divestment from fossil fuels.

As ever, you know where I am, you have both my work and private contact details, and I am always willing to speak with The Beaver.

Regards Andy Farrell, LSE Chief Financial Officer

The Beaver would like to thank the LSE Annual Fund, whose generous financial support will soon allow us to replace our existing hardware. We intend to redistribute our existing Macs within the LSE community, more details to follow.

Jade Jackman @JadeShamraeff Looking forward to interviewing director of @SpiritLevelDoc & cofounder of @Docheads @katharineround for special edition of @ beaveronline Josh Martin @JoshTheTallGuy @beaveronline What’s the code for the Beaver fantasy league? I want to walk into the #1 spot

3

News

Tuesday February 3, 2015

Section Editors: Megan Crockett and Mahatir Pasha news@thebeaveronline.co.uk

This week students protested outside a meeting to make “LSE Fossil Free” to ensure a greener future for the School. Monday saw student revelry as they got together in the Saw Swee Hock’s Venue to celebrate Burns’ Night; with Scottish Country dancing, haggis and whisky gallore!

Motion Against Counter-Terrorism Bill Passes, but Charlie Hebdo Motion Fails to Reach Quoracy Liam Hill Features Editor THURSDAY’S TWO UGM motions - one opposing the CounterTerrorism and Security Bill (CTSB) and another expressing solidarity with the victims of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris and in support of free speech - have both received a majority in favour, although the former was only quorate by nine votes and the latter did not achieve quoracy by fifty one votes.

The motion opposing the CTSB had been proposed by Academic Board member Tooba Mushtaq and seconded by London School of Economics (LSE) Students’ Union (SU) General Secretary Nona Buckley-Irvine. The motion expressing solidarity with the victims of the terror attacks on Charlie Hebdo was proposed by Kamyar Dadfar and seconded by Bo Liao.

The motion opposing the CTSB was passed by two hundred and eight votes for to forty-two votes against, with nine people undecided, a majority of eighty per cent of voters in favour of the motion. The motion only just managed to reach quoracy, edging just nine votes beyond the two hundred and fifty votes required, despite a strong campaign endorsed by the General Secretary and a number of societies, and despite the emergency campaign to get the motion tabled receiving more than three hundred signatures on Monday.

However, the motion expressing solidarity with the victims of

the Charlie Hebdo attacks failed to reach quoracy. One hundred and twenty seven people voted in favour of the amended motion, with fiftyfive people voting against and sixteen undecided. With one hundred and ninety nine votes cast in total, the motion was fifty-one votes short of quoracy. It is the first motion of the academic year not to reach the two hundred and fifty vote mark, as well as the first motion not to pass, and the first motion since the failed attempt in Lent Term last year to introduce a social mobility officer.

The UGM itself began with a question to the General Secretary about an event which took place on Tuesday, which was hosted jointly by the LSESU Palestine and Feminist Societies. Speakers at the event, ‘Gender and Resistance in Occupied Palestine,’ are alleged to have made remarks glorifying terrorist violence against Israeli soldiers and making anti-semitic remarks, which have been described in an open letter to the Beaver by LSESU’s anti-racism officer Esther Gross as “[shocking] beyond words.” Nona Buckley-Irvine confirmed that an SU investigation into the event has been launched.

Tooba Mushtaq, proposing the motion opposing the CTSB, called the bill “self-contradictory and very vague,” before saying that the LSESU “should support an inquiry into the legality of ” the bill.

Nona Buckley-Irvine, seconding the motion, focused on the criteria for being at-risk of radicalisation, said “I believe in being radical. I believe in questioning Western val-

ues... This does not make me a terrorist.”

While there was no formal opposition to the motion, The Beaver’s Managing Editor Alexander Fyfe took the opportunity to express his scepticism about the motion.

Expanding on arguments in his editorial last week, he concluded “I will be opposing this on the basis that the people arguing against the Bill do not understand what it is saying.” Mushtaq concluded by saying that “the Bill itself is a radicalising document.”

The second motion, in its original form proposing solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, was proposed by Kaymar Dafar and seconded by Bo Liao, who focused their arguments on free speech and opposing the notion of blasphemy laws. The motion, to which again no opposition could be found, was however subject to a number of amendments, two of which Democracy Committee ruled would not change the motion so much as to substantially change the essential message of the motion. The amendments, to drop the description of Charlie Hebdo as a ‘left-wing and anti-racist’ magazine and to drop from the title ‘Solidarity with Charlie Hebdo’ in favour of ‘Solidarity with the victims’ of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, were both carried after votes in the room.

Voting in the room on amendments had not been accepted policy at Union General Meetings last year, so this development was something of a deviation from precedent.

Beaver Executive Editor Jon

Allsop spoke in opposition to the amendment changing the title of the motion to refer to victims of the attacks rather than to Charlie Hebdo itself. He said: “There isn’t a fundamental difference. The victims were the victims because the worked for Charlie Hebdo.”

The further discussion of the Charlie Hebdo motion focused on the notions of offence, free speech and blasphemy, and consisted mostly of a back and forth between members of the audience and Kamyar Dafar and various audience members.

Reacting to the narrow passing of the motion opposing the CTSB, proposer Tooba Mushtaq told The Beaver: “I believe LSE students have shown that they are against this radicalizing legislation. Our campaign leading up to this motion, from collecting nearly four hundred signatures to get to emergency UGM to actually getting the motion passed, goes on to show the overwhelming opposition CTSB has.”

In response to the failure of the Charlie Hebdo motion’s failure to reach quoracy, the motion’s proposer Kamyar Dadfar told The Beaver: “Pleased we managed to get a nice majority in favour, but disappointed not to reach quoracy. C’est la vie.”

Seconder Bo Liao told The Beaver: “What really surprised me is not that the motion failed to pass because of quoracy but that there are a third of people (who voted) actually oppose the motion. Apparently my common sense that murder should always be condemned is not their common sense. It is

already surprising enough that we have to propose a motion for common sense.”

General Secretary Nona Buckley-Irvine told The Beaver, in reacting to both motions, that she was “delighted that LSESU has officially affirmed that it stands against the measures being proposed in the counter terrorism legislation, especially today when it is reported that universities will be exempted from the legislation. It is disappointing that the other motion did not reach quoracy.”

UGM Chair Rayhan Uddin reaffirmed the General Secretary’s position on the Charlie Hendo motion, telling the Beaver that he is “disappointed that the Charlie Hebdo motion did not reach quoracy. It is the first motion not to do so this academic year. We used all avenues to try and promote both motions (via Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr), and that was reflected in the improved turnout of the UGM itself. It is clear from the number of votes cast however, that more work needs to be put in.”

As yet, no motions have been proposed to next week’s UGM. Uddin told the Beaver “We have four motions in the pipeline, but none of them were received in time for next week’s UGM so they’ll be occurring over the coming weeks.” One motion coming up is on the LSE Ethics Code, the ‘streamlining’ of which to remove or water down passages on human rights, bribery and donations from LSE students’ friends and family was reported by The Beaver last Tuesday.

News

Tuesday February 3, 2015

4

In Brief

‘LSE: Fossil Free...’ Divest Campaign Targets Investment Sub-Committee on Thursday Morning

LSE Staff Leads Climate Change Project

Ben Tippet LSESU Divest

THE CLIMATE OUTCOMES of different lifestyle and energy choices can now be explored by anyone, thanks to an online tool. Dr Erica Thompson of LSE’s Centre for the Analysis of Time Series (CATS) was the lead climate scientist for the project, which draws on the latest scientific results from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to highlight the range of possible impacts resulting from different energy choices.

The Global Calculator is an interactive tool for businesses and individuals, NGOs and governments. It allows anyone to consider the various options for cutting carbon emissions and the trade-offs for energy and land use to 2050. It suggests that the world can eat well, travel more and live in more comfortable homes while meeting international carbon reduction commitments.

STUDENTS INAUGURATED 32 Lincoln’s Inn building with its first protest last Thursday, by calling on the school to withdraw its current investments in fossil fuels.

The protest is the latest action organised by London School of Economics (LSE) Divest, a student society that since 2013 has been campaigning to get LSE to freeze its investments in fossil fuel companies and shift its existing portfolio towards low carbon technology and green energy.

Thursday may prove to be a critical turning point for the campaign, as the body overseeing what LSE does with its money, the Investment-Sub Committee, met to discuss future policy. At the beginning of the week, there were concerns that the case for divestment would not be discussed during the meeting, causing worries of delays as the committee next meets in June, a time of low student activism due to exams. LSE SU Divest decided to hold a protest outside the meeting to force the issue onto the agenda, or at

least into minds of the committee. On Wednesday evening however, the first success of the week came when students learned that Divest had been added to the agenda, allegedly due to student pressure and the work of Activities and Development Officer, Alastair Duncan. Around thirty students still decided to greet the committee members as they entered the meeting, holding banners and chanting, “LSE, Fossil Free!” There was an air of cooperation rather than conflict, as students talked to committee members, outlining their concerns and showing their dedication to the campaign.

LSE Divest is part of a the wider international divestment campaign across universities, public and private institutions.

As a movement it is growing fast, at a quicker rate than previous divestment campaigns, including the South Africa divestment and boycott. Glasgow was the first university in Europe to divest, joining the likes of Stanford, ANU and the Rockerfeller family.

The important question then is, do the arguments for divestment hold with respect to LSE?

This question was tackled in a evening panel discussion organised on the same day as the protest, by a coalition of student societies from across London.

The talked focused on the future of finance in a warming planet, dealing with a broad range of topics from the masculine culture of finance to the carbon bubble.

Not only was the room packed, but some members of the Investment-Sub Committee took up their invitation to the event.

As the discussion went on it became clear that the main problem with fossil fuel investment is not simply the fact that oil companies are ‘unethical’. Rather, the crucial issue concerns how the stock prices of fossil fuel companies are determined and what investing in such stocks actually means for the future. To stop their share price from falling as they burn resources, companies search for and claim new reserves of fossil fuels in the ground, guaranteeing a stream of future production and profit. A serious problem becomes quickly apparent; what would happen if all the reserves companies currently hold were extracted and burned?

The CO polluted would be five times the amount that scientists argue we can emit to stay within 2ºC of global warming. In other words, stock prices of major oil companies embodies a destructive future, and buying into them supports a financial regime leading to high and catastrophic warming.

The outcomes of the meeting are still unknown at the time of writing, however with a building sense of collective power from the student body, a number of other universities taking the step to divest and a receptive investment committee, the next few weeks could be critical. As Noeile Audi-Dor, an active member of LSE Divest and an MSc student, states, “Pressure needs to be kept up, petitions signed and voices heard. In the end we have to ask whether an educational institution, that invests in our future through expanding knowledge and intellectual thought, can simultaneous invest in a system of finance which will inevitably bring future disaster? Business as usual will leave LSE bankrupt; intellectually, morally and perhaps even financially.”

Report by LSE Shows Youngest Children and Poorer Households Worst Hit by Coalition’s Selective Cuts POORER GROUPS HAVE been worst affected by changes to direct taxes, benefits and tax credits despite the Coalition’s promise that the rich would carry the burden of austerity, according to a major new report from LSE and the Universities of Manchester and York. As a result, poverty has been increasing and will get worse in the next five years.

The report also reveals that families with young children have been hit harder than any other household type under the Coalition’s cuts despite early rhetoric highlighting the importance of the “foundation years”. Real spending per child on early education, childcare and Sure Start services fell by a quarter between 2009-10 and 2012-13 and tax-benefit reforms hit families with children under five harder than any other household type.

Holocaust Survivor Visits School for Memorial Day Joseph Grabiner Staff Writer LAST WEDNESDAY EVENING, 28th January, an ordinary classroom on the second floor of Clement House played host to an amazing event in which one woman’s remarkable tale of survival was retold. The London School of Economics’ (LSE) Student Union (SU) Jewish Society organised an educational event to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day. All were delighted to welcome Joan Salter, a child survivor of the Holocaust who was born in 1940s Belgium.

The event took place one day after the School officially marked Holocaust Memorial Day with a beautiful and poignant ceremony in the Shaw Library organised by Chaplain James Walters and with music provided by the LSE choir.

Around one hundred students gathered in near silence as Salter told her story. Millie Foster, CoPresident of the LSESU Jewish Society introduced the speaker before she got underway explaining how she survived as an infant Jew in Nazi Europe. After the German invasion of Belgium in May 1940, Joan’s father was deported, along with all non-Bel-

gium men over the age of fifteen.

Her mother took her and her sister to Paris, and she carried them down through Vichy France and eventually over the mountains into Spain in early 1943. This incredible story was packed with hard to believe coincidences and kind strangers doing amazing deeds, all of which added up to Joan’s eventual escape from Europe in late 1943.

After speaking for around fifty minutes the child survivor took questions from the audience.

One attendee asked what Salter thought of modern day racism, and particularly the rise in Anti-Semitism in Europe. Salter

quickly shot back that racism is an evil that must be stamped out and that her biggest concern surrounds those who are pushing islamophobic agendas within society. She spoke passionately about the need to build community and embrace all people so as avoid the marginalisation of anyone.

Levi Bryce Epstein, a second year Economics Bsc student and keen member of Jewish Society, remarked that ‘it was a phenomenally important evening for us.

We all know that survivors of the Shoah [the holocaust] wont be around for much longer- there is an urgency in hearing them tell their stories first hand’

5

News

Tuesday February 3, 2015

“Time to End LSE’s Regressive International Fees Policy” Megan Crockett News Editor A STATEMENT FROM THE London School of Economics (LSE) Students’ Union (SU) Tumblr suggests that “we all know there is something wrong with the cost of studying at LSE. Not just the cost of being a student in London, and the lack of financial support available to us, but the actual fees just to study here”.

Over the past ten years the cost to an international undergraduate student to study at the School has soared from £10,509 to £17,040.

Masters programmes has also been effected, with the MSc in Gender having risen by £7,000, the MSc in Human Rights by £8,500 and the MSc in City Design has increased by nearly £10,000, now costing £24,456.

International student are not the only ones being adversely affected; those from the UK and Europe are not faring much better. The LLM has almost doubled in cost, now asking for £13,600 from each student, an MSc in Philosophy of the Social Sciences is £5,000 more expensive than ever and the MSc in EU Politics

gas risen over £7,000 now costing £18,000. If these trends continue many believe studying at the School will swiftly become unaffordable.

LSE has complete control over how much they charge for Masters courses and for all international students; however, they do not have this luxury with domestic students as the government regulates the fees they can charge.

The SU have suggested that the School’s fees setting policy is nonsensical, as every year fees increase by four per cent, which is well beyond inflation, which sat at 0.5 per cent in December 2014.

This means “from their first to their last year an undergraduate student that started last tar will be paying at least £1,200 by their final year, just because LSE has chosen four per cent as the figure to increase fees by”.

It is claimed that this four per cent increase corresponds with increases in staff salaries, but the SU claim this “isn’t true ... Some of the courses the School designates as premium increased by six per cent” but staff did not see a six per cent rise in their salaries.

It cannot be claimed either that the four per cent is spent on

Calls for AntiRacism Officer to Resign Over “Racist” Post On Instagram Jon Allsop Executive Editor AN INSTAGRAM POST BY Esther Gross, LSESU Anti-Racism officer, depicting a man in a hijab, accompanied by ‘lon the local LSE terrorist,’ has been posted on Facebook along with calls for her to resign.

LSE Student Fathia Begum, in a Facebook post on Sunday night, wrote “I call for the resignation of Esther Gross as LSESU Anti-Racism Officer for the promotion of islamaphobia and her proven incompetence to represent Muslim and BME students.”

Ms. Begum told The Beaver “The intimidating picture shows her blatant casual racism and a disregard for the disenfranchised students that she SHOULD be representing by calling a male wearing a hijab a ‘local LSE terrorist’. This is absolutely outrageous and cannot be tolerated from a supposed antiracism representative on campus.

“As a Muslim woman wearing hijab, I have been left feeling humiliated and disrespected. I am absolutely horrified and disgusted that an elected member of the Student Union can say such things to further marginalize and stigmatize Muslim women.”

Ms Gross apologised online, commenting on facebook: “I’d like to publicly apologise for the picture that was taken from my instagram about 67 weeks ago, WAY before I was elected and just as I’d got to LSE - which doesn’t mean it wasn’t wrong of me. Beyond the fact that this campaign is borderline harassment, that photo should never have been posted and , a year and a half ago, I didn’t realise the impact it would have or the stereotypes it would contribute to.”

The photo was posted 67 weeks ago, before she stood to be antiRacism officer. A petition in support of her was last night believed to be circulating on social media.

student support; over the next five years the School plans to spend the same amount of money every year on international scholarships, so there will be a four per cent increase in fees and a zero per cent increase in scholarship funds.

Other universities, such as Kings College London, Leeds, Nottingham, Cardiff and Edinburgh protect international students by guaranteeing that their fees will not rise during their study.

Sadly, LSE does not have such a system, but it is argued it should.

The LSE want five things: to introduce a fixed fee guarantee for international students, an end to the arbitrary four per cent year on year increase on international student fees, an end to LSE application fees, to enhance the support available to international students and finally to increase student engagement in the fee setting proceses.

If you want to help the cause, you can add your name to the petition found on LSE Tumblr or email your stories about how the cost of studying at LSE has affected you to Nona on su.generalsecretary@ lse.ac.uk

7

News

Tuesday February 3, 2015

United Nations Society Discusses Israel-Palestine and the UN Mahatir Pasha News Editor SUMANTRA BOSE, A Professor of International and Comparative Politics at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) welcomed a number of students, to an event hosted by the LSESU United Nations Society, titled ‘Palestinian Statehood and the UN’. The event took place on Thursday in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre.

Bose chaired the event and the panel of speakers included Sir Vincent Fean, a member of the British Diplomatic Service since 1975 who retired in February 2014 after serving as Consul-General to Jerusalem dealing with Palestinian issues, Sharon Alsoodani, Education Director & General Manager

at OneVoice Europe and Dr David Hirsh, a lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and the founder of Engage, a campaign against cultural and academic boycotts of Israel.

Although described as an event in collaboration with the LSESU Israel Society and the LSESU Palestine Society, a large number of Palestine Society’s representatives seemed to focus their efforts elsewhere- at another event entitled ‘The Future of Finance: Ethical Investing on a Warming Planet’, which was being held simultaneously to the event organised by the United Nations Society.

Each panelist put forward an opening statement at the start of the event, which was followed by questions by the Chair and afterward opened

up to the audience. All three speakers agreed that a twostate solution to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East was the best way forward with David Hirsh criticising the idea of a one-state solution as “a utopian dream.” Sir Vincent supported this idea when he explained, “One state will be an apartheid state.”

The event lasted around ninety minutes and throughout, topics including statehood, Zionism and a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict were discussed. Joshua Wong, President of the LSESU United Nations society said, “on behalf of the organising team, we hope that this event sets a good foundation for the careful and comprehensive discussion of a contentious topic that is significant to many people.”

Amnesty International, 38 Degrees and LSE Staff and Students Discuss The Impact Of Social Media In Activism at Student Media Conference Mercedes Doménech Enseñat, Staff Writer LAST WEEK LONDON School of Economics (LSE) Students’ Union (SU) hosted yearly Student Media Conference, which welcomed interested students and staff in a series of talks discussing media today. The conference closed with a panel formed by fellow student James Lo, who is also the spokesperson for the Hong Kong Overseas Alliance; LSE lecturer and specialist in activist cultures Dr. Bart Cammaerts; Amnesty International vice-chair Hannah Perry; and campaigner at 38 Degrees Rebecca Falcon.

