829

The NAB: The Oscars and SABB Re-Election Campaign Preview

Beaver LSE Secrets:

Issue 829 | 24.02.15

the

newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union

The Inside Story

Alexander Fyfe, Executive Editor The Beaver has exclusively been talking to those at the heart of the now notorious Facebook page, LSE Secrets. The picture painted by sources approached by The Beaver is that of a well-intentioned experiment that went horribly wrong.

The page was taken down on Friday afternoon, after widespread criticism from students and staff alike with regards to recent postings.

The page developed out of a desire by the two admins to create a forum, similar to that of Imperial Secrets, where LSE Students could air their grievances.

Almost immediately the admins began receiving highly abusive, often racist, submissions. Faced

with this, a debate was had by the admins as to whether to provide a platform for such views. On one hand, they discussed whether such views should be censored to prevent the perpetuation of hate speech and open racism. However, they decided that by publishing the submissions the LSE community would recognise such views exist and challenge them. Despite this stance, the admins did censor the most offensive material but the threshold was set fairly high. In cases where submissions were racist and on the cusp of criminally offensive, they published with the intention that LSE students would round on the post and denounce it.

A reliable source stated that the contributors ruined the policy of absolute free speech. They added that it was important remember that the admins had no way of

checking the veracity of submissions. The anonymous submissions form was exactly that; it was impossible to say if contributions actually came from LSE students, or were genuine in any way. Condemning LSE students exclusively is therefore a dangerous game; literally anyone could have been submitting content.

The intention was firmly that of creating a platform for people to air grievances they wouldn’t share with anyone else. It seems the admins recognised the nature of their responsibilities; they reached out to Peer Supporters and encouraged them to provide advice in the comments.

Before the most controversial material appeared on the site, the original admins were at risk of Continued page 3

Feature Interview: Tommy Robinson

“We need a British Islam” George Greenwood meets former leader of the English Defence League

LSESU Red Lips Project Launched

The City

Rest in peace, father of Nutella Page 24

Continued page 26 Continued page 5

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Executive Editor Alexander Fyfe

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Managing Editor Liam Hill

Tuesday February 24, 2015

Established in 1949 Issue No. 829- Tuesday 24 February 2015 - tinyurl.com/beaver829 Telephone: 0207 955 6705 Email: editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk Website: www.beaveronline.co.uk Twitter: @beaveronline

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News Editors Megan Crockett Mahatir Pasha

news@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Comment Editor Ellen Wilkie

comment@thebeaveronline.co.uk

PartB Editors Jade Jackman Vikki Hui

partb@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The City Editor Mika Morissette

city@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Features Editors George Harrison Taryana Odayar

features@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The Nab Editor

editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Sport Editor Robin Park

sports@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Design Editor Ellen Wilkie

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 Fraser, A Fyfe, A Howells, A Leung, A Lulache, A Qazilbash, A Santhanham, A Thomson, B Mehta, B Phillips, C Azizuddin, C Holden, C Hulm, C Morgan, C Naschert, D Hung, D Sippel, D Tighe, D Wong, E Wilkie, G Greenwood, G Harrison, G Kist, G Linford-Grayson, G MannersArmstrong, G Rosser, H Prabu, H Toms, I Mosselmans, J Allsop, J Evans, J Foster, J Grabiner, J Heeks, J Jackman, J Momodu, J Ruther, J Wacket, K Budd, K Kalaichelvan, K Owusu, K Parida, L Hill, L Schofield, L van der Linden, L Weigold, M Akram, M Banerjee-Palmer, M Brien, M Crockett, M Domenech Ensenat, M Jaganmohan, M Malik, M Morissette, M Neergheen, M Pasha, M Pearson, M Pennill, M Petrocheilos, M Rakus, M Rakus, M Warbis, N Buckley-Irvine, O Hill, P Amoroso, P Blinkhorn, R Ahlawat, R J Charnock, R Chouglay, R Chua, R Huq, R O’Rourke, R Park, R Serunjogi, R Siddique, R Soni, R Uddin, R Watt, S Ash, S Barnett, S Donszelmann, S Haynes, S Povey, S Richards, S Sebatindira, S Thandi, T Maksymiw, T Mushtaq, T Odayar, 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.