Over the course of a hour, the four speakers considered the impact and uses of social media such as Facebook or Twitter, arguing for the pros and cons of ‘clicktivism’ or ‘hacktivism’. According to the panel, online activism (‘liking’ or ‘sharing’ something online) is an effective tool as long as it is only a compliment to traditional forms of protest and activism. The panel discussed the possibilities of social media as an opportunity for ‘peripheral activists’, as Lo defines individuals who are not full time activists, to participate in pro-

tests.

Ms. Perry saw in social media a new source of interaction between protesters, activists and organisations. According to her, social media enables organisations to access data provided by users to explore more

effective ways to protest and increase awareness.

The conference ended in a happy note after a short question and answer session, when some of the attendees had a chance to speak to the members of the panel.

HSR: First Student-Led Journal Launches at LSE Mercedes Doménech Enseñat, Staff Writer A GROUP OF LONDON School of Economics (LSE) students from different disciplinary backgrounds have recently launched the university’s first academic journal ran by students. Chief editor Romain Girard says that the journal is an initiative aiming to create “a platform to showcase the LSE’s excellent student scholarship” and to foster “ pluri-disciplinary environment through which we could tackle modern socio-political and economic problems”.

The editorial board is made up of different volunteering students, mostly graduates, with a varied set of skills which has made possible the creation of The Houghton Street Review in barely three months.

The first volume, compiling five essays around the topic of rebellion, was launched on Thursday 29th January, with a short talk with Dr. John Chalcraft in the East Building followed by an informal drinks reception.

Girard and his team of editors plan to release a monthly issue with essay submissions from the student body around a set topic.

News London Uni Round Up

Tuesday February 3, 2015

8

LSE Sociology Student Chosen For International Rap Campaign

THE DUST HAS SETTLED, following the recognition of talented King’s s taf f and alumni by the Queen in last months’ New Year’s Honour s list. From self less nur ses to generous philanthropists, the College now has five new gongs to beef up their brag ging rights, which Roar News describes as “already ample”.

Recipients included Prof Eileen Sills, a “chief nur se” and Prof Marg aret Brown, described by Roar News as an “Absolute Maths legend”.

UCL IS GEARING UP for the UCLU Spring Elec tions with nominations for most positions already open.

T he list of positions have been revamped to accommo date the new sabbatical of ficer roles.

As a result of the failed Genera l Assembly and the following emergency Union Council meeting on Tuesday 20th Januar y, the position of the Institute of Education Students’ Of ficer will be de ter mined as either part-time or full-time by a referendum.

STUDENTS WERE INFORMED on Monday that the marks from an online cour sework may be nullified after re ports of “widespread plagia rism.”

Over 400 students com pleted the online cour sework for the Business Econom ics module, which consisted of twelve multiple-choice questions. Whilst for mally assessed, students were not for mally invigilated ; it has been described as ‘open book’ cour sework that was to be completed individually.

Students completed the on line cour sework last month.

A statement released from the Business School to Felix said that it is “for mally in vestig ating an alleg ation of c ollusion in an open book online test for underg radu ate students”

Kallum Pearmain Staff Reporter SOCIOLOGY STUDENT, Franklyn Addo, known as “Franklyn Music” around

campus, is one of five artists given ninety seconds to rif f on the beauty and power of language. His perfor mance sits alongside videos by es tablished US hip hop artists STS and Sean Prince.

T he campaign is being held by a company called SwiftKey, and is called “In my words”. It includes tal ented spoken word poets and rapper s from both the UK and USA; and London

School of Economics (LSE) student Franklyn was one of the lucky individuals chosen.

You can see some of Franklyn Music’s work on line at swiftkey.com/en/inmy - wo rd s / ♯ f r a n k l y n

Gender and Resistance

Tuesday February 3, 2015

10

Complaints to Calhoun over LSE Academic Remark Jon Allsop Executive Editor The LSESU Jewish Society has submitted a formal complaint to the LSE Students’ Union and the LSE Director Professor Craig Calhoun after comments made to The Beaver by the moderator of Tuesday’s ‘Gender and Resistance in Occupied Palestine’ event.

Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, a research fellow at LSE’s Middle East Centre, was contacted for comment by The Beaver in the aftermath of a separate complaint lodged with the SU about Tuesday’s event, where external speakers were alleged to have glorified terrorist acts against Israeli soldiers, and claimed that “rape for Israelis was almost a site of war against Palestinian women”.

Ms. Muhanna-Matar told The Beaver that: “Within the concept of freedom of expression, any panellist has the right to present her analysis based on her own understanding, whether it satisfies or dissatisfies others’ reading and understanding of the topic of discussion. The panellist who spoke about Palestinian women who were involved in military resistance against the Israeli occupation has not invented something new… The speaker in the event glorifies women’s resistance against the military occupation and for the sake of freedom and justice but not violence against civilians. These resistance military actions were done in the western

history by the IRA, during the American and French revolutions.

At a lesser extent, Jews resisted against the Nazist kidnappers, but faced certain death, the same as Palestinians who committed violence against the Israelis certainly face certain death. This is how what is said in the event should be interpreted from the concept of resistance but not violence in vacuum.”

The Jewish Society’s complaint alleges that “Aitemad’s comparison is an Anti-Semitic slur. It is shameful, offensive and shocking that an LSE academic used it to justify the glorification of terrorism and has also abused the memory of the Holocaust.

Therefore, Aitemad’s inherently anti-Semitic comments need to be deal with in accordance with the provisions stated in the Student Union policy towards AntiSemitism.”

LSESU last week passed a motion condemning anti-Semitism. Sections 4 and 9 of the ‘This Union Believes’ section of the document explicitly define as anti-Semitic remarks “Denying, trivializing and misconstruing the Nazi Holocaust” and “Equating Jews or maliciously equating Jewish Foundations of the state of Israel with the Nazi Regime”.

The motion was proposed by the Presidents of the Jewish Society Lianne Mizrachi and Millie Foster, who are the co-signatories of the complaint to the SU and Calhoun.

The full letter can be read here:

Dear all,​ We are writing to register a formal complaint, on behalf of the LSESU Jewish Society, regarding the comments made by Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, a research fellow at LSE’s Middle East Centre, reported in the Beaver today.

Complaints were previously made to the University and to the Student Union against remarks made by speakers at the event ‘Gender and Resistance in Occupied Palestine,’ that incited hatred towards Israelis and glorified terrorism. It must be noted, however, that the LSESU Feminist Society has unequivocally apologised for its role in providing a platform for this radical speaker.

We are appalled by Aitemad’s equivocation of Palestinian suicide bombers with Jews who resisted the Nazi forces during the Holocaust. Not only is this deeply offensive, especially in the context of Holocaust Memorial Day which commemorates the systematic attempt by the Nazi state to annihilate European Jewry, it also directly contravenes the Student Union’s Anti-Semitism policy.

This policy defines Anti-Semitism to include: “equating Jews or maliciously equating Jewish Foundations of the state of Israel with the Nazi Regime. This includes, but is not limited to equating Zionism with Nazism and claiming that ‘history is repeating itself ’ with regards to the Nazi Holocaust and the state of Israel.” Furthermore, this also extends to denying, trivialising and misconstruing the Nazi Holocaust, which includes

denying the fact, scope, method, or motivation for the genocide of 6 million Jews at the hands of the National Socialist Party.

Through senselessly comparing the victims of the Holocaust to violent terrorists, it is clear that Aitemad trivalises the Holocaust.

The Nazi state policy of annihilating the Jewish people through the Final Solution, in which 6million Jews perished in concentration camps, gas chambers and death marches, is incomparable in scale and scope. These state execution mechanisms do not exist in Israel and the tragic suffering of the victims of the Holocaust should not be belittled by these ignorant and improper comparisons. We believe that Aitemad’s comparison is an Anti-Semitic slur. It is shameful, offensive and shocking that an LSE academic used it to justify the glorification of terrorism and has also abused the memory of the Holocaust. Therefore, Aitemad’s inherently anti-Semitic comments need to be deal with in accordance with the provisions stated in the Student Union policy towards Anti-Semitism.

Additionally, we know that the school is aware of the concerns of its international Jewish student population with the recent rise in Anti-Semitism in Europe and across the world, exemplified by the attack on Jews in a French Kosher supermarket. These issues highlight the importance of the aim and the purpose of the Student Union’s Anti-Semitism policy that was renewed and reaffirmed only last week, which serves to

protect Jewish students on campus from nuanced and often implicit forms of racism. The postitive response from the student body, with 370 students voting in favour of condemning Anti-Semitism on campus, provides a strong mandate of support to tackle these issues on campus. The efforts of the School in addressing issues of anti-Semitism must also be noted.

We have liaised with the Dean of Undergraduate Students, Dr Peter Howlett, and are pleased to have the support of the School in dealing with such issues. We were also delighted and overwhelmed by the school’s efforts to touchingly memorialise this important day and we are appreciative of Chaplain Walters’ hard work in hosting such a thoughtful and meaningful Memorial Service. We are therefore proud to be part of a Student Union and a University, which both work hard to ensure that racism and intolerance is not accepted on campus.

The Middle East Centre must investigate and take the necessary action against this LSE research fellow who has deeply offended Jewish and Israeli students on campus and has clearly contravened the Student Union’s AntiSemitism policy. It is unacceptable that anti-Semitic comments are made my academics who represent LSE. We believe that this constitutes a serious stain on the reputation of the institution and therefore must be addressed with all seriousness.

Lianne Mizrachi and Millie Foster, Presidents, LSESU Jewish Society

11

In Occupied Palestine

Tuesday February 3, 2015

Statements on the Incident

“We at the LSESU Israel society are horrified and deeply offended by statements made by speakers at the joint LSESU Palestine Society and Feminist Society event, entitled ‘Gender and Resistance in Occupied Palestine,’ on Tuesday 27th January, Holocaust Memorial Day. We condemn the incitement of hatred and glorification of terrorism by the speakers at this event.

Advocating the slaughter of Israelis is a direct form of racism and must be dealt with by the university and the Student Union. We have received a number of complaints from students who feel intimidated and uncomfortable by a number of the comments made. Racism affects all students and should not be tolerated under any circumstances.

The LSE campus must be a safe space for all students. We would also like to make it clear that we support gender equality and the peaceful creation of a two state solution. We hope that the university and the Students’ Union will join us in condemning statements made at the event and will continue in their commitment to fostering a tolerant and safe environment on campus.”

Having reviewed the statements, regarding applauding an attack against Israeli soldiers, made by a speaker at our event we apologise unequivocally on behalf of the LSESU Feminist Society.

We give platforms to oppressed peoples, including those under violent occupations, but that does not mean that their views always reflect our own. The Feminist Society is truly regretful that we have caused offence.

The LSESU Palestine Society told The Beaver We were first made aware of the criticisms aimed at Tuesday’s ‘Gender and Resistance in Occupied Palestine’ event through an external blog post claiming that the event was celebrating Israeli deaths on the Holocaust Memorial Day. The nature of the blog and the cynical accusation that the event was deliberately held on the same day as the memorial drove us to believe that the article was an attempt to provoke tensions between two sides of a political discussion. The blog was written in an opinionated fashion, often implying false conclusion from words taken out of context.

Firstly, to claim that the speakers condoned the indiscriminate killings of Israelis due to their nationality is simply incorrect and is a view that was expressed in the LSESU’s Anti-Racism officer’s open letter. The actual statement referred to an act of resistance by Lebanese Sana’a Mehaidli in 1968 carried out on Israeli soldiers during the occupation of South Lebanon. The act of resistance was carried out solely on soldiers involved in an occupation and not random civilians meaning that the speaker did not applaud the “indiscriminate killing of Israelis through random acts of terrorism” but rather spoke of a legitimate armed struggle falling under the Palestinian right to resist a military occupier as resolved in the ‘Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1960)’. Although the LSESU Palestine Society does not necessarily share the views held by the speaker, we maintain that she is entitled to them and is free to express her analysis on the issue, whatever that may be.

As the Anti-Racism Officer was not present at the event we can only assume she received information about the event from the formerly mentioned external blog. Consequently we are not surprised that she was “shocked” and “baffled” by the contents of the event as the blog summarises that Israelis were portrayed as rapists and those who killed Israelis were applauded – an exceedingly simplistic view that caused our AntiRacism Officer to draw such conclusions. We are also still unsure, however, as to how one of the speakers managed to “openly weaponise rape”, as stated in the open letter. The speakers addressed the sexual violence that women are particularly vulnerable to in situations of conflict. A discussion surrounding the use of rape as a weapon of warfare in an event regarding gender is relevant, as it is a serious issue affecting women in conflict, which is recognised in UNSCR 1325.

The LSESU Palestine society does not intend to offend anyone on campus. We believe in freedom of expression and understand that opinions on such matters tend to be very diverse however we believe that the complaints regarding the event were in response to a provocative external report, which did not accurately depict the message the speaker attempted to portray. Nonetheless we would like to reassure students that we are working with the SU to resolve and clarify any complaints that may have been lodged.

An LSE Spokesperson contacted The Beaver with the following statement: The School is committed to free speech and academic debate but we are clear that this must be within the law and according to the School’s desire to cultivate an environment of mutual respect and foster good campus relations. LSE does not tolerate abuse, harassment, or speech which breaks the law.

Most of the comments highlighted were made by speakers not affiliated with the School, with some comments attributed to the Chair, who is an LSE research fellow. LSE’s Students’ Union and its more than 200 societies organise a rich variety of events. Student-organised events of course do not represent the official views or priorities of the School. However, we trust our Students’ Union to investigate whether there has been a breach of rules. The School is also conducting its own investigation and will take appropriate steps wherever necessary.

News Analysis: An Otherwise ‘Refreshing’ Event

Suyin Haynes

Deputy News Editor Over the past week, there has been a series of responses to the LSESU Feminist Society and LSESU Palestine Society event ‘Gender and Resistance in the Occupied Palestine’, on Tuesday 27 January. Whilst reports of the controversy that the event has sparked can be found in other articles in this week’s Beaver, this News Analysis section hopes to highlight that aside from the comments made by the speaker and chair that have been criticised, the event was an interesting and engaging one with a diverse panel of speakers and performers not usually seen at

the LSE. London-based student and poet Zena Agha started the discussion by emphasising the Palestinian struggle as “one of the issues that will define our generation”. Her flair for presenting was certainly demonstrated as she challenged the “constructed narratives” of the Western world, particularly regarding women in both Palestine and Israel. Speaking from personal experience, Agha examined Gaza’s current context, noting Summer 2014 as a turning point with a growth in protest providing the need to rethink “the way we talk about Palestinian women”.

Noting that the “mantra of ‘women and children’” is an immediate Western association with the conflict, she argued that the binary of this image was the exclusion of men from being visualised as civilians; falsely splitting up images of society in Gaza. Her allusions to Edward Said’s Orientalism, Gayatri Spivak’s Subaltern and the LSE’s own Tarak Barkawi were highly thought provoking, placing nota-

ble academic works into contemporary contexts. Summing up, Agha compellingly concluded that “we need to be really aware that we’re talking about narra-

“Aside from the comments made by the speaker and chair that have been criticised, the event was an interesting and engaging one with a diverse panel not usually seen at the LSE” tives that are not our own”.

Rena Baker, a SOAS graduate and student of migration and diaspora, then charted the history of Palestinian women in

politics. The main criticisms of the event have arisen from her description of Sana’a Mehaidli, a Lebanese woman who carried out a suicide bombing in 1985.

University of Cambridge research fellow and specialist in settler colonialism Mezna Qato followed, speaking eloquently about her experiences in the US and the inconsistent nature of Western media coverage of the conflict, noting that “when the TV cameras move to another location, the solidarity shrinks”.

Whilst acknowledging that the heroism of resistance was indeed important, she highlighted the “need to think about the daily grind, both in Palestine and abroad”. The connections she drew between the oppressed in Palestine and the solidarity with Ferguson, St Louis, anti-homosexual and anti-austerity groups were illuminating, and concluded that the BDS movement was a feminist one as well as a Palestinian one.

Rounding off the evening were spoken word performances

from Annie Rockson and Zena Agha. Studying for her MA in human rights at UCL, Rockson was greeted with a huge round of applause as she performed two of her poems, one of which was specially written for the event. Agha then brought the event to a moving close with one of her own poems which was a powerful echo of her talk earlier in the evening. Reflecting on the event as a whole, Aysha Al-Fekaiki, event organiser and member of LSESU Palestine Society, commented that she was thrilled with the initial reaction, noting that “people feel inspired and empowered” as it highlighted “so many different types of feminism, especially the diverse range of intersectional feminism”.

Moving aside from the response to comments made at the event, it was indeed refreshing to see an all-female, Palestinian representative group at LSE, discussing topics that are not often approached and through media such as spoken word that are not often showcased.

Comment

Tuesday February 3, 2015

12

Section Editorial:

Section Editor: Ellen Wilkie

THIS WEEK I WAS TAUGHT a very important lesson. I learned the lesson that we should respect the views of others, irrespective of whether they are in line with our own.

It was on Thursday night in the Tuns during a particularly passionate chat with one of the Features editors of The Beaver (don’t get any ideas, it was George Harrison). I learned of his adoration of the devil herself, Margaret Thatcher.

My pain at this revelation was nsurmountable. This changed everything.

I am, as is evident both by my accent and regional chip on my shoulder, from the North. My home town was ripped apart by the actions of Thatcher and the collective loathing for her remains strong to this day. These are the facts.

After a lot of indignant shouting (sorry everyone), I reconciled with George. This was primarily because he bought me a pint, but also because he put up with my throwing Euros in his pint glass (because he is anti-EU, you understand) with an impressive grace that I now seek to emulate in my relations with other neoliberal Thatcherite wankers like George.

Get Your Voice Heard This Election

Comment

Ellen Wilkie

comment@thebeaveronline.co.uk

It’s Voter Registration week, and your vote could make all the difference

Tom Maksymiw

LSESU Education Officer THE NEXT GENERAL Election is the most important and unpredictable for a generation. If David Cameron is Prime Minister after the 7th May we will have a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, and may leave the EU. If Ed Miliband is Prime Minister he may have to rely on the SNP, Greens and/ or the Liberal Democrats for a

“Young people are in danger of having less of a voice in this election than any other in recent times” majority, meaning we could end up with any number of policies.

If a right wing government is formed it is likely the welfare state will be cut back hugely

and if the left wing gains power deficit reduction will be slowed and the highest earners will be taxed at the highest level since the 1980s. The two party system of Conservative/Labour which has reigned supreme since the 1920s, cracked at 2010 election, may be destroyed forever at the next, with UKIP, the Greens, the SNP and/or the Lib Dems possibly in the next UK government.

Young people are on course to have less of a voice in the General Election than the old.

The over 65s had a far greater turnout in the last general election (76%) than 18-24 year olds (only 44%!) and therefore political parties pitch their policies far more to the elderly than the young, or we students.

That, combined with the fact that it is estimated that one in four young people may be missing from the electoral register, means that young people are in danger of having less of a voice in this election than any other in recent times. In total 100,000 fewer people are expected to be registered to vote in London alone, following changes to the registration process, meaning that universities can no longer automatically register students living in halls.

You don’t have to be British to vote in the General Election!

In the General Election British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens can vote. LSE is a massively international university but not many Malaysians, Irish, Canadians, Australians, Indians,

Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Jamaicans, Kenyans, South Africans, Ugandans, Botswanans and Cypriots at LSE know that they are entitled to a vote. And they will only be able to do so if they register to vote before the 20th of April.

LSE students can have an impact in their constituency elections. The most obvious example of this is those students living is Bermondsey and Old Southwark (including all students in Bankside, Sidney Webb House and Butler’s Wharf halls) where the latest polling have the Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates neck and neck. Obviously then if all LSE students eligible to vote in these halls get out and vote it is not impossible that their votes could decide who wins this seat.

In the Holborn and St Pancras constituency (home to the main LSE campus, Carr-Saunders halls, Passfield halls and High Holborn hall) the race is on between Labour’s Keir Starmer (the ex-director of public prosecutions) and Natalie Bennett (the leader of the Green party).

This should be a safe Labour seat but it is possible that under 25s (22% of whom say they will vote Green in the general election) could make the difference here.

This week is National Voter Registration Week and I think it’s really important that we don’t let changes to the way students register to vote silence our voice. So please do register to vote and encourage

your friends to do so too. We Sabbs will visit halls (Rosebery on Tuesday and Bankside on Wednesday), set up stalls around campus and try to get as many students to register to vote as possible. We’d love your

“LSE is a massively international university but not many international students at LSE know that they are entitled to a vote.” help in making LSE students’ voices heard!

If you are a British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen with a UK address you can register to vote in the UK General Election. You can register online, or print off a voter registration form here: www.gov.uk/ register-to-vote. You’ll need to provide some personal details, such as your name, address and nationality. The quickest way to register to vote is to provide your national insurance number, but if you know your number or don’t have one, you will be asked to provide a form of ID (such as a passport) at a later date. The deadline to register to vote is the 20th of April.

13

Comment

Tuesday February 3, 2015

FAO: The Home Office, The University, The Hospital

The Counter-Terror Bill will intrude on all aspects of my life and I’d like a word with those involved

Fathia Begum D E A R T H E R E S A M A Y, I would like to extend an open invitation for you to get to know me (or monitor me as you please).

The Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill that you propose is not only instigating racial hatred but also further exacerbating the Muslim hating culture that is already preva-

lent in our society.

I am your radical! I sure as hell have a desire for political change. And most definitely disagree with UK foreign policy. Have I ever questioned Western media reporting?

Well, let’s not get me started on that. So please Ms. May, monitor me all you like. Follow my Facebook, send me a Gmail, and add me on Snapchat, whatever you wish. If needs be, I am more than happy to create a daily vlog especially for you. I mean, they do call me the “selfie” queen for a reason.

I guess it wouldn’t be too much effort to extend it to a video, it could be quite fun I suppose.

We pretty much live in a surveillance culture anyway.

Jokes aside. Please do follow me. Follow me to see the levels of discrimination I face on a daily basis as a result of institutionalised racism and

Islamophobia that no doubt your proposed bill will further intensify. Follow me to see that no matter how much you try to paint me as a villain I will never stop voicing my opinion.

I refuse to be a victim of abuse.

I refuse to change my identity.

I refuse to give in to bullies.

“No matter how much you try to paint me as a villain I will never stop voicing my opinion. I refuse to give in to bullies. ” Dear Academic, How do I prove I’m not a terrorist? Can I have a strong

opinion that opposes yourself without being labelled that ‘radical Muslim’, or, ‘she must be a terrorist’? Or shall I sing songs of praise of the works of Western ideology - the ideology that systematically oppresses my people, that stigmatises and creates a culture of Islamophobia, bigotry and institutionalised discrimination towards any person of colour or religious or ethnic minority?

Or do I sit idle and keep schtum whilst watching the ongoing humiliation and vilification of an already marginalised group in society?

And Dear GP, One in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives.

Does that mean a quarter of the population will be classed as being radicalised and in need of your CHANNEL sup-

port package? Or is it just the black or brown bearded men?

Or just the women wearing that weird black cloak with some cloth on their head? The people of south Asian and Arab descent? Basically, anyone Muslim looking or sounding?

How will you differentiate between me being bored out of my head in a not so very stimulating class and feeling “anxious” or “reserved”?

What if I’m just shy? Mental health issues do not mean I’m a lunatic jihadist planning to join ISIS. So I will end how I began, Ms May. Please speak to me.

Question me and see the inequalities and discrimination that I face everyday.

Yours sincerely, Fathia Begum

The Palestinian Voice Is Not Listened To At LSE This week’s events have highlighted the lack of freedom of speech for Palestinians Laith AbuZeyad ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 29th, LSESU’s Anti-Racism Officer wrote a letter, published in The Beaver, expressing her disgust towards the ‘Gender and Resistance in Palestine’ event which was organised with the purpose of showing Palestinian women’s resistance and suffering under the illegal Israeli occupation.

As a member of the LSESU Palestine Society, I cannot help but express my utter disgust and bewilderment at how far academic oppression and silencing can reach. The Palestinian society has been subjected to vilification by members of the Israeli society, who

“Will people ever recognise a Palestinian right to self-defence or is that exclusive to Israelis?” seemed to strive to discredit their reputation as a prestigious society with a unique, humane calling: to strive to instil noble values among other students, to present the genuine face of the Palestinian people, and to call for justice and peace against the extremism and violence to which Pales-

tinians are subjected to a denial of rights under occupation.

Unfortunately, some people

“I cannot help but express my utter disgust and bewilderment at how far academic oppression and silencing can reach” took an advantage of what was said at the event to describe the Palestinians as a people undeserving of freedom and independence, and as a people who must be kept under coercive control and occupation.

They cite these events as evidence to justify their efforts to muster broad Jewish and Western opinion to support their position. This public opinion, in turn, sustains the occupation, the extension of settlements and the confiscation of land and prevents Palestinians from achieving their freedom.

These occurrences also allow some to capitalise on events in ways that misrepresent the society as promoting inhumane and anti-Semitic ideologies.

Despite political objections to the event and accusations of speakers of spreading anti-

Israel messages, those objections are not the chief reason behind the penning of this letter. My concern is that even at a place like LSE, a global leader in education, the freedom of expression of Palestinians is again restricted; with the explanation that one of the speakers embraced Sana’a Mehaidli, a Lebanese suicide bomber, at the event. This made me wonder under what conditions public grieving constitute an “offence” against the public itself ? I wonder what might be offensive about the public avowal of sorrow and loss that mentioning people like Sana`a would function as offensive speech? Is it that these deaths are not considered to be real deaths, and that these lives are not to be grieved just because they are Palestinian, or because they are victims of war? Why Israel is allowed to mourn and grieve its soldiers who have killed thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, but when we mention any of those suicide bombers, who sacrificed their lives to fight oppression and the brutality of the IDF, we fall under the category of being radical and extremists?

I am immensely disappointed by this argument, which dehumanises us and puts us outside the realm of humanity. Will people ever recognise our right to self-defence or is

that exclusive to Israelis? As a Palestinian and LSE “Human Rights” student, I will contin-

“To unequivocally reject and refuse to acknowledge dissenting opinions is an appalling gesture of intolerance.” ue to fight this narrative that always undermines our fight for freedom and depict us as terrorists. When I first came to LSE, I witnessed firsthand the power of respecting other cultures and not dehumanising other people. I have learned, through my interaction with other students, the importance of cross-cultural negotiation.

Allowing such restriction on freedom of expression, especially upon people that have been living under occupation for years will undermine much of the progress that our university has worked so hard to achieve. While the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict is indeed complex and deserves intense debate, to unequivocally reject and refuse to acknowledge dissenting opinions is an appalling gesture of intolerance.

The LSESU Anti-Racism officer submitted a letter that

is largely built on hearsay and without deeper investigation of the issue. I’m gravely saddened that I’m writing this response, but her letter was very insulting and undermined the fact that those speakers have been subjected to so many kinds of violence.

It’s very troubling to see that even at a place like LSE we are not able to address each other and communicate on a human level. The tone she and the Israeli society used in their condemnations was not just dehumanising, but threatening. We talk about being future leaders, accepting other people’s ideas and making sure we graduate not only intellectual but moral and human. An institution like LSE, has been teaching me to stand up for what I believe in and never give in to fear or silencing.

It has also been teaching me that my culture is special and that I should demand respect for my personal and political causes, and yet, not once in her letter did the LSESU Anti-Racism Officer address the real issue behind it, which is whether or not we are allowed to express our opinion as equal members in this institution.

I sincerely hope that in the future all students are treated fairly, and investigation is launched before such accusations are not just said but written in an official document.

Comment

Tuesday February 3, 2015

14

Gender and Resistance in Occupied Palestine An Open Letter From Esther Gross, Anti-Racism Officer

From the Executive Editor

IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH of last week’s controversy we published the following two comment pieces. We did so in their (more or less) unabridged form as these were pieces written by elected Students’ Union officials and we wanted to represent their views in their entirety. The Beaver does not endorse the views in either piece or their mode of expression and wishes to stay neutral here, but feels that it should fulfil its function of facilitating the transmission of debate on campus.

We endeavour to publish all articles we are sent in some format.

We have printed another piece on this issue in this week’s paper not as a discretionary selection but as it was the only piece we were sent by the deadline that addressed the incident. Its publication without a counterpart from the other side of the argument should therefore not be taken as an endorsement of its position. If anyone wishes to respond then we will endeavour to publish their article. Please note, however, that we will be checking articles on this topic assiduously for good taste.

Going forward we will do our best to ensure that we present a responsible and balanced selection of articles on this topic. We therefore cannot guarantee that we will print everything we receive on this issue.

Esther Gross

LSESU Anti-Racism Officer I WAS EXTREMELY SHAKEN earlier to hear the recording of the event that took place on Holocaust Memorial Day, cohosted by the LSESU Feminist and Palestinian societies. The video and description of the event that followed it reported that one of the speakers openly weaponised rape, whilst another condoned the indiscriminate killing of Israelis through random acts of terrorism, saying that the recent suicide bombing deserved a standing ovation.

This shocked me beyond words.

The simple fact that someone was able to stand in front of an assembly of students and declare that it is legitimate to kill someone because of their nationality baffled me, and I could not understand how people who claim to fight discrimination could stand by such statements without a single objection. How much hate do you have to accumulate to decide that arbitrary killing is acceptable? Did the people in that room genuinely decide that all Israelis deserve to be randomly attacked? Or is the conflict so far away from their mind that they did not realise the very real impact of such words?

The appalling attempt made by the chairwoman of the event, who is actually an LSE research fellow, to justify the use of terrorism as a means to freedom just added to that sentiment. If you are ready to commend death, or the use of violence to free yourself from death and violence, then you are putting yourself on the exact same level as the aggressor.

“I could not understand how people who claim to fight discrimination could stand by such statements without a single objection. Did the people in that room genuinely decide that all Israelis deserve to be randomly attacked? Or is the conflict so far away they did not realise the impact of their words”

Amongst other things, she tried to equate the Israeli regime with the Nazi one, a statement which is in direct breach of the antiSemitism statement that was voted on just last week.

I was glad that the Feminist Society, at least, issued a statement apologising for the words.

I must admit, though, that given their history of protesting against controversial speakers – which I fully stood by, and I was in front of the Old Building with them when George Galloway came by last year – I was disappointed that such people would have been given a platform.

What remains to be seen now is whether the second organising party, the Palestinian Society, will also condemn, if not the speaker, then at least the statement. I think it’s fair to say that all Israeli students across campus were extremely shaken by the assertion, within the walls of their own university, of the validity of gratuitous violence. It would be nice if we could give them some reassurance.

An Open Letter From Samiha Begum, BME Officer

Samiha Begum

LSESU BME Students Officer I AM WRITING IN RESPONSE to the number of complaints I have received regarding the open letter issued by the LSESU Anti-Racism Officer, Esther Gross, to the Beaver.

I was deeply disappointed to read a statement released by an official Students’ Union officer that made strong allegations against LSE students without waiting for the official SU investigation report. The fact that the Anti-Racism Officer later stated the open letter was based on the SU report (despite the official investigation actually starting on Friday morning), that society presidents hadn’t been spoken to and the fact that the Anti-Racism Offic-

er herself wasn’t even present at the event is a grave matter of concern considering the fear-mongering and heavily opinionated content of her letter. Instead, the Officer chose to reference and source information from a frankly horrifying blog post written by Richard Millett to support her accusations.

Our Anti-Racism Officer made sweeping generalisations about the Feminist Society and the Palestine Society, and in doing so defamed the activism of these students. The Officer then proceeded to present complete inaccuracies about the content of the event (and comments made in its aftermath- ed.) when she suggested the speakers called for all Israelis to be randomly attacked: “I could not understand how people who claim to fight discrimination could stand by such statements without a single objection.

How much hate do you have to accumulate to decide that arbitrary killing is acceptable? Did the people in that room genuinely decide that all Israelis deserve to be randomly attacked... Amongst other things, (the chair of the event, Aitemad Muhanna-Matar) tried to equate the Israeli regime with the Nazi one, a statement which is in direct

“Our AntiRacism Officer made sweeping generalisations about the Feminist Society and the Palestine Society, and in doing so defamed the activism of these students.

The Officer then proceeded to present complete inaccuracies about the event.” breach of the anti-Semitism statement that was voted on just last week” What Aitemad actually said was: “At a lesser extent, Jews resisted against the Nazist kidnappers, but faced certain death, the same

as Palestinians who committed violence against the Israelis certainly face certain death” – this is not in breach of last week’s motion. She doesn’t compare the regimes she compares the resistance.

It’s concerning that the AntiRacism Officer has decided to take such a strong stance on the issue at hand despite not doing anything for Black History Month, Islamophobia Awareness Month, events in Ferguson nor taking a lead in fighting against the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill that many Muslims and non-Muslims on campus have been campaigning against in recent weeks. This has been picked up by BME students who have written to me complaining that they feel their own elected officers aren’t there to represent them. Some of their concerns include: “It makes me feel unsafe knowing that the Anti-Racism officer clearly supports these oppressive policies and therefore promotes these anti-liberation ideals on campus. Essentially a white woman has silenced and twisted the voice of 4 women of colour – abusing her power in direct contradiction of her role” – Aysha Al-Fekaiki, Msc Human Rights

“I feel like there was an absence of initiative taken to show solidarity with Ferguson and with black students on campus.” – Nadia Raslan, LSESU Environment and Ethics Officer “I hope you take this complaint seriously, as a black student complaining about their white AntiRacism Officer I think this is an issue that should not be ignored and poses a wider question of SU representation of students and those students feelings threatened by their own elected officers” – Emily Haimeed, NUS Delegate, Vice President of The Palestine Society.

There is a problem with white privilege extending to having a white woman hold the post to undermine anti-racism struggles on campus, and launching a shamelessly racist attack trying to silence four women of colour speaking about their struggles and resistance.

She also defends a white settler colonial regime and tries to delegitimise the voices of the native population it oppresses.

I call for a public apology from our Anti-Racism Officer on her deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and content of the Gender and Resistance talk on Tuesday evening.

15

Comment

Tuesday February 3, 2015

Why Is My Curriculum White?

LSE is an international institution that still insists that ‘West is Best’ Jasmina Bidé and Mukami Kuria THERE HAS BEEN MUCH talk recently in the LSE BME community- somewhat behind other institutions such as UCL and SOAS- of the issue of ‘Whiteness’ in academia. We believe this is a grave problem the LSE can no longer brush off. Considering that the School so obviously sells the promise of a multicultural experience, “with 150 nationalities represented on campus”, our curriculum fails to fulfil this promise.

The prominence of EuroAmerican hegemony in what we are taught and how we are taught is represented in the construction of varying opinions as peripheral.

Modules often reproduce the distinction between the core and the periphery by placing alternate views at the end of the course.

Weeks on decolonisation are often taught towards the end of the academic year; with reading lists erasing the experiences of the colonised; these voices are never represented. An abominable example of this is the complete absence of Franz Fanon, and Edward Said in many reading lists.

“A scheme by LSE last year aimed to bring in 100 international leading professors – only 1 was nonEuropean. ” The reproduction of whiteness only perpetuates the ways in which people of colour are “Othered” and seen as different and unimportant in comparison to the West.

There is a clear Eurocentric bias in the way courses are named and

taught purporting to speak to an International frame of analysis. Introductory and foundational courses such as HY116 – International History since 1890- are in reality a Euro-American History of the World since 1890. They speak over and erase people of colour. It is also evident that there is a distinct lack of professors of colour at the LSE. A scheme by LSE last year aimed to bring in 100 international leading professors – only 1 was nonEuropean.

In an institution, which is supposedly a bastion of enlightenment, our opinions -and hence, by extension, our persons- are made to feel marginalised.

Our views, since not acknowledged by the ever important reading list, are immediately delegitimised, seen as peripheral and of secondary consideration. Thus, we appear radical; obsessed with one particular, minute ‘detail’ which detracts from the class discussion on more ‘pertinent’ issues or broader themes. At the same time, in a bizarre and unsettling twist, we are considered ‘important voices’, tokenised for our ability to boost LSE’s credentials as a global and inclusive institution. We are expected to be deeply acquainted with the reading list, while providing a quick injection- usually towards the end of the class- of an alternate (read: exotic) perspective.

In casual conversations with our peers, we hear their implicit eye rolls as they brush off our topic choices for essays/ comments on the lectures/ general frustrations at LSE (“oh, you’re writing/talking / thinking about that again?”), as if they are tired of hearing about this.

But, unfortunately, what is more tiring than having to listen to our constant ‘complaints’, is actually existing in a system of education which makes these comments necessary.

And warrant strong, consistent protest it does: the NUS Black student’s Campaign survey (2010)

found that not only did 42 per cent of BME students not believe their curriculum reflected issues of diversity, equality and discrimination; a full 34 per cent of these stated they felt unable to bring their per-

“Academia is supposed to challenge and engage. If this is solely done through the prism of Euro-American hegemony it cannot be anything but limited.” spective as a Black [BME] student to lectures and tutor meetings.

Still, it is not only our impassioned criticism of and discomfort with the White Curriculum that makes it so problematic. Everyone, not only students who notice and are concerned by the white-washing of thought, and the institutions which house them, are adversely affected by it. Taught, as it currently is, as the truth and not a perspective (which, let’s be clear, it is) it is reinforcing and perpetuating the “West is best” view of the world. This flawed outlook is ultimately carried out of the hallowed halls of learning, seeping into our everyday lives, careers, and interactions with others. This then, unsurprisingly, plays a role in creating and maintaining myriad inequalities and power relations, not only on a global scale but, more insidiously, between the valuing of different cultures and systems within a nation.

Academia is supposed to challenge and engage. If this is solely being done through the prism of

the Euro-American hegemony it cannot be seen as anything but limited. There are obviously other perils of the white curriculum; really too many to go into here.

However, what is most evident is the lack of senior academics of colour, which in itself cannot but act to reproduce ‘whiteness’; both in the research published and the types of students this influences to continue with academia. As a result, this phenomenon continues to go unchallenged by the higher echelons of the School, and thus must be taken up by those most affected by it- concerned, deeply affected and frustrated students.

However, this does not exempt the LSE administration from decisive action. If the institution wishes to continually shamelessly market itself as ‘international’ and ‘diverse’; home to ‘cutting edge’ and ‘world class’ research, it needs to seriously reexamine and overhaul the vast majority of its curricula, ensuring it reflects these values as opposed to simply paying them lip-service.

The attempt to make a distinction between the core and the periphery exists in the institutional structures of the LSE and within our white curriculum. However, as students of colour, we are no longer peripheral as we exist in classrooms, yet are sat in them inundated by the whiteness of the curriculum.

How much longer can the LSE justify ignoring and erasing the opinions of those who are physically present in their classrooms?

Can the institution continue to ignore works, and writings that are relevant to us- and the broader world- and aligned with our lived experiences? We may be outside this hegemony, politically, socially and culturally. However Gayatri Spivak famously asked, “can the subaltern speak?” The answer is yes, and we the subalterns are speaking now.

Letters To The Editor Dear Editor, In the article entitled “Crimea River: Ukraine Isn’t the only victim”, Maria Komarova closes with “take back your Crimea and give us back our peace”. May I ask you to pass on to her my congratulations for making such a gracious offer on behalf of the Russian people. If only other nations displayed the same level of humility and understanding of responsibility. Imagine, for instance, had Adolf Hitler told Poland, “fine, Germany shall reverse the occupation of your lands and killing of your countrymen, now will you leave us alone!”. Our opinion of him today would undoubtedly differ very much. I suppose the only country that would have opposed such a move would have been Russia (USSR back then). Since such a U turn would have violated the pact it signed with the nazis in order to carve up Eastern Europe.