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Alexander Fyfe on trawling the internet, and the streets with Nona Buckley-Irvine

From the Executive Editor HELLO! WELCOME TO MY first edition of The Beaver as Executive Editor, where I attempt to fill Jon’s capacious boots and continue in a long line of illustrious editors.

Mostly however, I’ll be trying to make sure the whole thing doesn’t go down the pan on my watch.

I hope everyone will continue to enjoy reading the paper; we’ve got some great features and interviews coming up along with plenty of opportunities to get involved. Anyway, despite being Exec, I promised upon election not to change my unique approach to an editorial so keep reading…

Having enjoyed Nona’s HuffPo witterings so much, I have made it my aim to hoover-her-oeuvre, and bring more of our Gen Sec’s literary gems into The Beaver. Thus, with an enthusiastic zeal, I fired up LexisNexis and immediately ran straight into a…problem. I couldn’t find anything else that Nona had written. However, this did not deter me and I reverted to a painstaking Google trawl. I soon struck gold. Written for this very publication, back in February 2013, Nona

penned a masterpiece that deserves our immediate attention. What’s more, the pertinence of my discovery could not be greater; Valentines Day has just passed, and Fifty Shades of Grey has been released.

How could such romantic themes be possibly linked to an article written by Buckley-Irvine in 2013 I hear you cry? (Note, if you are crying at this point, do not continue with this article. Nona’s pedestrian, grotesque sexual prattling’s will only upset you further.)

For those brave enough to continue, Nona has treated us to an analysis of the meaning of virginity in the 21st Century entitled ‘Losing the big V-Plates’. The message I have no problem with; essentially Nona makes the patently obvious point that upon the loss of ones virginity, one is not transformed into a hypersexualised deviant. However, her turn of phrase to communicate this is truly horrifying. Girls at the point of wishing to loose their virginity are described as having “ovaries quivering for semen.” To add to her point, Nona points out it is unlikely that girls having lost

their virginity will be “trawling the streets for their next dose of penis.” *Shudders and cringes simultaneously* Now, you may be thinking I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, and I am. Deliberately.

Dredging up the worst excesses of our youths is, and always will be, a scummy tabloid endeavour.

Holding people to account for the flippancies of youth is reactionary, unfair and unrealistic. The Internet immortalises days we’d all rather forget; I should know, my hair looks terrible in a Google images result from 2011. But out of common decency we should all forget, and accept that just because Google is a fantastic time machine for trawling through people’s lives we shouldn’t make mountains from the molehills we find. If you have the time to dredge up irrelevant minutiae from years ago, you should have a good look at yourself and extricate yourself from the doldrums of stalking Bebo posts from the dark ages. Or start work at the Daily Mail, where you belong.

Enjoy the paper!

From the Managing Editor Liam Hill asks what on earth is a Students’ Union even for?

NOW THAT I HAVE AN editorial on the second page, a place in the paper where it stands a chance of actually being read, I feel the onus is on me to write something relevant or interesting, rather than just printing in-jokes or recounting the events of our Thursday night Beaver escapades.

Given that my colleague Alex has trawled through our General Secretary’s past, I feel it is necessary to redress the balance I should consider the future of our Students’ Union, and maybe to say something nice about Nona, as well.

What is a Students’ Union for?

What is obviously a fairly simple question merits, potentially, a large number of complex answers, but my own stab at a simple answer is fairly utilitarian: our SU should exist to facilitate the best possible student experience for as

many students as possible.

This could mean, among other things, funding the existence of a student-run newspaper or providing a platform for campaigns about the School itself, and the wider world. It means protecting the right to free expression while at the same time ensuring the safety of marginalised groups - sometimes a balancing act that I, for one, do not envy our Sabbatical Officers.

Given my fairly broad and utilitarian definition, it was fantastic this week to see our Union General Meeting - still under-attended and under-promoted - pass with large majorities motions about protecting students from sexual harassment and lobbying the School to implement exam feedback, and I congratulate everyone involved in both of those motions. That probably counts as saying something

nice about Nona, right?