In any case, I wish Maria well in her endeavours to combat misconceptions concerning the current situation in Ukraine.

Best regards, Michal Cichowlas Dear Editor, I am not sure why you published an article headlined ‘London School of (Un)Employability’ but it seemed designed attack the LSE’s good name and strong UK and worldwide reputation, but even worse to unsettle LSE’s students for no reason.

The analysis is fatuous nonsense for the very reason that the LSE is a small university with the highest number of applicants per place of any UK university. Comparing the LSE or any specialist university to ‘full’ universities like Manchester, Oxford or Cambridge- which teach every subject under the sun and have 4-8 times the number of undergraduates and thus attract employers covering every field - is absolutely pointless.

Why on earth should employers such as the National Health Service or scientific or technology companies seek their employees from a non science university like the LSE? Just like say Goldman Sachs or the Bank of England don’t seek students from the Royal Veterinary College and media companies don’t seek students from Imperial College. It is simply common sense.

Yours faithfully and concerned,

Photo: Flickr: Joe Lodge

Nick Wilson LSE alumnus

Comment

Tuesday February 3, 2015

16

Why I Don’t Like‘UniLad’ On Facebook

Popular Lad Culture groups online are broadcasting harmful messages of racism and misogyny Alfie Elms T H E E X PA N S I O N O F universities within the UK has entailed the emergence of a distinctive youth subculture, the ‘Uni-Lad’. This is a phenomenon that has been closely associated with the rise of social media and coming forth are a breed of young males who partake in an array of ‘lad’ antics all in the apparently good and harmless name of ‘banter’.

The concept of a Uni-lad has been coined and shaped by Facebook groups such as ‘UNILAD’ and ‘The Lad Bible’. Although often witty and humorous these widely popular ‘Lad’ pages, each with millions of likes, are filled with endless racism, misogyny and homophobia. The content of these groups seems to reflect a greater trend within sectors of society at large, male dominated chauvinism warranted under the premise of ‘banter’. This was publicly evident in football manager Malky Mackay’s attempted justification for racism and homophobia on such grounds. This bears great similarity to a comment in which one man replied ‘You’re on UNILAD page… pls do mind the banter’ to a man questioning why a sexist photo arguing a woman should

be in the kitchen is funny. It only takes 5 minutes of looking through

“The content of these groups reflects a greater trend within society of large, male dominated chauvinism warranted under the premise of ‘banter’.” the various photos on these pages to find the sorts of comments that seem best suited to the minutes of a Klu Klux Klan meeting in the 1920’s. Within moments of looking on the site I came across a primary school child’s photo captioned with the quote ‘This n**** is so black they had to change the background white’. Another post compared the head shapes of a group of young black children in a rural village to a ‘Bubbly Chocolate Bar’. This sort of outright racism is matched with endless misogyny and sexism, such as a

meme containing a woman doing the splits in a gym with the words - ‘how a woman tells society she is single’. Clearly this was not the woman’s intentions when allowing the photographer to snap her flexibility. Although it shouldn’t actually have to be relevant, these photos were all posted by white males, making them indisputably unjustifiable. This sort of content is commonplace on these lad groups, a testosterone-fuelled space in which men take part in an egotistical contest to see how many likes their offensive comments can achieve.

The worrying thing is, although unacceptable anywhere, this sort of behaviour is not limited to behind the computer screen.

It is being replicated, albeit by a much smaller minority than online, in a life size game of ‘banter’ and ‘lad points’ often within universities. This ranges from casual sexism, racism and homophobia (if there is such a thing as ‘casual’ in these cases) within the university campus, the actions of the LSE Rugby Club standing as one example of such, to the now widely publicised and extremely distressing increases in rape crime within UK universities, which I believe to be undeniably connected to the rise in ‘UniLad’ culture. Within a society that has by and large become

tolerant it is worrying that we are openly allowing and supporting these Facebook pages. I myself am guilty of watching videos posted by these groups in the past, and the fact that 65 of my friends on Facebook, the majority of whom are decent people that would never consciously promote prejudice, like these groups, is indicative of how casual and un-recognised this sort of online behaviour has become. If those 65 people genuinely knew the negative effect that the rise in ‘lad culture’ was having I’m

“Within a society that has by and large become tolerant it is worrying that we are openly allowing and supporting these Facebook pages.” sure they wouldn’t actually ‘like’ a group such as the Lad Bible. This is an organisation that due to their very support, is now estimated to have a net worth of £6.4 million,

yet seems to do nothing about the discriminatory content promoted through its page.

The LSE as a university is a prime example of the negative knock on effect this ‘Uni-Lad’ culture is having. A university famed for its tolerance, internationalism and diversity, saw its Rugby Club handing out leaflets filled with exactly the kind of material found on these websites everyday. Since coming to the LSE I fear that its reputation for lacking a distinctively ‘Uni’ social life may in fact be fuelling the sort of behaviour it has previously been disassociated with. Societies such as the Rugby Club seem to be attempting to amend for this preconception by emulating ‘lad behaviour’. Rather than trying to ‘join em’ students of the LSE should be distinctly proud of the fact that it has generally avoided this association. While we as a society should be trying to eradicate rather than broadcast this ‘Lad’ craze, a relatively small yet harmful minority are provided with a gathering hub in Facebook Groups such as ‘UNILAD’ and ‘The Lad Bible’ . These are pages that we, by liking and sharing their content, are undeniably helping to flourish, consciously allowing prejudice to thrive online and emulate itself in everyday life.

Let’s Talk About Sex Education, Baby

Britain has a problem with sex education and LSE Sexpression hopes to rectify it on campus Emilie Sundorph A CLOSE FRIEND OF MINE recently entertained me with stories of the sexual education he received at his secondary school in South London. The name of the class was “Sex and Drugs” and to attend, the students were forced to sacrifice their lunch break and make their way up to a distant corner of the school library. The school expert on the topic was Brother Ben, a serious older man who had no sympathy for students interested in either of the two topics he was covering. The message was clear; they were morally if not legally equivalent, and engaging with them would have dire consequences. Questions were not encouraged and one may well ask if Brother Ben would have been qualified in answering any.

Now, a Catholic boys’ school is probably not where you would go to look for outstanding sex and relationship education in the first place. But to think that it is possible for a

child to go through all of his compulsory education without encountering any other knowledge about the body as a sexual entity than what was revealed in a “Sex and Drugs” class is frankly outrageous. To call it worrying is an understatement.

The UK is facing a range of issues relating to sexuality. For a long time it has been the country in Western Europe with the highest rate of teenage pregnancies and the trend has not yet reversed. 2.5 percent of women have experienced a sexual offence within the last twelve months and this rises to 20 percent when they are asked to consider their experiences since 16. Moreover, 85 000 women have been victims of the most serious sexual offences within the last year, most of them in the form of rape. Homophobic hate crimes are also prevalent, one in six bi- or homosexual people having experienced one within the last three years.

There are a number of ways to approach these serious concerns, and the increase in

police reports on both sexual and homophobic offences is a sign of more openness and hopefully progress. However, I believe that there are earlier stages where we can make a difference. Sexual education is key to developing an understanding of one’s body as well as a respect for others’. Laura

“An increase in police reports on sexual and homophobic offences is a sign of more openness and hopefully progress.”

Bates, the founder of The Everyday Sexism Project, recently pointed this out at a public talk: “No one has ever taught young girls that they have the right to their own bodies. That

knowledge is a human right”.

The expectation that young people will find out for themselves or be taught by the adults in their life is naïve. Many parents are uncomfortable with, if not themselves ignorant of, young sexuality and prefer to ignore that it exists. With regards to the perception that young people are better off being left to do their own research, it’s hardly pessimistic to assume that the outcome of such research has about a 50/50 chance of being either useful or disastrous. It largely comes down to privilege. If you won in the parent-lottery, sure, you are probably fine without school provision of sexual education and you may grow up with a healthy attitude to bodies, sex and relationships. But if not, sexual education can prove vital to you. If a class can leave just one boy less worried about his lack of desire to strangle his girlfriend in bed, one girl less petrified by the idea that anal sex is an assumed immediate practice or indeed leave anyone

less insecure about their attraction to their own sex, I think it’s worth it. These cases can sound exaggerated, but they are examples of very real concerns of teenagers around the country.

And the aim of a good sexual education class is to expel these fears and to give young people a more real idea of what sexuality is actually about. wThis is why we have established Sexpression at LSE. Sexpression is a national charity that has branches at universities across the country, and the aim is very simply to improve sex and relationship education in the UK. We will conduct classes on topics ranging from consent and desire to media images and STIs. If you have an interest in any of these topics and you can imagine taking part in any aspect of the society activities, please do get in contact as we need all the help, interest and passion we can get!

Email us to get more information at lse@sexpression.org.uk and follow us on Twiter @LSESexpression

17

Comment

Tuesday February 3, 2015

George Orwell And Katie Price In Bed Together?

Price’s use of a universal benefit finds unlikely support in Orwell’s 1930s book Joe Walters IF EVENTS OF THE PAST week have told us only one thing, and they have, it is that Katie Price and George Orwell have much more in common than you would think.

George Orwell was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He was a fierce critic of injustice and abuses of power, and was also in many respects a very conservative man. As well as his staunch opposition to birth control, Orwell disliked homosexuality and was a self confessed anti-feminist. In contrast Katie Price is a brash millionaire glamour model and exactly the kind of woman the awkward and socially conservative Orwell would loathe

and fear in equal measure. So how have the ex-page 3 girl and the introvert writer ended up in bed together?

This follows from a row between Katie Price and, the human embodiment of the Daily Mail, Katie Hopkins, over whether Price’s disabled son should be given transport to school at the taxpayer’s expense.

This took place on the reality television programme “Big Brother”, (an Orwell reference), where the millions of misguided viewers were able to watch the two anti-intellectual juggernauts go at each other.

Hopkins’ argument was that Price, with a net-worth of £40 million, could afford to pay for the transport and the personal nurse that the State provides for her son.

Whilst Price was of the opinion that she and more importantly her son, are entitled to the same help that is afforded to every other child with severe disabilities. Essentially what Hopkins is arguing for is a means test, where disabled people will have to prove that they do not have the means to get by without government assistance. This is where Orwell comes to the side of the Katie Price.

In 1937 Orwell wrote the book “The Road to Wigan Pier”. This documented his time spent in the industrial town of Wigan during the depression, and is a hard hitting expose of the poverty and hardship endured by the working class and the unemployed. Orwell is particularly critical of the effect of the means test

on the town, not only as it drove the elderly out of their family homes, as if they stayed with their children they would count as a lodger and therefore reduce the benefits they could receive. But also because the means test created an atmosphere that divided the community. Neighbours were turning on each other due to the feeling that people may be cheating the system and gaining an unfair advantage. In the words of Orwell; “There is much spying and talebearing. One man I knew, for instance, was seen feeding his neighbours chickens while the neighbour was away. It was reported to the authorities that he “had a job feeding chickens and he had great difficulty in refuting this”.

This is a mirror of the atmosphere within the working class today. Those who work hard for a modest living are spited by what they see as a growing class of people who bring in just as much but by manipulating the benefits system. Given this it doesn’t seem wise to make benefits for disabled children means tested too.

The effect of means tested benefits is resentment and disunity between those who receive them and those who do not. Orwell was very aware of this, and if he were alive today I am sure he would support Katie Price’s right to receive financial help for her disabled son, even if he would be too awkward and shy to tell her so.

Climate Change: Everything’s Gone Green

LSE100 students are thinking about Climate Change, and everyone else should be too Megan Beddoe THIS TERM HAS BROUGHT with it the start of LSE 100 for first year undergraduates, LSE’s course in ‘thinking like a social scientist’.

Although the additional workload may be met with rumblings of complaint by some, the first module topic of climate change is certainly one of ever growing importance in the modern world. The idea of LSE100 as a course to use interdisciplinary research methods to explore a global problem seems to be very much applicable to a topic such as climate change, and actually it would be very difficult to truly do it academic justice by studying it solely from academic field. As time moves forward and the true scale of the problem which human influence has created (in part or as a whole), the only way to solve will be through the co-operation of many different people from many different fields.

The more that I think and learn about climate change, the more that it frankly worries me. I would not consider myself an eco-warrior by any means, but we can no longer afford to relegate environmental concerns to a backseat reserved for so-called ‘tree-huggers’ among mainstream politics.

Climate change will affect us. It is already affecting us. It will only continue to do so. These are the facts. It is no longer a question of if our world will change irreversibly, it’s when.

Living in the UK has afforded people here a sense of security which is arguably misplaced. We are lucky enough to be able to deal with the climatic changes which have occurred here. Our material wealth has given us an advantage when the earth has done its best to cause

destruction. This, however, is not to suggest that the UK has seen no major disasters when it comes to the environment. I clearly remember seeing the heartbreaking images of the floods in Southern England in December 2013, contrasted with my Christmas of that year spent in a warm dry home enjoying too much food and the company of my family. But in spite of the devastation, communities have been able to rebuild and carry on in a relatively short space of time. In Summer 2004, Bangladesh suffered one of its worst floods in recent history, affecting 36 million people and flooding almost a quarter of the country according the Bangladesh Disaster and Emergency Response sub-group. In Bangladesh, regular flooding since then has not provided a stable environment to recover and rebuild. The same report warns of the risk of the poorest people who were affected slipping further into poverty as a result of the disaster.

Communities there were not able to return to normal life in the way that those in the UK have been able to.

The western public is able to insulate itself from events like these, related to, and possibly exacerbated by climate change, through thinking that they are happening far away, and couldn’t possibly happen to us.

When they do, the resources that we have access to protect us from the worst impacts of the disaster. The immediate and long term flood response enacted by the government to the 2013 UK floods was very different to the response possible in 2004 in Bangladesh. More money and more resources mean a more effective response and better preventative measures. But the more we distance ourselves, and the more

we ignore the impact we are having on our planet, the more it will happen to all of us. Now is the time to act, and we must all act together.

Every single person, and every single government has a role to play in managing climate change, because sooner or later, every single person will feel its devastating effects.

As the public recognition of the importance of climate change grows, so does its prominence in politics. The Green Party (made up the all of the constituent UK parties) have now overtaken both UKIP and the Liberal Democrats in terms of membership figures.

This makes them the third largest party behind Labour and the Conservatives. Interestingly, much of their support is from the youth demographic, according to recent YouGov voting intention statistics they are tied with the Conservative party for 22% of the vote among 18-24 year olds. This is certainly a reason for optimism. We don’t know how climate change will affect future generations, but we do know that the youth of today will be the leaders of tomorrow, and they will be central to how the issue is handled by the world and what its effects will be as we move through the 21st Century. Courses like LSE100 are one way in which educational institutions can educate the people who they hope will be the leaders of tomorrow, but it is pretty unique in its approach. Education on the issue of climate change needs to be much more widespread to effect real change. We can only hope that the increase in popularity of the Greens is one way in which young people are recognising that they will be the engineers of earth’s future, and this is not a Photo: Flickr: Todd Fowler

Photo

Photo

LSESU Education Officer Tom Maksymiw en route to the RAG Tough Guy contest with a sleepy A & D Officer Alastair Duncan, who below dances the Ceilidh with C & W Officer Seb Bruhn.

More photos of the Ceilidh and Tough Guy can be seen below.

Tuesday February 3, 2015

18

LSESU General Secretary Nona Buckley-Irvine looks happy after overseeing the creation of a rent guarantor scheme to be backed by the School, more details page 1

The Beaver 09.10.2012

PartB Cover Art: George Lo

INTERVIEW WITH SARAH MAPLE

F

eminist fury at it’s finest is how I’d describe the work of Sarah Maple. Her work is funny, provocative, sexy and intelligent at same time – her bold style allows us to laugh at the expense of the patriarchy and challenges stereotypical presentations of Muslim women.

How would you best describe your practice?

The first word I thought of then was 'awesome', haha!

Blow your own trumpet much?! Just kidding. I would say my work explores gender roles, feminism, religion and society in a way that is accessible to a wide audience.

Did your feminism come about it was a reaction to anything?

I think I was inspired by my cultural upbringing but also naturally reacting to the inequality I was experiencing everyday. This one time I had a crit at art school and realized that when the women spoke about their work, they were shut down, but every time the men spoke, there was this automatic and natural respect. Immediately, people took their work more seriously. I was complicit in this too and it was totally unspoken about but the attitude was really pervasive. But, suddenly, it clicked that I might be held back in life due to my gender.

I drove home in a rage and the 'I wish I had a penis' work came into my head. I haven't looked back since.

Have people taken offence to your work?

People have taken a lot of offence over the years and have let me know about it. I don't let it get to me as much now, it still does sometimes, I am human after all! I think it's harder for artists these days, back in the day you wouldn't be made aware of so many different people's opinions through social media etc. Mind you it works the other way around as well, as much negativity there is, there is double the positivity, which really keeps me going. I am much better at laughing it off, if people tweet things to me, it's best to ignore it, as hard as that is! It's funny really, the one people get most upset about is 'The Opposite to a Feminist.'

What is your best bit of advice?

Put your slippers on the radiator when you go out in the morning so when you get back they are toasty warm.

What does the future hold for Sarah Maple?

I would like to know the answer to that too! I just want to be able to keep making my art, as long as I can do that I'll be very happy.

Can you name three female creatives to look out for in 2015?

My faves, Meg Mosely, Juno Calypso, Helen Benigson and Lisa Selby. Sorry that's four, I couldn't leave anyone out there!

Tell me something someone had said to you that they wouldn't have said to a make artist: 'You could have worn something a bit sexier for that interview.'

Do you think the industry has improved for women: Statistics are showing that things are improving but we still have a very long way to go. Men still out perform us in shows and sales. I believe the Whitechapel is the only gallery to show equal male/female shows.

Do you find that people usually define you by your ethnicity and gender?

Hahaha oh yes, people want to put you in a box, I used to be 'Muslim Artist' most of the time, now it's 'Feminist Artist'. But I don't mind too much, I'm proud of both of those things!

JADE JACKMAN

Tuesday February 3, 2015

20

21

Tuesday February 3, 2015

TICKETS

DO YOU THINK IT HELPFUL TO HAVE ALL WOMEN PERFORMANCES OR CREATIVE SPACES? Yes. Firstly because I feel like those spaces make female actors feel safe. And feeling safe and comfortable is paramount to the creative process.

And, speaking from personal experiences, I’ve often shied away from auditioning for plays that I really would like to act in, because more often than not all the female roles are just romantic accessories to the male characters. And I don’t feel comfortable playing those roles. Its always “So Purvaja will be auditioning for Mr X’s wife/girlfriend/sister/daughter/mother.” Its rarely ever the female character in their own right, existing without any association to a male character. In my high school in India, the 11th grade production was “The Enemy of the People” – there were only 2 female roles, of which they were the wife and daughter of the main character. And I remember in auditions there was a surplus of female actors auditioning, and all the actresses who didn’t get one of those two roles were cast as villagers and they ended up leaving the production altogether.

So in short I think all female creative and performance spaces are important as they allow self-identifying women actors to be present, and not simply a physical presence on stage but a productive, intellectual, and meaningful presence. Such that we do not exist exclusively as the “Other”. (The “other-ing” of women is gross omg) And I feel like those spaces let aspiring actresses see other women doing it, and hopefully instil confidence in them and make them think they can do something like that in the future.

17

LSE £5/NON-LSE £7.50 fem soc is having a houghton street stall during this week. tickets can also be bouvht online: http://www.lsesu.com/events/6552/3387/

In YOUR OPINION, WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO HAVE AN ALL WOMEN CAST? With respect to the Vagina Monologues, it is within the regulations that all the performers be self-identifying women.

So during the audition process, I suppose it wasn’t really a directorial decision I made to cast only self-identifying women.

But in saying that all the monologues are based on women’s experiences, so even if it wasn’t within the regulations I

would’ve cast an all self-identifying

woman cast for the play.

WHY DID YOU WANT TO PUT ON VAGINA MONOLOGUES?

DO YOU THINK IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WOMEN TELL WOMEN'S STORIES?

After attending the Women's Network

Launch, I spoke with one of the speakers,an LSE alumni who during her time at the LSE put on the Vagina Monologues with the Gender Institute and Femsoc. So X basically introduced me to “The Vagina Monologues”. The two most empowering things in my life have been advocating for women’s rights and acting, and so when I heard about the Vagina Monologues and the prospect of marrying these two interests – I just had to do it.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I’m not for a second denying the acting abilities of non-female actors, however given the nature of The Vagina Monologues, I feel like the power and emotion expressed in the pieces would come from a very very real place, if done by a self-identifying woman.

Also with that in mind, having women tell women’s stories I feel isn’t just an issue of representation and an opportunity for women to tell their stories – it is also about tackling the wider issue, the disheartening issue, the issue of the lack of participation of women in creative spaces.

jade jackman and purvaja kavattur

S E U G O L O N O M A N I G A V O D C DIRECTED BY: purvaja kavattur FEM SO DATE: 14th february 2015 DOORS OPEN 6:45/SHOW STARTS 7:15

14

Tuesday February 3, 2015

You cannot be what you cannot see. The aftermath of the Oscars was frustrating – people asked WHERE ARE THE FEMALE FILMMAKERS! Reasonable question – where were the female filmmakers? Wealthy and powerful organisations have a responsibility to seek out, engage and change their structures so that they can facilitate and support a diverse range of participants.

Just because they weren’t included doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Time and time again, the male gaze sexualises women’s stories (eg women are TWICE as likely to be naked on screen), only 7% of all directors are women and female creativity is shot down for being TOO PERSONAL or just not serious enough. This issue is a celebration of the work of some amazing female creatives in order to highlight their talent – and also their existence.

Special thanks to all who contributed their time and energy to this issue – Vikki Hui, George Lo, Alice Aedy, Purvaja Kavattur, Aisha Arden and Raisa Huq – and also the wonderful women who chatted to us for this special edition of Part B. It is my hope that this celebration of the work of some amazing self-defining women will inspire us to continue pushing boundaries, question why there is unequal representation and to challenge the stereotypes that serve to constrain us.

JADE JACKMAN

22

23

17

Tuesday February 3, 2015

INTERVIEW with Katharine Round Modesty doesn’t even come close to a fair description of Katharine Round. Not only is she the owner of two companies (Literally Films and Disobedient Films) and one of the co-founders of DocHeads, she is also the director of what will be one of the most astounding films of 2015 – the Spirit Level. The Spirit Level is a documentary based on the bestselling book and certainly needs a talented, brave and highly intelligent director with a strong vision to tackle it – luckily, Katharine is all of those things so audiences can expect an exciting visualisation of theory.

In your own words, what do you do?

In simple terms, I’m a documentary filmmaker. Film fascinates me as do ‘real life’ stories. A lot of people assume that there is only one way to make a documentary but my work attempts to combine interesting visual representation with an effective portrayal of the character. I guess I make creative documentaries because I’m interested in how you can tell a story in a myriad of ways and pushing the boundary between film and reality.

Can you tell us a bit about DocHeads: There are four of us – two men and two women. I set it up with my colleagues there because we were really excited about the new voices that were emerging from the independent sector. We’d been to Sheffield and various events where you’d get to know people in the scene. It can be hard to keep track of people and we thought it would be good to have an event where you could be inspired by your friends and their work. Surprisingly, it really took off!

What is your favourite documentary that you have shot?

I have to say that it is the film I finished shooting today – The Spirit Level. It is the most ambitious thing I’ve done. It is weird because it is an unflimable book and I was quite silly to try and do it… It brings together all my interests. Narrartively visually and intellectually it is the most complicated thing I have done but it also brings together all my great loves. The film is an amalgamation of stories, maths, art, psychology and economics – except economics actually… economics isn’t really a great love – I find all these things fascinating. The process of making it has been a series of stages but it hasn’t come out yet so it is hard to tell at this stage!

How did you get into filmmaking?

I did a degree at Leeds in Broadcasting. I guess I always kind of wanted to be a filmmaker because I was interested in the visual side of the storytelling process. I’m not sure I really knew what a documentary filmmaker was then! I got a job with the BBC and progressed through the TV ranks for a couple of years.

Do you have some advice for those who want to get into the industry?

Just watch as many films as you can – documentary and fiction. Think about what you want to say because you have to have a clear idea! And, then, start shooting! Nobody ever gets to the point when you know enough – you never do! Every time you start again you are responding and learning from scratch.

If you could shoot a film about anything what would it be…

Oh god! Not something about all the world’s problems! It is a hard question to ask me after just finishing the Spirit Level because it really contains everything I am interested in.

Virunga. The reason I think Virunga is so good is because it manages to combine amazing storytelling about a current issue and also takes an ambitious approach. Another film that really stands out is the Act Of Killing… you can’t come out the cinema feeling the same after watching that film. My whole perspective was changed and I was taken into a world that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into but I’m glad I was.

Favourite bit of advice?

Be yourself and don’t let others tell you who you are. And, don’t worry about who you are.

Tell me about some interesting shooting conditions you have been under: The most intense shooting experience I had was on the Spirit Level. The film is constructed around seven different stories from around the United States and the United Kingdom. Othering is a central theme of the book and our attitudes towards crime and punishment falls into that. I’d been looking for a way to tell the story of the American prison system from the inside. I’d been spending a long time on prisoner pen pal sites to move beyond the theory and engage with the individuals who were having the direct experience of the US justice system, as it is vital to work from the lived experiences of those in the situation. As I said, I’d been talking to a lot of people through these pen pal sites and one day I got a letter. It was pretty intense and disturbed me a bit. I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know what to make of it but I knew he was the man. His insight was penetrating but I just didn’t know. It was like a blind date because I was arranging to film a man whose voice I’d never heard. I’d never even been in an American prison before! We drove to Texas, winding down roads to be greeted by razor wire and they walked us through – I’d never seen a room so terrifying! There were these booths… I was so close yet so removed. It was like shooting in a different world. Our conversation was so intimate. It was an intense hour with someone I will never see again. Now, I still write to him as I don’t think I’d been so emotionally affected in my life. It is hard to know what to expect when you go into someone else’s life like that – it is a real privilege for someone to let you into their world. He was incredibly eloquent and I’m not sure whether he realised how powerful it was.

Who are your favourite female filmmakers?

Eva Weber as she has a very distinctive style and always tells interesting stories. Clio Barnard (director of the the Arbor) and Andrea Arnold (director of Fish Tank) – all of these women are filmmakers I’d love to work with as well.

Do you think you have ever been treated differently because of your gender in the industry?

It is hard to say. My feeling is that it isn’t so much that people are meaningfully sexist…

Our worldview is saturated by different oppressive structures that inhibit the way that we think about certain professions or roles. People who run things are often from the same background or ethnicity (usually white and male!) and our views are often unconsciously shaped by that. I didn’t start out thinking I’d have to fight more because I was a woman but the power structure is set up for men, absolutely. You are always fighting that and the more we are getting different voices out there the more we will question our ideas of what a voice is. That’ll be good for everyone not just women. For me, the problem is structure as the structure permeates everything in the world that we live in.

JADE JACKMAN

What is the most exciting documentary that has recently come out?

14

Tuesday February 3, 2015

! !

S N E E V L M E O S W R U O Y W INTERVIEW SHO

24

WITH WOMEN YOU SHOULD SOPHIE MAYER KNOW ABOUT

S

ophie Mayer is a tour de force. She is a writer, editor, educator and activist who skilfully combines her passion for the arts with social justice. She lectures at LCC, Queen Mary University of London, writes for Sight and Sound and the F-word and is also a member of the super kick ass queer feminist film curation collective Club des Femmes.

AVA DUVERNAY

1) What is it like For me, the exciteto be a woman in ment of the latter has to feed into changing your field?

ANA LILA AMIRPOUR

kim longinotto

Maya Deren

I have several fields: I'm an academic, a poet, a film journalist, and an activist.

Part of the reason for that is economic (which is still gendered: statistically, women are still under-represented at sustainable-income levels across academia, the arts, journalism, and activism), and part of that is both a need and preference for mobility. Each sector has its own structural and intersecting oppressions and absences, and each sector is also full of people working to challenge that in exciting and important ways. I oscillate between feeling welcome and celebratory, and frustrated and excluded, at different times, across different spaces.

It can, for example, feel very alienating to be one of only a few women at a press screening for a film, but it can also be exciting to be asked to cover things like The Falling (Carol Morley), Belle (Amma Asante), Dreamcatcher (Kim Longinotto) and Transparent (Jill Soloway) for Sight & Sound, and to have the opportunity to advocate for their significance!

the former, by using whatever platform I have to advocate for more underrepresented voices within every sector where I work. It's not just about me and my access, I mean, but using the access that I am privileged to have (because of my educational background and because I'm able-bodied, for example) to generate debate and agitate for change.

Hence my open letter to Sight & Sound: http://www.bfi.org. uk/news-opinion/ sight-sound-magazine/comment/invitation-not-enough

2) What advice would you give a young woman about going into the creative industry?

In the words of one of my film students, when asked for a one-line manifesto for young filmmakers, "don't be a dick" - in all the ways that means. What I've learned from my own experience as an academic, writer and activist is echoed by what filmmakers tell me: the most important thing for your work is your network.

Any industry, profession or project is made up of people, and therefore of interpersonal relationships: nurture them.

Be interested in peo-

ple, be kind to them, get involved in their projects and their stories, be gracious if they offer you assistance or advice.

It's very easy to get fixated on "networking" vertically, always trying to make a connection to someone more powerful; but if we network horizontally, supporting each others' projects and visions, then the creative industry itself changes!

3) Do you believe it is a good time to be a woman in the creative industry?

It's better than trying to be a woman in the creative industry in 18th century London, but it's probably more difficult for a working class queer woman now than it was for upper class lesbians in Paris in the 1920s. Changes in institutional oppression and marginalisation are uneven, historically and geographically. And part of it depends on how you define your industry: is it a good time to start a feminist zine, or micro film festival, or make a cellphone documentary, or start a non-binary clothing line - yes. Both social media and social change have created spaces in which incredible projects are flowering, reaching audiences, and even

25

17

Tuesday February 3, 2015

cal and popular success of Ava DuVernay's work is absolutely a testament to that trajectory, and is incredibly inspiring.

But is it a good time to be a transwoman of colour who wants to direct a big-budget action movie? No, it's still not. What Martha Lauzen's statistics make painfully clear is that, in cultural projects, as money (and prestige, with which it's bound up) comes in, women and minorities go out.

The higher the stakes on a project, the more the system is locked down. What I argue in my book on feminist cinema, Political Animals, is that there is a diversity of filmmakers (directors, writers, editors, producers) working at every level and in every genre across the film industry in many countries, and there should be.

I'd love to see transgender Navajo director Sydney Freeland take on the next blockbuster superhero film; say the new Ms Marvel, why not! But I also want to be able to see her current indie film Drunktown's Finest get global distribution and critical attention. Structural inequalities are as much about asymmetric economics and access (and media coverage) as about representation. We need to to celebrate the amazing range of work being made, *and* to ask hard questions about why it's still not easier to make and still not easier for audiences to access.

4) Do you think there is more of a fear of women and LGBT+ characters not being fully fleshed out characters, more so than men? And if so, why?

Is it because the majority of writers are men, and thus only write through tired tropes?

Simple answer: yes. I think filmmaker Debs Paterson addresses this really well in her post for Women and Hollywood about empathy and storytelling.

There is a high stake in imagining yourself as the Other, if the Other is "inferior"

in the dominant value system. Firstly, because the more superior (you consider) your identity, the fewer close interpersonal connections with diverse people you probably have; and secondly, because the more marginal an identity, the fewer cultural representations of it there are.

Thus: vicious circle, in which a small group of people control cultural (and legal and political) representations, having little or no access to the kind of personal relationships or cultural texts that would give them an insight into the Other; they then produce texts that replicate the situation - sometimes, if they're liberal, out of fear of offending (which is really a lack of both knowledge and the will to get it); or, equally, there are inadequate or stereotypical representations.

Devon Abbott Mihesuah's book So You Want to Write About American Indians? is an absolutely brilliant account of this issue: of its pitfalls, and how to avoid them through being a more ethical person, basically. That means being willing to perceive and analyse and challenge your own privilege, and to let go of status anxiety in order to listen really listen - to other people, and put them first. It's hard work, which is why a lot of people don't do it. If you have all the privilege anyway, why do the work, is the attitude I meet from some editors and writers.

Gaining a richer humanity, being a better person and artist, doesn't seem to be something they value.

5) With the wild success of Orange Is the New Black, with its fully fleshed out female characters written by women, do you think the only way to get stronger female characters and better representation in the media is by encouraging female writers to do it themselves?

Again: short answer, yes.

Representation (in the legal sense,

who is doing the speaking for whom) may not fully determine representation (images and narratives) but, in an unequal system, as I've said above, there's little in it for privileged writers to write about individuals, communities and narratives other than their own except to colonise and appropriate them, which is not a real representation.

So how do we change this? By changing our value system, so that diverse representation and narrative is prioritised over more of the same. That requires having commissioning teams and funding organisations and writing rooms and writing programs that are intersectionally diverse on all axes.

As Junot Diaz pointed out last year, the teaching of arts in American universities remains strongly white (and straight cismale) biased, in terms of personnel, but also pedagogical content and value systems.

When I was co-editing Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot with Sarah Crewe and Markie Burnhope), we received several poems from quite wellestablished poets who said they'd never felt comfortable, or had an outlet in the UK, for a particular poem or kind of writing that was explicitly feminist before.

It's hard to see your full self in writing if you can't see it reflected in other writing: another vicious cycle we need to break by amplifying and supporting the voices already out there.

So we need to start with education, to break the cycle, and we need systemic change throughout the creative industry. The BFI's "three ticks" diversity initiative, which addresses on-screen representation, offscreen hiring practices and social mobility, is a good example of a systemic change with real clout.

RAISA HUQ

FILMS YOU SHOULD WATCH

FISH TANK

dreamcatcher

selma

one mile away

paris is burning

JADE JACKMAN

The Beaver 09.10.2012

PartB Cover Photo by Alice Aedy

WEDNESDAY NIGHTS

CHAIRBAN MAO

CHAIR TODAY

NAB SPECIAL COMPETITION!

R I A H C

GONE TOMORROW Confusion was rife within the Athletics Union last week after it was revealed that chairs were no longer to be permitted in The Venue prior to Zoo Bar on Wednesday nights.

As rumour and counter-rumour circulated on Wednesday afternoon (do you actually ever play sport? ed.), it was initially thought that chairs had been banned by Gen Sec Nochairs Buckley-Irvine-nothing-to-do-withme-honest. It emerged, however, that the fact that ‘Nona Buckley Irvine Hates Us’ is an anagram of ‘SU Elite Envy Us; No Chair Ban, K?’ proved

nothing other than that Gareth Tosser has an unholy amount of time on his hands.

It became apparent later in the day that the chairs had actually been removed as a result of HEALTH AND SAFETY GONE LAD, as Estates saw them as a dangerous and cumbersome fire hazard.

!

IN W

noone in the AU would know he was and shuffling off to feed Saif Gaddafi.

When asked by the NAB for comment, Peter Sutherland said “speaking as a chair who should have been removed ages ago, I thoroughly endorse Estates’ decision”, before realising that

Reports began to circulate on Thursday that AU members had been told by Tuns staff that they would not be able to bring their own chairs to The Venue on Wednesdays, thus putting an end to Men’s Rugby’s abortive #stools4tools campaign.

TIRED OF STANDING ALL NIGHT? WHY NOT STAY IN THIS WEDNESDAY WITH OUR MOVIE PLAYLIST Empty chairs at empty tables, Where my friends will play intimidating drinking games no more

WELCOME TO THE

Captain Jack Harrow surprisingly turns on colleague William Buckley-Irvine

The Chair Necessities, the Simple Chair Necessities, Forget about sitting on Wednesday nights

PHILPOTS OF THE CHAIR-IBBEAN

Photo Credit: *D.-graphy

by

Tuesday February 3, 2015

L A R

CLARNAGE A N D FLONVICT Florian Neziri and Clara Schutz Warsaw, Poland Over £400 ra ised

U G U

A N I

28

JAILBREAK MOTHER-RUCKERS Julia Ryland, Gee LinfordGrayson, Robyn Connelly-Webster Almuñécar, Spa in £840 ra ised

The initial plan was to try our luck at St Pancras with the Eurostar, but there were severe disruptions to the trains there, so that ultimately failed. We had already put in place a plan B, and this was to head to Victoria Coach Station, and try our luck with the coaches. After initial rejection from National Express, we tried our luck with a Polish company called Sindbad. No problem in getting a coach at all, they just needed proof we were doing what we claimed we were (thank you RAG for the info sheet!).

Long story short, we had a 24-hour coach journey from London to Warsaw, which can only be described as a slow form of torture, going through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany. Also, as we were the only non-Polish speaking people on board, we had no idea what was going on whenever an announcement was made in Polish. Several Polish-dubbed films later, we made it to Warsaw. At this point, we were destroyed and just wanted to go home, so headed to the airport.

Attempts were made to blag a last-minute flight further east, but after several bewildered looks, and rude responses, we proceeded to book an extortionate flight back to London at 6am.

We came second overall, having travelled 1446.7km.

Quite proud of our efforts (and also a little disappointed to not have won), having been in the lead for a large portion of the Saturday, but well done to the winners, and everyone else involved, for making this a great experience and raising thousands of pounds for a worthwhile charity.

We had our unicorn called Caesar with us to bring us good luck and persuade more stony-faced members of the public to help us out and embrace the spirit of the charity jailbreak.

In terms of fundraising, we went with the gimmick that if we were to raise £400, then Flo would shave his head. This target was met in the week after Jailbreak took place, with some last donations from Flo’s 5 housemates, adding to the generous early donations from friends and family, and now Flo is bald. Poor Flo.

100 FOOT JOURNEY Daniel Mackay and Peter Lyon Brno, Czech Republic £205 ra ised

Motherruckers’ Spanish adventure began with the great fortune of an empty leg Fly LEA flight to Madrid. After getting in touch through one of our rugby coaches, we were lucky enough to be able to travel to the capital of Spain in the utmost luxury and all for free. We had the most incredible experience in the plane which included excitedly chatting with the air hostess, pilot and captain as well as Gee showing us her best ‘Shake It Off’ T-Swift moves.

However, it wasn’t all fun and games after that.

Friday night saw us try tirelessly to hitchhike or beg our way on to buses or trains but we were completely unsuccessful. A confused man gave us a lift round the corner to a cheap hotel at 3am where Robyn proceeded to walk straight into the automatic doors. Julia nearly managed to make the staff refuse us a room due to her incessant giggling. Not quite how we’d envisaged it going.

Anyway, Saturday brought more of the same failed hitching, failed begging but slightly improved Spanish. Hitting breaking point at about 2pm, it seemed time to call the one and only Katie Budd who proceeded to tell us that the €60 the nice Met Office chief exec had given us could be used to pay for tickets to Granada. So, off we went. Further south, no warmer.

BlaBla Car allowed Gee to talk our new best friend Sergio into giving us a free lift from Granada to Almuñécar where we decided to call it a day. We were tired but proud and felt that the efforts we’d gone to in order to keep going were 100% worth it as we saw the donations for Spires come in. Winning was really a great way to top the weekend off for us and also managing to raise the most money confirmed what a private jet, a lot of laughs and broken Spanish can achieve for such a good cause.