For nearly 600 students to vote for exam feedback is a particular triumph. When one of the proposers stood on stage and proclaimed they were worried that the motion would not reach quoracy, my own reaction was that this would be a terrible indictment on the state of our student politics if a motion endorsing something universally desired by students - and a motion that would be about real action rather than simply ‘sending a message’ failed to pass. Thankfully, my momentary cynicism was proved to be unwarranted, and we passed the motion overwhelmingly.

I humbly ask for more of the same. Let us remember sometimes, in the context of upcoming SU elections, as well as the Palestine Society’s Israeli Apartheid Week, to come together to fight for what is best for all students.

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.

Nona Buckley-Irvine @nonajasmine @ b e a v e r o n l i n e @ Dennis_R_M @Ray_Uddin @JoePAnderson that was a joke unrelated to elections.

Josh Martin @joshthetallguy @beaveronline Well, #IReadtheBeaver but not anymore, since Jon left...’

Andrew Farrell @andrewxfarrell @beaveronline thoughtful valediction from Jon Alsop, avoiding knee-jerk judgements. Sad that he is going: best wishes for study and exams LSE Catering @LSECatering What sort of cake do we think would entice @beaveronline into giving us a follow? #cunningplan LSE Students’ Union @lsesu We’re looking for talented Instagrammers to take over http://instagram.com/lsesu for a week. Interested? Tweet us!

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News

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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

Last week saw the final event of the year for the LSESU Baking Society, a Tea Party which took place in the Venue, with fabulous cakes and chat to pass the evening. The AU for All Campaign was also a prominent part of the week, with all sports teams donning rainbow laces while playing (and mainly winning) their matches.

Launch of LSESU BME Network mark the 50th anniversary of Malcom X’s assasination Tooba Mushtaq Staff Writer L S E S U B M E N E T WO R K was launched on 17th February 2014, at LSESU Venue by Samiha Begum, LSESU’S first BME Officer.

The event began at 7 p.m., with Begum’s opening speech highlighting the importance of getting equipped with ideas and skills to mobilise the BME community both at the London School of Economics (LSE) and worldwide.

She summarized the set of events planned by the network involving advice and support for BME students standing up for upcoming LSESU elections, writing for Racism Workshop and the Why is My Curriculum White video, which can be found on the LSESU BME Network YouTube.

The speech ended with Begum remembering Malcolm X’s great achievements and work tackling racism. The speech was followed by the open word by poet named Mohamed 'Mo' Rhymes Da Poet, who quoted three pieces of the work of poets and writers with concepts ranging from absence of Black history in literature , Malcolm X as an inspiration to countless Blacks , slavery and racism.

Samiha Begum chaired the panel discussion that followed.

The panel had Malia Bouattia, National Union of Students (NUS) Black Student’s Officer, Yvonne Thompson CBE, business leader, founder of Choice FM and Roots magazine, Adam Elliot Cooper, currently doing a PhD at Oxford University and visiting researcher at UCL and founder of “Why is my curriculum White “Campaign, and Akala, rapper, poet and journalist.

Bouattia talked about race and politics focusing on the recently passed Counter Terrorism and Security Bill targeting BME in UK mentioning that free speech had never existed for Black students and that Islamophobia is another form of racism and Muslims are a racialized group who are under Government’s power to be defined as extremist or not. She ended with highlighting the importance of action against the CTSB with proposing SU motions against it saying that a ripple effect can be created by starting a simple conversation with other students on the issue.

The next panellist was Thompson who spoke about race on board, narrating her experiences as the only Black women sitting in public sector boards most of the time. She mentioned her struggle and campaign to include Black women and minorities to be on the board referring to her sup-

port of the 20 20 programme by the Minister of Culture, targeting on at least twenty per cent of minorities to be sitting on the board. She emphasised the importance of unity and discussion amongst Black people who aspire to be on the board.