We had decided beforehand that the first thing to do would be to pursue the slim chance of getting a flight by phoning airlines and companies selling empty legs of charter flights. If that didn’t work out we planned to get to Dover via one of the popular hitching spots in South London. At midday on Friday, we found a free room on campus and make a few calls. Adrian from Exec Flyer gave us some optimism, although he could not immediately tell us if there were any empty legs still to leave London airports. He suggested we go to Biggin Hill Airport to find out for ourselves. After travelling on two buses we found that the only available plane was to Birmingham and had a faulty engine, so we decided to head for Dover.

After five minutes standing on the nearest straight section of road we were given a lift down the road to Clacket Lane services on the M25. From there we had an amazing stroke of luck when Gerd, a German commissioner of power plants, picked us up after only 10 minutes. It soon transpired that he was driving through the night all the way to Leipzig in East Germany.

He dropped off at about 6am by a petrol station, where we had breakfast and a shower. It only took 10 minutes of waiting in the snow to be taken to the next major city, Dresden. Angelika, our driver, informed us that she was in charge of the environment for the Leipzig region, so she unsurprisingly made an effort to point out all the wind and solar farms, ironically while thundering down the Autobahn at 160km/h.

At Dresden, we had to make a decision; continue eastwards towards Krakow in Poland, or take a right turn and go South through the Czech Republic. Based on the knowledge that a team were already en route to Warsaw, and it would be impossible for anyone to continue into Russia due to the visa requirements,

we thought we would have more chance of winning by going South. After standing for about half an hour with “Praha” on our whiteboard, we were given a lift past Prague and then to Brno, despite a few language difficulties. After persuading our driver not to leave us on the hard shoulder, we eventually made it to a very quiet petrol station by a retail park, which weirdly had a Tesco and a Sports Direct. Hoping to make it to Bratislava, we stood there for hours with no success despite seeing a few Slovakian number plates.

With the light fading and the snow falling heavily we headed home by catching a free bus to the centre of town, then a train to Prague and a flight to Heathrow.

29

Tuesday February 3, 2015

BEAV ER ON THE LOOSE NANDHA’S ANGELS Jon Allsop, Jade Jackman, Seb Ash Tanieka Kargwal, Kru pa Thakker, Vienna, Austria £705 ra ised Vivek Nandha Blackpool, England, £100 ra ised

It was about half-past midnight when the man came to tell us there were waffles outside. How we got to this point is still somewhat of a mystery. According to the beatnik translation of a Belgian Super Hans lookalike, the train driver had seen an accident and was still in too much shock to be put in charge of any rolling stock. Belgian rail, as it turns out, makes the East Coast Mainline look like it’s under the direction of Benito Mussolini. And so we were stuck in Kortrijk. In Flemish Belgium. In the cold.

We got our first break about 10 hours previous with the help of a teasing French bus driver. He paused, sucked his teeth, and then was like whatever the French for ‘yeah, fuck it, why not’ is. We left him 5 hours later in Lille, drawing on a much-deserved cigarette and staring existentially into the distance next to the bus.

It was from Lille that we got the fateful train to Kortrijk.

We were trying to get to Brussels that evening but faced with a dearth of options, huddled into the train for Gent with the hope that we might continue on from there.

Fast forward and we’re still tearing open the plastic on our waffles when the call goes out that there’s a taxi for Brussels. It’s not for us but we know if we make it to the capital there’s a place for us to stay. And Kortrijk looks shit. Furtive eye-contact is made between the team and we shuffle stealthily over to the vehicle. A Belgian official gleefully fills in a form but forgets to check if we have a ticket and before you know it, we’re speeding down the motorway at a speed which looks faster than it is because no one knows how many funny kilometres make a British mile.

Unfortunately, when we called our friends in Brussels, they were still in the bar. Forced to sip aromatic beer and make small talk with the bruxellois youth until 4 o’clock in the morning, we only got a fraction of our forty winks that night.

We rose at daybreak and by 8’o’clock, we were standing outside the commission in 2 inches of snow.

“Brussels isn’t working,” Jon remarked. We all agreed

that we’d seen what he did there. This bureaucratic labyrinth had become an icy prison that we thought we’d never get out of. The irony was chilling.

But just like a sclerotic socialist southern European debtor nation, Germany was there to bail us out. Seb pleaded in broken German with the train conductor to let us on and before you knew it we were on our way to Frankfurt.

The rest was plain sailing. We sped like a high-speed train through the German countryside down to Munich, to Salzburg, and onto Vienna. Each time we got somewhere, Seb would try his German charm on the nearest Deutsche Bahn employee and before you could say ‘Hochgeschwindigkeitsverkehr’ we were onto the next one.

We disembarked in Vienna a little tipsy from the beers we’d bought in the bistro carriage. It was still snowing and we’d still only made about half the Ultravox jokes that we were going to.

We started with a rather ambitious mind-set as we headed to Heathrow airport by tube to try and bag ourselves a free flight to – just about anywhere! After approaching every airline from British Airways to Aer Lingus, we were sadly rejected despite our professional outfits!

We then made our way back to the tube station and headed to St Pancreas, plan B was to try and attempt to get on the Eurostar, the Senior manager teased us with one way tickets to Sydney but no place on the Eurostar!

With a more realistic approach we then headed for Victoria Bus station to board a bus which we thought was going to Dublin, which in fact was heading to Manchester! 5 hours

later we encountered a warm night’s stay at Krupa’s house (true hitchhiker life!) before setting of the next morning to the train station where we were able to get to Blackpool!

As Blackpool has a Sea – we did consider swimming as far as we could, however ended up enjoying fish and chips and some Blackpool Rock before heading back on a train to London!

Huge thank you to all the RAG team who were incredibly organised and supportive throughout the trip! We encourage everyone to get involved in the next event in Easter- a hitchhike to Europe; it was a fantastic experience which we will never forget!

HOLBORN GLOBE TROTTERS Conor Langan, Joanne Bywater Paris, France £450 ra ised

Tuesday February 3, 2015

GOOD(WI LL)FELLAS Justin Seymour, Alex Bu rgess Brussels, Belg ium £365 ra ised

Our Jailbreak challenge started with a sprint, quite literally. After 30 seconds, we were easily the furthest team from the starting point, having made it all the way to the library. While it may seem an odd choice of location, it was from here that we hoped to gain victory. Our ambitious plan involved copious twittering of famous faces, companies, alumni and more, in the hope of gaining a couple of long-haul flights out of Europe. After an hour or so of this endeavour, we headed across London, eventually making it to Heathrow (with help from my uncle, cheers Uncle Paul!) to await responses from our brief Twitter campaign. The next 9 hours were torture. Despite several promising leads, we failed in our quest to secure plane tickets, and thus headed back across London, depressed, to go to Dover.

Arriving at the port at 1.30am, and not wanting to waste any more time, Alex and I attempted hitchhiking in the driving rain.

Alas, nobody was willing to pick up two sodden guys from the hard shoulder in the middle of the night, so we sought refuge in the port itself, and attempted to bed down for the night. Having not slept a wink, we regrouped and went back out in the morning with renewed vigour. Our perseverance paid off, as after only a half hour we were picked up by Adrian, a young Pole on his way back home to Belgium. Having had previous experience hitchhiking, he didn’t mind picking

us up, and said he would have picked us up even if we weren’t Jailbreaking. And that was it, the first plain-sailing of our journey.

Finally we could sleep, as we cruised over the channel to Belgium, via Calais.

Despite several delays, we reached Brussels Central Station at around 6 in the evening, with plenty of time left for further travel (we were acutely aware of the other teams’ locations, and didn’t want to slack). So, after the quickest sightseeing tour of Brussels imaginable, and a quick Belgian waffle or two, we attempted to go eastwards, to Germany.

However, as was the case with most of our trip, there were many obstacles. It would take 4 train journeys to reach Cologne, our intended destination. With little chance of talking our way onto 4 separate trains, we decided to search for the coach station. It was now nearly 8, and after being directed to the wrong location, we arrived at Brussels North, to hunt for a bus eastwards. Again we were disappointed, being told the last bus towards Germany had left not half an hour earlier. Slightly dejected, but nonetheless proud of having reached Belgium, we finished in Brussels.

It was a tough 36 hours, mainly due to our short residency at Heathrow, but there are definitely no RAGrets. We are definitely up for another challenge in the future, for another good cause. In total, we are on course to raise around £365 for Spires.

JOSH AN D HIS BABES Josh Bennett, Raisa Huq Amsterdam, Netherlands

30

TEAM JAB Johanna Asplund, Alina Young, Bradley Rava Antwerp, Belgium Following a simultaneously nightmarish and enjoyable few days, Johanna, Bradley and I finally arrived in Antwerp, several thousand miles off our target destination. The 5 hours wasted yo-yoing between zone 1 and 4 on the tube indicated that Romania was marginally ambitious. Although, asides from not knowing East from West, we also have Monarch and Megabus to thank, for raising our hopes before slashing them and incurring three hours waiting time in Victoria station.

Once we had eventually negotiated our way out of London things started to look up, however our optimism was short-lived after a kind gentleman named Alistair illegally dumped us on the M2. From that point onwards, drivers genuinely concerned for our mortal safety determined hitchhiking success and thus fortunately by Friday night, we reached a hostel in Dover.

The hostel was so tragically awful I almost feel compelled to write a vitriolic trip advisor review: in a room colder than Siberia with unchanged sheets, a carpet that had never seen a hoover and the perpetual din of pub-goers, it was not the blissful rest we had envisaged. Despite the day’s chaotic turn of events, the selfless souls we encountered along the way renewed our determination to breach the ocean and step onto the continent.

Once we reached France travel became much easier to secure, as there was a plethora of public transportation systems ready for us to hitch a ride on, allowing us to not just rely on classical car hitchhiking. Our journey would not have been possible if it were not for the amazing people we had met. We were astounded by the amount of people who drove completely out of their way to ensure that we were not left homeless at a petrol station and every time we thought all hope was lost, someone always stopped their car and took us

a little bit further. Perhaps inadvertently, this challenge opened our eyes to how many people in the world are forced to live like this on a daily basis. Little things that we take for granted such as dry shoes, electricity, and even bathrooms were nonexistent during our trip and after living that way for 36 hours we can honestly say that the people who do so are stronger than any of us could ever hope to be. Our trip would not have been possible without all of the generosity we experienced and we can definitely say that we have gained a new respect for the privileges we have and for those who have to live without them. Our journey was valuable not only because we were able to raise money for Spires, but also because we had a small opportunity to understand the people we were helping. Needless to say, we will never forget this trip.

CHINA OR BUST Nikita Ganin, Danielle Tullett, Maria Mikhaylova Berlin, Germany

Setting from the LSE, we had the ambitious plan of potentially getting to New Zealand or Dubai by getting a plane ticket for free. We set off on the tube to St Pancras where we were kindly given a free train journey to Gatwick Airport. As we got to Gatwick, we thought that the appeal of our banana costumes along with our charm will end us up with three tickets. Two hours went by and all airlines rejected us. Our Plan B consisted of getting somehow across the channel. To spend the time worthwhile, we sourced three bus tickets and now had to fundraise for them. We wondered around the airport, making our pitch to passengers and through the generosity of people we quickly raised enough for our bus journey.

Once again we were given a free train journey back to Victoria where the first leg of our journey would start.

Having to do some more fundraising at the victoria station, we managed to buy the last 3 tickets to take us to Cologne in Germany. We spent 5 hours in a stuffy bus

that took us on a ferry, where we finally got to get some food and get the first 2 hours of sleep. As soon as we got back on the bus we were deep asleep, and when we woke up were very surprised to see the snow, which we were definitely not suitably dressed up for.

Upon reaching Cologne (and being dropped in the middle of nowhere in the midst of heavy snow) we attempted to hitch-hike a ride to the train station to continue our journey. Alas and alack people seemed rather indisposed to the idea of pulling over and giving us a lift, despite our fetching banana outfits. So, in the rather nippy -12 degree weather we made the trek to the train station bringing at least a smile to all those we encountered.

Our experience at the train station proved astonishingly successful. We arrived wet, cold and more than slightly dishevelled after our journey in the snow and clearly it must’ve been the pitiful sight of three bedraggled foreigners dressed questionably that melted the hearts of the German conductors who showed us overwhelming kindness and allowed us to journey 500km from Cologne to Berlin.

After our highly enjoyable journey on the train we arrived in Berlin which we had already decided would be our final destination.

It goes without saying that we were exhausted and in desperate need of showers but it was an absolutely incredible experience where we managed to raise awareness and money for Spires, a truly worthy cause.

31

Tuesday February 3, 2015

The City Section Editorial:

NOTICE THE BEAVER SUDDenly feels a lot heavier this week? Over the past seven days we have received an amazing amount of people sending in comments and reactions to events around the LSE and to articles we posted in our last edition. While the Israel/Palestine affair is being discussed earlier in this issue, another article that attracted a major reaction was a Comments feature disusing the (un-)employability of LSE students.

One reaction I heard to the fact that this issue attracted so much attention was that it is almost scandalous that employability gets limelight while so many impassioned articles on politics, society and the environment receive hardly any response. On the other hand, the LSE is your community, and The Beaver, its newspaper, is a place for you to voice the things which matter to you, whether those be about student future prospects, world politics or a company you think more people should know about.

So keep writing in and remember, ‘The City’ section is your space too!

Tuesday February 3, 2015

Section Editor: Mika Morissette city@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Features: Spotlight on the Greens and UKIP Pages 36-37

32

Sport: Nikhil Parmar crowned Mr LSE Page 40

Are LSE Students Really “Un-employable”?

Jenny Blakesley, Director of the LSE Careers Service, responded earlier this week to previous Beaver articles claiming LSE does not fare as well as we think on employability rankings. We reprint her blog post here.

The City

Mika Morissette

Then vs Now: Are employers still competing for students from the LSE? Jenny Blakesley Director, LSE Career Service LAST WEEK’S BEAVER CONTAINS some pretty emotive articles about the potential employability of LSE students. So should you be worried? In a word, no. Both the news article and the comment piece refer to a single element of a for-prof it sur vey.

What is the table that has attracted all this attention and concern? “Universities Targeted by the Largest Number of Top Employers in 2014 -2015” (see High Fliers to download the full report). In this table LSE is ranked 12th, appearing below institutions such as Manchester, Nottingham, Leeds and others. The conclusion drawn by the Beaver columnists? This means that LSE students are less employable than students from 11 other UK institutions. Before you also reach that inference, pause and consider the follow-

ing.

What is the definition of “top employers”?

The employers surveyed are those who appear in the Times Top 100. So how does an employer get into the Times Top 100? It might surprise you to know that this is based on no actual criteria other than a survey of students who are asked “which employer do you think offers the best opportunities for graduates?”. This generated a list of over 1200 organisations, and the ones which appear most often become the Times Top 100. This results in a list of employers ranging from Accenture to WPP by way of McDonalds, Morrisons and the RAF!

What does “targeted” mean?

In the context of this survey, “targeted” refers to employers who have had a physical presence on a university campus, and not, as was intimated in the Beaver article, that applications from

those institutions are treated preferentially.

What variables have or haven’t been corrected for?

Well lots, but the main two variables influencing positioning in this list are: 1) discipline mix – LSE is a specialist institution and is understandably not “targeted” by those organisations who are looking for engineers, software developers or other knowledge sets not covered by LSE’s curriculum 2) student numbers – the University of Manchester, for example, has four times the number of students that LSE does It’s a shame that so much copy space was given to this one table without considering the information in context. LSE Careers would have been happy to talk to the writers and/or provide more information but we were not contacted about these articles.

What is the real story then?

I’d suggest that the targeting of campuses by an arbitrarily derived list of employers is no indication of your future career success. There are, of course, all sorts of surveys, league tables and data sources we could draw on to demonstrate that LSE graduates perform exceedingly well in the labour market, and if you want to access any of that please do visit the LSE graduate destinations web pages, but ultimately your employability is in your hands.

There are currently 1227 opportunities being advertised on LSE CareerHub. Our employer database has 9893 live organisation accounts and 439 unique organisations were physically present on campus last academic year hoping to attract LSE talent.

LSE Careers is here to support you every step of the way.

If you have any concerns about your future prospects, are confused about what to do next or simply need some help navigating your way through the graduate recruitment maze, come and see us - it’s what we’re here for.

33

The City

Tuesday February 3, 2015

The Imbibable Economics of Wine

There is more to wine than simply being your hangover/hookup inducing beverage of choice...

Louis van der Linden City Correspondent BEAUTY IS UNIVERSALLY valued; wine is similar. Wine as a part of the human experience can be traced back to 6000 BC, though it is now better and more widely available than ever.

The ubiquity of wine sometimes makes us forget about the complexity of its construction. For example, hilly regions, often chosen due to better exposure to sunlight, mean that the grapes have to be hand-harvested, a slow laborious process with a consequent impact on production cost.

After pressing, the juice is allowed to ferment in contact with the skins to add colour and tannins, the bitter aftertaste that makes wine taste dry. The wine is then drawn off and, for high end wineries, aged in oak barrels, adding flavours ranging from coffee to coconut. After sufficient time in oak, the wine is further aged in the bottle to maturity.

This complexity is not clear until directly observed. On a visit to La Sala winery in Tuscany, a producer of DOCG-quality Chianti Classico, I saw how the grapes are hand-picked by local workers and aged in a mix of French and American oak, innovative for the region. During the tasting our guide Ilaria suggested that I “try to find the subtle vanilla flavour”, their distinctive style owing to the American oak.

In Western markets, demand for wine has diverged. The quality of wines produced in large volumes and sold at low prices has improved with technology.

Simultaneously, demand for the finest wines has always been higher than supply. The “Big 5” Chateaus (Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion, and Mouton) collectively produce the vast majority of economic output from the Bordeaux region. Vivienne Franks, a wine educator, gave me the estimate that the five collectively have close to $1.2 billion in sales each year. This economic landscape makes it tough

for independent winemakers in the mid-market. New business models, such as Naked Wines and Majestic, aim to make profit through a centralised trading platform dedicated to smaller vineyards. Reviews have been mixed: both businesses dedicate a lot of overhead to marketing, affecting the value and level of customer-satisfaction. Still, the considerable market-share they have taken means independent wine shops are most vulnerable to falling demand for mid-market wines. Alexandre Bal, manager of Spirited Wines just off Kensington High Street in London, an affluent area, lamented to me: “there is no money to be made in wine.”

Though Western markets seem to be both stagnant and saturated, wine is becoming increasingly popular in Asia, with China now the fastest growing wine consumption market. What has boomed even more is the demand for wine education. As a result, Westerners with qualifications in the industry move

abroad at an increasing rate. Evidently, wine has become so central to human culture that people are willing to go through great lengths to learn to appreciate it.

Aesthetics, a branch of philosophy that attempts to define or describe the concept o f

beauty, can be applied to wine in an attempt to explain its universal appeal. For me, the answer lies in the effort put into even a single glass.

Features

Tuesday February 3, 2015

34

Section editorial:

Section Editors: Liam Hill and George Harrison

I LEAVE YOU IN THE hands of my capable co-editor George Harrison for this week’s edition, because on Sunday I spent my time in a rural patch of the West Midlands, endangering my life and scaring my mother by undertaking Tough Guy. Organised fantastically by RAG, with teams raising money for IntoUniversity, Tough Guy is a 15 kilometre race involving mud of every consistency, freezing water, the occasional electric shock, and 30 foot obstacles, all traversed in biting wind.

Loose-pursed Gareth Rosser had promised me an additional £50 if I returned with a broken bone; a joke (probably) stolen from the Beaver’s comment editor Ellen Wilkie. Alas, as I write this on the coach home, I believe with some confidence that I have not broken any bones. I aggravated a mild, perennial genetic hip complaint, so I may be walking a little less gracefully than usual for a few days, but, thankfully for me, and for Gareth Rosser’s wallet, that appears to be the full extent of my injuries.

Anyway, I sign off proud to say that, against all odds and expectations, I am a Tough Guy.

Murphy’s Law: Rajapakse Comes Undone

Features

Liam Hill

Deputy Section Editors: Zita Chan, George Greenwood, and Taryana Odayar tweet @beaveronline

features@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Taryana Odayar Deputy Features Editor THE SRI LANKAN PRESIDENTIAL Election was held on the 8th of January this year, two years ahead of schedule and two years before the incumbent President, Mahinda Rajapakse, was due to step down. The reason the elections were called early was due to the absolute certainty of the Rajapakse regime that the election would yield a decisive victory for the incumbent, thereby securing him a third term in office as the Executive President of Sri Lanka.

However, if there is one feature that characterised the 2015 Presidential elections, it was that of uncertainty as opposed to the almost certain outcome expected. In the run up to the elections, a series of riveting events ensued, including numerous party defections by ministers, allegations of the misuse of state-owned resources for campaigning purposes, political interference in the media, politicization of the recent papal visit by Pope Francis, and the flouting of electoral laws, all against a backdrop of electoral violence and foreign pressure.

Rajapakse’s gamble did not pay off, as the drama culminated in the election of a new President; Maithripala Sirisena, in a shocking turn of events as Sirisena had announced his candidature only 7 weeks prior to the elections, and had previously been the General Secretary of Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Minister of Health. Following his defection from the SLFP, Sirisena went on to join the New Democratic Front (NDF), where he was supported by political heavyweights such as former President Chandrika Kumaratunge, and was even endorsed by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA); the largest political party representing the Sri Lankan Tamil people, and was fielded by the United National Party (UNP)-led opposition coalition, in a successful whirlwind bid for the Presidency. On the 9th of January, the Elections Commissioner confirmed that Sirisena had won, and Sirisena was sworn in only a few hours later as the seventh President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, in the presence of Supreme Court Judge K. Sripavan.

It should be noted that whereas it is usually customary for the Presidentelect to be sworn in by the country’s Chief Justice, in this case Chief Justice Peiris, Sirisena refused to agree to this as Peiris had been Rajapakse’s legal advisor and was appointed by Rajapakse following the controversial impeachment of the previous Chief Justice, Shirani Bandaranay-

ake, in a move that raised questions about the independence of the Judiciary. Furthermore, immediately after being sworn in, Sirisena stated that he would only serve one term, and would launch a mammoth 100 day plan which outlines the abolishment of the Executive Presidency amongst other major constitutional and policy changes. UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was then sworn in as Prime Minister, also on the same day.

When analysing the electoral results, it is clear that the election was closely fought, with Sirisena winning 12 electoral districts and receiving 51.28% of all votes cast, as opposed to Rajapakse winning the remaining 10 districts and receiving 47.58% of votes cast. The voter turnout reached a historic 81.52% of registered voters – the highest turnout for a Sri Lankan Presidential election yet, and significantly higher than the 2010 election.

However, despite the outer appearance of a peaceful and swift transition, according to senior political figures in the Sirisena camp, namely Mangala Samaraweera and Rajitha Senaratne, Rajapakse did not go quietly when it was revealed that he had been ousted. Allegedly, Rajapakse and his brother Gotabhaya, the Defence Secretary, had tried to stage a coup, by summoning the Commander of the Army, the Inspector General of Police and the Attorney General to the Presidential residence, Temple Trees, at around 1.00 am on the 9th of January, and had instructed the officials to annul the election results, to deploy troops and declare a state of emergency. However, since the officials had point-blank refused to cave in to Rajapakse’s unreasonable demands, Rajapakse was left with no other choice but to accept defeat by summoning leader of the UNP and current Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, to Temple Trees to assure him of a peaceful power transition. In a follow up to the alleged coup, the Rajapakses, the army, and the police have all denied the “baseless” allegations of an attempted coup, but as of 11th January, the new government stands poised to launch a special investigation into the events that supposedly took place in the wee hours of the 9th of January; the day after elections.

Rajapakse’s political career certainly started off well, as he was to become the youngest elected Member of Parliament in 1970 at just 24 years old. It was under his administration that the government and armed forces finally defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Terrorist Organization in

2009, thereby ending the raging Sri Lankan civil war that lasted nearly 30 years. One may wonder how a President could become so unpopular as to be removed from power by the democratic vote of the people just 6 years after ending the war.

Indeed, it is true that President Rajapakse did to a large extent diminish the psychological trauma and fear that scarred the minds of all Sri Lankans due to the LTTE’s 30 year terror campaign, for which the people of Sri Lanka will always be grateful. But Rajapakse made the fatal mistake of assuming that the people would love him unconditionally, even when they themselves were sometimes victimised by his regime’s politics, its corruption and nepotism towards the latter years of his term, and for foolishly thinking that they would vote him into office repeatedly as if they had an incurable case of memory loss combined with Stockholm Syndrome. In fact, the Rajapakse family were even nicknamed “Sri Lanka’s Ruling Dynasty,” as Rajapakse’s brothers Gotabhaya, Basil and Chamal had been appointed to the positions of Defence Secretary, Minister of Economic Development, and Speaker of Parliament respectively. In fact, political commentator Desamanya de Silva wrote in The Island that Rajapakse’s “intention was clearly to hand the reins over to his eldest son at the end of his third term. This is what happened in North Korea and would have happened in Libya and Egypt if the dictatorships in those countries had not been abruptly terminated.”

Moving forward, Sirisena has many promises to uphold, including his pledge to replace the Executive Presidency with a Westminster-style Cabinet within 100 days of being elected, reducing the six year presidential term to five years, holding parliamentary elections in April, and forming an all-party national unity government; towards which end he has signed a Memorandum of Understanding as of 1st December 2014 with 36 Opposition parties and civic groups.

He has also vowed to repeal the controversial eighteenth amendment to the constitution which stipulates that the President will not be restricted from running for re-election after serving two six-year terms. Until these re-

forms are executed, Sirisena is currently the Head of State, the Head of Government, Head of the Cabinet of Ministers and Minister of Defence, amongst other titles.

Sirisena’s manifesto also promises to replace the open list proportional representation system with a combined first-past-the-post and PR system for electing MPs. Much-needed independent commissions will be created to watch over the Judiciary, Police, Elections department, Auditor-General’s department and Attorney-General’s department. Apart from these, Sirisena has pledged to increase public spending on health and education from 1.8% to 3% of GDP, and 1.7% to 6% of GDP respectively. In an effort to ease the financial burden of farmers and public servants, Sirisena has promised to write off 50% of farmers loans, and increase the salaries of public servants by Rs. 10,000. In an attempt to cleanse the government of corruption, previous political appointments to the diplomatic service are to be revoked, and political victims such as former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka are to be re-appointed by presidential decree. Fonseka had led the Sri Lankan army to victory against the LTTE guerrillas in May 2009, but having run against and lost to Rajapakse in the 2009 General Elections, was stripped of his civic rights, military medals, his photographs removed from army HQs, his name unmentioned in authorized books written on the civil war, and was thrown in jail for over two years.

In the end, it was a divided government and unified opposition which turned out to be the remedy to Rajapakse’s poisonous politics.

Today, Sirisena remains confident in the feasibility of his 100 day plan as he steers Sri Lanka towards a new political era, stating that, “Anti apartheid hero and former South African President Nelson Mandela succeeded in bringing many reforms to that country during his four year rule after languishing in jail for over 27 years...My policy is to consider those who opposed me at the election as friends as Mandela did and get them involved in the process of building the country.”

President Maithripala Sirisena

35

Features

Tuesday February 3, 2015

It’s Time to Talk About Mental Health Mark Malik Disabled Students Officer WE TALK ABOUT THE madness of LSE quite often.

We might apply for an “insane” number of internships, moan about the “crazy” queue for Saucy, enjoy a “mental” night in Zoo Bar, or have a “manic” week juggling essay deadlines with society events. But the one “madness” we tend not to talk about is mental health.

Thursday 5th February is

Time To Talk Day. It’s a day to have a conversation about mental health – whether that is about our own, a friend’s, or about the subject in general. We don’t talk about it enough. The problem is that it is invisible. It is a scary subject. There are a lot of myths about mental health, and these myths and fears bring a stigma.

We don’t always realise that we all have a mental health, just as we have all have a physical health. We may not be able to see it, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. Every year, around a quarter of people suffer from a mental illness. That is a lot of people. More than those get the flu. Most of these will experience depression or anxiety problems.

About one per cent of LSE students will have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

That is still a lot of people.

You almost certainly know someone with a mental illness.

Probably a few people. But I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never spoken to them about it.

As I said, mental illnesses are invisible, so you might not even know that someone has a diagnosis. Why is that? It’s down to the stigma.

For every person that thinks that those with mental health problems are to be feared, there are more people fearful of how society would judge them if they came out about their mental health. It’s natural to be scared of the unknown. But when someone meets someone who is open about their mental health, it dispels some of the myths and breaks down the stigma. If you reveal your own mental illness to someone, the reaction will most likely be positive. Again, talking breaks down the stigma.

I used to be terrified about people finding out about my bipolar disorder; I think the stigma

was actually worse than the illness. But I soon realised that it need not have been. It’s got to the point now that I hardly give a second thought to my disorder, and I don’t think others do either.

People have accepted me as normal (whatever that means). And I have accepted myself. That is the power of talking.

So, this Thursday, take the Time To Talk about mental health.

Ask someone about theirs, tell someone about yours, or share one of the many articles and videos that will be appearing all over social media. That way we can move towards a day when disclosing a mental illness is no more remarkable than confessing to having the flu.

Mental health problems are all around us. They are overrepresented in cities. They are overrepresented in elite universities. No wonder we say the LSE is mad.

LGBT Schools: Is Segregation the Solution?

Hannah Kearsey LGBT+ Alliance Ally Officer AT A C E RTA I N A G E , bullying becomes a big issue in schools; children suddenly become really intolerant of differences, whatever they may be; this makes bullying a big issue for LGBT school children.

To respond to this, the charity LGBT Youth North West are planning to open a school for LGBT students in Manchester.

Their aim is to shelter their pupils from any not-so-tolerant children and offer them the opportunity to develop in a safe environment. This school will welcome LGBT students, of course, but also non-LGBT one that wish to opt in. The curriculum would be the same as in regular schools, but would also have a certain focus on LGBT related issues. The project is at a small scale: the school would welcome about 40 full-time students, and around 20 part-time ones.

However, there is strong opposition to the project. Not only from the typical anti-LGBT extremists, but also from LGBT people. Tara Hewitt, who is transgender, launched a petition against the project. She believes splitting LGBT students from the other students won’t solve the problems of discrimi-

nation.

The problem is whether or not this school would be helping its pupils on the long run.

If they’ve been sheltered while they grow up, what will happen when they join university or the working world? Let’s face it, homophobia exists in the adult world just as much as in schools. And you can’t escape bullies forever. Escaping isn’t a long-term solution: the root

Source: Flikr, wsilver

causes of bullying need to be attacked. Segregating LGBT and non-LGBT children won’t help reach this aim. Protecting all pupils from bullying would be a solution, and it should be something that all schools strive towards. Creating special schools for LGBT children takes the responsibility of dealing with this matter out of the hands of regular schools.

On the other hand, can we

really expect these children and their parents to suffer from bullying without reacting? It sometimes has extreme repercussions such as lifelong mental instability or even suicide.

In extreme situations, it seems unfair to offer no way out for these children. Giving them the chance to escape and learn in a more sheltered environment is necessary, even if it’s only a short-term solution.

The Pocket Philosopher: On “Physics Envy” Louis van der Linden Pocket Philosopher IN 1996, NYU PHYSICIST Alan Sokal submitted an article to the postmodernist academic journal Social Text. With the impressive title “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, the article was accepted and published.

This event, later referred to as the “Sokal Hoax”, would irreparably taint the journal’s reputation. Besides being filled with non sequiturs and scientific inaccuracies, the article’s aim was to show that gravity is socially constructed; reading it next to a glass of wine is highly enjoyable.

Though Sokal never intended to stigmatise these disciplines as a whole, but only the scientific pretense within them, I still feel the need to defend the social sciences. It is not difficult to think of examples where social science is both beautiful and influential.

Without resorting to pseudoscientific theories, John Rawls and Wiliam Du Bois, to give only two examples, had a remarkable influence on the world and the people that inhabit it.

The debate around the usefulness of social science is especially relevant to LSE when applied to economics.

Over the past two decades, the discipline has become increasingly infested with “physics envy”: the idea that, by increasing its use of modelling and mathematical complexity, economics can garner the respect usually reserved for natural science. The great JK Galbraith remarked that economics involves the co-mingling of “hope and faith” with a good deal of “scientific pretension”. Finally, the tides may be turning.

Increasingly, economics students have begun protesting at the way their discipline is taught. Andrew Haldane, executive director at the Bank of England, wrote the introduction to a 2014 manifesto from students at the University of Manchester that called for a curriculum “that begins with economic phenomena and then gives students a toolkit to evaluate how well different perspectives can explain it”, rather than with mathematical models based on assumptions about rational agency. The current system, he complained, leaves students with insufficient awareness of the limits of and alternatives to neoclassical theory.

The importance of economics in policy and our lives is self-evident, but it seems more effective as a social science opposed to an emulation of physics motivated by vanity. One might say that economics is best off not “transgressing the boundaries”.

Features

Tuesday February 3, 2015

36

General Election: Green Party Spotlight

Researching the Greens: Cutting into the Watermelon Robert Osborne Second Year Undergraduate TH E R E C E N T A N D , in the view of many, rather pathetic toing-and-froing between Labour and the Conservative party with regards to the TV debates in the build up to the general election this May certainly raised the profile of the Green Party. David Cameron has so far refused to participate in the debates so long as the Green party, which is now ahead of the Liberal democrats in the polls, is excluded. Whether this is an act of cowardice by David Cameron remains to be seen, although it is certain that an analysis of Green Party policy is a pressing political focus; as such I decided to research what a Green Britain would look like. Upon initial reading I couldn’t find all that much and, at first, what I did find seemed to be quite outlandish exaggerations about the intentions of the party from non-Green Party members. Given also that Natalie Bennett, the leader of the Green Party, is expected to speak at the LSE on 13th February, I decided to conduct my own investigations into the “watermelon” party. There was nothing really sweet and I almost choked on some pips in the process.

Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for the term “watermelons.” It is was coined in reference to the Green movement, including the Green Party, by journalist James Delingpole in his book, ‘Watermelons: The Green Movement’s True Colours.’ Described as a party with a green exterior and a red interior, it has been suggested that the Green Party represents a juxtaposition of superficial motives and traits wrapping around the political engine inside. In essence, Delingpole argued that the Green Movement was an earth-loving, Marxist machine.

Analysts suggest that Natalie Bennett fits this description, although with a slightly softer, but no less green exterior.

There does seem to be a collectivist impulse that runs through the Green consensus.

In the beginning, it may have taken the form of a soft identification with communism and

Natalie Bennett. Source: Flikr, Scottish Greens

the statist impulse, and more recently it has ridden on the same saddle as the Occupy movement, calling for “real change” from the culture of privatisation that is seen as increasingly apparent under the current Tory-led government; Green policy concerns itself with this, citing policy initiatives ranging from and end of austerity and welfare cuts to investment in, quoting from the Green Party website, “decent jobs.” If there is one good quality in any political party, please, I beg, let it at least be clarity.

Perhaps this last comment is too harsh, because, after all, my desire to see clarity in the other political parties’ agendas has hardly been fulfilled. Other than on issues of immigration and EU membership, even UKIP has been chastised for not talking straight-forwardly on most other political issues. The Conservative agenda seems clear on the economy, but fuzzy everywhere else. As for my analysis of the degree of clarity within the Labour Party: you wouldn’t have the patience to hear the end of it.

Before beginning my research I dismissed from my mind all the different labels that I knew the Green Party was recognised for, one of which being the “UKIP of the left.” In a document called ‘Policies for a Sustainable Society’, I began my investigation.

The Green Party does stand on the left of the political spectrum and does threaten Labour more than any other party. In the short term, the Green Party would impose a series of new taxes, increase public spending and change criminal legislation to decriminalise drugs, brothels and membership of terrorist organisations, among other things. In the long term, the Greens want to dramatically and fundamentally change life in Britain.

As much as I like the term “watermelons”, the Green Party is not quite as Marxist as Mr. Delingpole might have thought it to be. This is because the Green Party economic plan is the exact opposite of the Marxist vision. Marx championed economic growth and personal consumption, whilst the Greens reject it. According to official statements by the Green Party, economic growth is undesirable, as it is incompatible with the protection of the planet and, apparently, a fulfilling personal life. Whilst all other political parties encourage trade and economic competition, the Greens argue that this is simply a race to the destruction of the earth. Few people actually dislike the environmentalist vision; the earth is great, but a zero growth economy does not seem so great.

Under the Greens, the flagship policy of a mandatory in-

come of £71 a week for everyone living in Britain “as a right of citizenship” would be realised, regardless of wealth or employment. For those receiving benefits, the majority will see a significant increase, whilst fathers and mothers will be entitled to two years of paid leave from work. The cost of these benefits will be somewhere between £240-280 billion a year, which is twice the current level of spending for the health budget.

This great increase in state expenditure will be paid for by an increase in taxes on luxury items, such as cars, jewellery and furniture, as well as an extension of inheritance tax, in that it will no longer tax just the dead. A higher rate of income tax will be imposed and money will also be saved by replacing jobseekers’ allowance with a new system. VAT will be abolished and replaced with new levies based on how much environmental damage a product causes. Free trade will be ended with Europe as tariffs on goods with “ecological impact” will be introduced. A new NHS tax will be implemented specifically to fund the health service.

The Green Party also plans changes to many health practices regarding family planning, abortion and euthanasia.

There will also be a tax on all your favourite ‘superstar’ artists to support “local cultur-

al enterprises.” Advertisements will be censored to remove a culture of unsustainable consumption and foreign investment in the media would be controlled. Meanwhile, football clubs would be owned by cooperatives and not traded on stock markets. And, in complete opposition to UKIP immigration policy, the Green Party will reduce border controls in stages, whilst access to benefits, the right to vote and tax obligations will apply to everyone on British soil regardless of their passport. Political parties will be funded by the state, the electoral system altered and, to top the swathe of political reforms off, the Queen will lose her status as head of state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, since the monarchy will be abolished.

Sticking true to their name, the Green Party plans for all energy to be supplied from renewable sources. If you drive and dislike cyclists, you’ll have plenty more of them to contend with, but no matter, because the Greens plan to impose new regulations on cars so that people can only buy smaller, lighter and less powerful vehicles. The revving of big, fuel intensive engines would become a sound of the past, as the “promotion of a high-carbon lifestyle” will be halted. The Green Party would also impose “research, education and economic measures” to drive a transition to nationwide vegetarianism, something that would perhaps contribute to a future spread of Hare Krishna vendors on campus.

I have tried to present my findings as briefly as I could and, like many analysts, I cannot help but feel that under Green Party leadership Britain would be destined for disaster.

The party slogan is ‘a vote for the Green Party is a vote for The Common Good.’ What good would that ‘common good’ be if the only thing we all had in common was a deep regret that we voted Green? Perhaps I am totally wrong and maybe Natalie Bennett really will prove my anxieties unfounded, by explaining to everyone how the Greens have a “vision for a better, more equal, healthier Britain.” However, I do not see this future.

37

Features

Tuesday February 3, 2015

General Election: UKIP Spotlight

What Would Farage’s Britain Look Like? corner

George Harrison Features Editor TO COINCIDE WITH THE 100 day countdown to the General Election, UKIP last week released an easily digestible, mini-manifesto of sorts, revealing 100 policies which Nigel Farage’s party will fight the election on. Whilst nobody will be shocked that their number one policy is to leave the European Union, other policies hint at Farage’s other priorities; UKIP’s “common sense” solutions to combat issues in Great Britain and overseas are likely to chime with a considerable number of voters who are disenfranchised and desperate for change.

Recent polling by Survation, Populus and YouGov suggests that a hung parliament is a likely outcome, with UKIP polling at 14-23%. Whilst few commentators expect this to translate to more than 8 seats for UKIP in May, the run up to the General Election is turbulent and unpredictable enough that anything could happen, including a scenario in which UKIP MPs swing the balance of power in Westminster. By releasing these 100 policy initiatives, Farage has outlined his party’s key demands- some of which would have to be realised in the result of UKIP featuring in a coalition government. This begs the question: what would Farage’s Britain look like?

Many of Farage’s flagship policies refer to the issue of mass immigration; UKIP will hope to capitalise on the failure of the Conservative party to reduce net immigration to the pledged figure of 100,000 people yearly: a target which was unfeasibly ambitious, given the lack of control the UK has over migration from the EU. Obviously, Farage would withdraw from the European Union, relinquishing the right to free movement to the UK for European citizens as a result. In Farage’s post-EU Britain, a points based immigration system that draws heavily on the Australian model would be introduced, in order to ensure that Britain could filter out low skilled migrants in favour of more gifted applicants from around the world. These migrants would have to work in the UK for ten years before being made eligible for residency, and they would have to have NHS-ap-

Bronwen Mehta RAG President

Nigel Farage. Source: Flikr, Euro Realist Newsletter

proved health insurance until they have paid into the system for five years.

Naturally, Farage would ensure that a UKIP government scaled back the perceived mire of “red tape” that restricts British businesses, and open Britain to trade with nations all over the world, since an end to EU tariffs would enable developing states to export cheaper goods to the UK at more reasonable prices for consumers. In addition to saving taxpayers the money spent on EU membership, we would see a £9bn reduction in foreign aid expenditure that would most likely come as part of a restructuring of taxation and state spending, with certain areas being scaled back and others seeing funding increases.

Frontline NHS services would see an additional annual cash injection of £3bn, whilst police funding would be ring-fenced and HS2 would be scrapped in its entirety. Indeed, a UKIP government would aim to “balance the British economy”, ensuring that as a nation we are able to live within our means. A streamlining of the welfare state would ensure savings in that respect, whilst changes to taxation would see many public sector workers lifted out of the highest tax bracket, instead seeing them pay a 35p rate of tax on incomes between £42,285 and £50,000.

The abolition of inheritance tax would accompany a review of the license fee, with a view to reductions in cost and a possible decriminalisation of failure

to pay for BBC services, which are increasingly being seen by many as lacking in impartiality.

If Britain were indeed to be painted purple in May, armed forces spending would increase, in order to ensure that Britain remains a prominent military power, with multiple benefits bestowed upon veterans as part of Farage’s generous defence package. A UKIP Britain would guarantee jobs in the police, prison or border force for anyone who has served 12 years in the British armed forces, whilst prioritising social housing for veterans, amongst other expressions of gratitude.

A no-nonsense approach to environmental politics is a given if UKIP find their way into government; the nation’s green belts are to be protected, although that’s about as green as UKIP policy gets. Green levies, described by UKIP’s website as “burdensome” would be scrapped, resulting in substantial reductions in UK energy bills. The Climate Change act of 2008 would be repealed, and we would see an end to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

With regards to education policy, tuition fees for European students would be permitted to rise, however, university tuition would actually become free for students studying the high-demand disciplines of Science, Tech, Mathematics or Engineering, as part of a drive to ensure that British graduates have the knowledge needed to succeed on the global stage.

As a further component of the

drive for British educational excellence, grammar schools would also become more prominent; in fact, Farage’s Britain would promote them extensively, encouraging certain schools to adopt grammar school status.

Nigel Farage’s suggestion earlier in the year that “the English have been forgotten about” in the wake of the Scottish referendum would be rectified by the introduction of “English Votes for English Laws”, answering the elusive West Lothian question in an increasingly more devolved vision of Britain. Farage’s drive towards devolution would result in more power in the hands of the average British citizen: powers to recall MP’s and trigger referenda at the local and national level.

This vision of a purple Britain is unlikely to ever be realised in its entirety, although aspects of Farage’s extensive policy package may become reality if UKIP really does end up with the ability to sway the balance of power; a coalition with the Conservatives would surely result in an EU-referendum at a much closer date than was originally proposed, but the other policies that would see inclusion as part of the deal remain to be seen. A watered down version of Farage’s Britain may come into being after the General Election, but with so many other parties capable of achieving their demands as the result of coalition negotiations, just who’s Britain we’ll be living in come May remains impossible to second guess.

WAKING UP BEFORE DAWN to head to the LSE campus is not usually something one looks forward to doing, but on Sunday 1st of February, eight teams met outside the Old Building at 6am on a quest. A quest to prove that they were tough- all in the name of charity. After a three hour coach journey to Wolverhampton, with team tactics being discussed and a few last minute naps being savoured, we arrived at the fields that would become our home for the day. Our cold and windy home. Kitted out in layers of thermals, the finest wetsuits, swimcaps, along with the bright yellow RAG jersey (and questionable use of condoms for waterproofing feet?!) the eight teams were prepped and ready to go. Personally 15km of just running would be bad enough, but they endured giant wooden obstacles, barbed wire, fire, icy lakes, knee-deep mud....the list of horrors goes on! The RAG team provided the odd jelly baby and some moral support along the way. We have also taken a number of spectacular photos, which along with a GoPro Video will be on our Facebook Page shortly.

Alongside the participants being carried away by medical staff for Hyperthermia, the LSE teams fared incredibly well, with nearly all the individuals finishing- a lot of this due to the inspiring teamwork whenever motivation and a helping hand was needed! A special well done to the boys FC team who managed to finish with a fantastic time. Despite the cold and the wet, upon finishing and warming up a bit, the teams were all in amazingly high spirits, recounting their tales of wading through muddy lakes and clambering through tyres. And whilst I did here a few, ‘that was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life,’ I heard a lot more, ‘that was amazing, can’t believe I managed to actually do it!!’ Leaving with big chunky medals that they all deserved, all of us at the RAG team want to say well done to everyone, we were so impressed and you have definitely earned the title of being a Tough Guy or Gal.

Sport

Tuesday February 3, 2015

38

Women’s Basketball Aiming To Build On Lent Success Wen-Yu Weng LSE Women’s Basketball LSE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL team has had a busy start to Lent Term! The team played Queen Mary University of London on 18th January, Imperial Medics on 25th January, and University of Essex Women First Team on 28th January.

We started off our first game of Lent term with a 65-25 dramatic victory over Queen Mary in the London Universities Sports League (LUSL) on Sunday 18th January. The results did not reflect the close competition between the two teams and the hard-fought victory. LSE was off to a good start in less than a minute when Sofie was able to immediately sink in a backto-back series of lay-ups. This set a positive mood for the rest of the game as the gap between the two teams grew wider. Guided by the coach’s strategic defensive zoneplay, we were able to thwart many efforts by pressuring high, and forced Queen Mary to commit turnovers. With commanding postup plays and efficient rebounding from Giulia and Charlotte, LSE held an advantage in box plays on the attacking end. The results secured our position as the top-ranking team in LUSL Division 1.

The game against Imperial Medics, again in the LUSL Divi-

HOW MUCH WATER DOES IT take to win Mr LSE? As much as the opponent has and an impartial panel of judges. What a silly question. This week saw the most eager Beavers take to the stage in an attempt to woo the masses and flaunt their ‘assets’ for the coveted title of Mr LSE. Oiled, waxed and wearing little but their pride, our top AU fellas fought for the

sion 1, proved to be a test of resilience. Having seen off Imperial Medics with relative comfort last term (a final score of 21-56), the girls found it difficult to overcome a disadvantage in lack of players.

With only two additional players on the bench and facing a physically dominating team, LSE conceded defeat through lastminute baskets made by the Imperial Medics, losing narrowly with a score 48-52. The numbers reflected the outstanding zone defense played by both sides.

Despite the disappointment, the team was proud of its hardearned points and the blossoming teamwork. Giulia was again an important asset to the team, guiding other players with her experience and calm presence on court. Fortunately, this was the first loss in the LUSL Division 1, and the LSE team retained its top position.

The team played its first game in the British Universities & Colleges Sports (BUCS) Southeastern Division on Wednesday 28th January.

Traditionally, midweek games for LSE have suffered from low turn-out. After all, the team is predominantly comprised of busy third-years and postgraduates with seminars on Wednesday afternoons.

Nonetheless, on this occasion, we were able to field nine players.

LSE responded to the physical play

win. (We make a generalisation when we say ‘waxed’ and do not wish to refer to those who are as of yet unable to grow chest hair).

This year’s comp saw our lady Execs fight for their right to present, and present they did do. The round of the chat up line heard more ‘fingers’ and ‘faces’ than ever before. The round of the talent witnessed questionable acrobatics, near Dynamo tricks, and a damn right Molti-talented dance.

And a brand new round of lipsynching separated the boys from the slightly less embarrassing boys. Was anyone left Green with envy over that per-

with multiple perimeter shots by Tejal and lung-busting fast breaks, but Essex was able to outplay our offensive moves using relentless man-on-man defense, shutting down our options and taking advantage of their visibly taller players.

The improvement from the preceding two games proved insufficient to inspire the team above an extremely athletic, experienced and disciplined Essex’s first team,

formance? We highly doubt it.

One contestant met a pie from a rather vengeful netball Keeno, only to reach Boyling heights later. And the final round saw a second year football lad Nik the crown from a Rowing big timer. FC, FC, I think the record player is definitely broken at this point.

Perhaps he only put in Haf the effort? At least we now know what happens when you skip with vodka in your eyes.

Haven’t you always wondered?

And for the Zoo itself. A 6th teamer Cap’ed her numbers at three but finished on her Meadian. A Hard’core leading lass Grilled a fresher. A Cald

who went away with their fifth successive BUCS win.

In upcoming matches, the LSE team will be playing an away game against league-toppers of BUCS Southeastern – University of Hertfordshire – on Wednesday 4th February, and seeking to see off close competitor – SOAS’ first team – from the LUSL Division 1 on Sunday 8th February.

Players: Queen Mary: Giulia, Char-

FC gent found Maure warmth elsewhere. And a 2nd team Belle gave C. Mills an induction.

An 8th team ‘baller had a Cunning night and a nonrugby fresher gained a Merritt-able rugby lass. We hope you enjoyed the performance AU-ers. Keep practising those talents and we’ll see you next week. I’ll save you a seat? Stay standing.

Despite being omnipotent and benevolent, the Bev Report lacks omniscience. Send in the escapades you witnessed to sports@ thebeaveronline.co.uk

lotte, Wen-Yu, Sofie, Zoe, Pinky, Megan, Adele, Teri Imperial Medics: Shinvi, Pinky, Giulia, Adele, Tejal, Teri, Sofie Essex: Giulia, Pinky, Wen-Yu, Tejal, Zoe, Nanni, Megan, Sofie, Adele LSE Women’s Basketball team is still looking for basketball lovers to join our growing society. For more information, visit our Facebook group (search: LSE Women’s Basketball 2014-2015).

39

Sport

Tuesday February 3, 2015

LSE WRFC Trains With England At Twickenham Megan Trethewey and Julia Ryland LSE WRFC Committee

Classified Results

YO U K N OW T H O S E competitions that look too good to be true? To win a month in a five star hotel in the Maldives or something similar? Well, next time you see one of these great offers, before you shrug and move on - maybe think of giving it a go.

When the women’s rugby team entered a video to win a training session with the men’s England rugby team (#trainlikeengland), we sent our video off with great enthusiasm but little confidence that much would come of it. The video included our hopes that the England Women’s world cup win would inspire more women to be encouraged to enjoy sport, and afterwards we all forgot about it, it seemed like such a long shot. But then we won.

It wasn’t until we arrived at Twickenham on the 30th of January 2015 that we fully understood what a serious privilege we had won. We quickly discovered that the twenty-one LSE rugby women from both the first and second teams, plus our two coaches, Keith and Buka, were the sole winners of the competition, so we weren’t going to be part of a general circus of a hundred lucky winners. Also, we were going to train exactly like the England squad that day, meet the players and coaches and then we would be the first people other than officials to watch the team in training; which is always a closed event.

Stefan Curtis, the England Rugby media manager, greeted us and showed us to the changing rooms.

To be honest, just getting changed in the Twickenham changing rooms felt quite surreal; the sense of rugby history and the fact that the England squad wandered by unannounced only added to the atmosphere. But the day had barely started.

To start with we met Matt Parker, head of Athletic Performance, in the Away changing rooms where he discussed the squad’s usual training routine in helpful detail. Then, into the stadium bowl and onto the pitch, right on the England Rose, Strength and Conditioning Coach Tom Tombleson led a warm up session and took us through some stretches. Afterwards we played a game of touch with International Referee, JP Doyle, who praised our Winger, Rochelle, on her ‘beautiful Rugby Union try’.

But it was the walk down the tunnel towards the stadium that really made us pause. Pasted all along the tunnel wall are pictures of fans; a regularly changing selection of people who have tweeted ‘good luck’ to the team before a match. It’s a visual reminder to the team as they walk out onto the pitch that they have supporters out there who care. It helps team spirit and the resolve to win. So next time you Tweet a good luck selfie to the England squad before a home match, take it from us – they will see your grinning face – and just before they head out onto the pitch.

Our coach’s highlight of the day came when World Champion and Head Backs Coach, Mike Catt OBE, took us through our paces with some standard England training techniques and some tackling drills. He said our enthusiasm cheered up his day, as it seems the England team aren’t as keen as us to run laps or pick up all the cones when they’re done. We then treated Mike to a rendition of the club song, which he of course loved; or said he did. But even if our singing was a bit out of tune, we left the pitch knowing we had really #trainedlikeengland.

Another highlight of the day was meeting women’s World Champion, Emily Scarratt, who happily took all our questions, including multiple requests to come to Zoo

Mixed Hockey LSE 1s 2 - 1 Kingston 1s Men’s Hockey LSE 1s 9 - 2 UAL 1s Women’s Hockey LSE 1s 8 - 0 Sussex 2s

Bar or to train with us. Her visit certainly made our day that much more special, and we hope to come to Twickenham again soon to watch her play in the Six Nations.After lunch in a hospitality box which overlooked George Ford’s kicking practice, we returned to the pitch to watch the England squad train.

These training sessions are always closed, so this was a considerable privilege – and we can’t reveal any secrets, of course. But, you know, it was pretty impressive, what else can we say? Afterwards, we expected only a couple of them to come and meet us, but they were all really generous with their time, staying to chat to each and every one of us and take photos – and they even had endless patience for signing our stuff, including Bethan’s phone.

We are, of course, extremely grateful to England Rugby for this opportunity, and our thanks go especially to Stefan Curtis, who organised the day so efficiently.

LSE 2s 1 - 0 RVC 2s Men’s Basketball LSE 1s 56 - 69 Greenwich 1s Women’s Basketball LSE 1s 27 - 79 Essex 1s

Women’s rugby is one of the fastest growing sports in the UK, and after the world cup win for the England squad in 2014, the RFU started to pour funds into the sport.

After successfully pitching for some of this funding, we have been able to establish a second team this year.

This has allowed the whole club to

progress and grow.

If anyone would like to come along to a training session, you are more than welcome no matter what your ability.

We train from 1-3pm on Sundays at Regents Park; find us on Facebook or email us at lsewrfc@ gmail.com for more information.

Women’s Squash

Men’s Football

LSE 1s 3 - 1 Sussex 1s

LSE 2s 6 - 1 Buckingham New 5s (BUCS)

Men’s Volleyball

LSE 4s 0 - 1 St George’s 2s (LUSL)

LSE 1s 3 - 1 Kent 1s Men’s Table Tennis LSE 1s 5 - 12 King’s College 1s

Netball LSE 1s 30 - 25 King’s College 1s LSE 2s 36 - 19 UCL 5s

Sport

LSE WOMEN’S RUGBY ‘TRAIN LIKE ENGLAND’ AT TWICKENHAM PAGE 39

the

Beaver

Editor: Robin Park Email: sports@thebeaveronline.co.uk

FC Candidate Emerges Victorious As Nikhil Parmar Becomes MR. LSE Robin Park Sport Editor

was clearly not lacking in this department as he showed off his shirtless physique much to the delight of most judges. After much consideration, interference, and distractions, it was Nikhil Parmar who emerged triumphant, and the FC were quick to storm the stage to celebrate with their champion. Similar to the previous year, there was much post-event chat concerning corruption, witchcraft and trickery, but the only trick on stage was Parmar’s bottle cap, and his victory ensured the FC would have bragging rights for a consecutive year. There were of course many congratulations, before everyone drunkenly made their ways to Zoo Bar, where more interesting tales emerged.

Beverage Report has further details.

Photo Credit: Daniel Cayford

THE VENUE IS THE PLACE to be. As the name implies, it’s a simple place. You don’t see people ordering cocktails, canapés gliding around, sitting on chairs and tables: none of that bullshit at The Venue. The Venue is designed to be inclusive, progressive, liberal and non-discriminatory. How fitting then that a male pageant show occurred on Wednesday.

Wits, charm, mental and physical abilities were tested over the course of 90 minutes in the annual Mr LSE contest. For some the night lasted much less than a few minutes, as the nowtraditional method of creaming contestants’ faces saved a few bachelors from the arduous tasks that lay ahead in further rounds.

After introductions, contestants were asked to provide an interesting story/fact about themselves. Whilst some squandered this opportunity to impress, Hafez Naimun from rowing astounded all with the revelation that he had made the national rowing side. Other facts included an FC member’s Susan Boyle heritage. Same old FC. Three bachelors got pie-ed at this stage.

The next round was the dance-off and it was very clear who had rehearsed and who hadn’t. The FC decided it was time to show there was no platform for homophobia in the AU through a display of homoerotic love on stage. The Men’s Rugby Working Group would have been impressed in my opinion.

The reaction from the judges was surprisingly receptive, despite the fact that the men had clearly spurned their attentions and decided to get with each other instead. Hockey’s Rohan Soni also impressed the judges, but once again it was rowing’s

Hafez Naimun who really got the crowd excited with his carefully rehearsed rendition of Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, a much welcome relief as I’m sure many had feared a more terrifying Dan Brooks-esque impersonation at some point during the night.

Next up were the chat-up lines, and I fear some were well and truly awful. Crowd and judges’ favourite Naimun relied on a tried and tested classic: “Can I tie your shoelaces, cause I don’t want you falling for someone else”, whilst others relied on more tasteless lines: “Are you from Ireland? Cause my cock’s Dublin”. Soni directed his line at host Brien by luring her towards him, which was unfortunately delivered far too slowly for the impatient crowd looking for more embarrassment and humiliation of the candidates.

The talent round followed and it was clear that whilst these men are undoubtedly highperformance athletes on their respective pitches, their talents are clearly sporting-only. Rohan Soni, so impressive in previous rounds, completely capitulated by attempting to beverage whilst skipping. I am tempted to say same old hockey but the club should not suffer the ignominy of being associated with this man, surely? Nikhil Parmar, a man pre-chosen by Nino Enukidze as the best-looking bachelor on stage, was in magical form, as he mesmerised the audience with his elegant bottle cap disappearance trick, which drew numerous calls for encores.

Naimun, another clear favourite in the AU, only barely impressed with his ability to beverage some beer and chilli powder. Yet, somehow it was good enough for the judges, and it was Parmar and Naimun in the final, and pies for everyone else.

As is tradition, the final was a test of strength, and Naimun