Cooper then took the microphone focusing on his response to cynics of his “Why is my curriculum white” Campaign. He mentioned Whiteness as a system of Domination, not by white people but by an ideology that has developed over centuries of imperialism. He argued that even if all the information had come from Europe, it can never be studied in Isolation as imperialism has caused Europe to be linked to rest of the globe through its empire.

The final panellist to speak was Akala, who focused on racism in creative arts. He highlighted the open glorification of the film American Sniper, as white state terrorism backed by racism while in contrast, Black resistance movements are considered violent. He mentioned how the Black history in media is never shown in the period dramas we watch today. He ended with open call for the need to reconsider what stories we need to make and hear.

The discussion ended with a question and answer session with questions directed to all panellists, primarily focusing on problems within Black communities and ways to make an impact in all sectors through struggle and unity.

LSE Secrets Group stopped on social media Continued from Front Page ... and handed control over to a new set. The latest admins clearly pursued a less rigorous approach to censorship, and with the most recent set of posts the original admins intervened and forced the closure of the page. The original admins were pretty shocked at the way the page went, and certainly had no intention to publicise the hate speech that led to the page’s demise.

Those involved recognise that the content was tasteless, and that the page may well have damaged LSE’s students image of their institution and their trust in fellow students. For their part, they hope that the copycat sites that have emerged do not take off.

News

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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Sexual Harassment and Exam Feedback Motions Pass Liam Hill Managing Editor Two motions were passed at last week’s Union General Meeting (UGM), both with large majorities.

The first motion, proposing a policy of zero tolerance to sexual harassment of students, passed with 323 in favour, and 32 against, a margin of 91% to 9% The second motion, mandating the SU to Lobby the school for individualised exam feedback, passed with 560 votes in favour, and only 5 against, a margin of 99% to 1%. This became, as a result, the most voted-on motion since the motion to increase funding to the Athletics Union last year, and the most one-sided result to any motion since well before then.

The first motion was proposed

by LSESU General Secretary Nona Buckley-Irvine and seconded by LSESU Feminist Society Vice-President Lena Schofield.

Buckley-Irvine told UGM “we shouldn’t be here to give a second chance for the perpetrator” and that “Toleration is tacit approval.”

She added that the motion would “last for three years and is really important to have in our union.”

Lena Schofield, seconding, told UGM that while in itself the passing of the motion would be unlikely to eradicate sexual harassment from campus that “zero tolerance is a great place to start.”

The second motion, mandating the LSESU Education Officer and Academic Board representatives to campaign for individual exam feedback and for students to be able to access to their tran-

Annual Literary Festival focuses on foundations of knowledge Amy Scoville-Weaver News Writer The London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) will be hosting the seventh Annual Space for Thought Literary Festival through 23-28 Feb 2015. The festival will feature a series of lectures, workshops as well as movie screenings and other side events.

This year’s unique theme is titled ‘Foundations’ and calls upon the LSE and wider-London communities to explore deeply the foundations of knowledge, society, literature and thought. The LSE’s annual Literary Festival celebrates the distinctive qualities of a social sciences’ approach to understanding the world,” LSE Deputy Events Manager, Louise Gaskell said, “[The Festival offers] a space for thought, discussion and analysis that is unique in London, encouraging interaction between authors and academics on a global stage.”

The festival is also partly a celebration of LSE’s 120th Anniversary this year, which has always strong roots in literary figures, such as Bernard Shaw, who helped to co-found the School.

“Literature and LSE have been closely connected right from the school’s first lectures on the lower floors of George Bernard Shaw’s London house” Gaskell said. “The series is designed to get the LSE community and the public interested LSE’s rich his-

tory.”

Once only a weekend of events, the festival has expanded to offer more than thirty events spread over the course of Week Seven. Authors The introduction of fringe events is new to this year’s festival and includes movie screenings and other more interactive events to compliment the main lectures. Lecture titles range from examining the influences of language and identity in Palestine to an interactive creative writing workshop.

A reflection on the Festival’s past can be found on the LSE History blog: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsehistory/2015/01/12/spacefor-thought-lses-literar yfestival/​ and a schedule of the event itself can be found: h t t p : / / w w w. l s e . a c . u k / p u bl i c E ve n t s / s p a c e Fo r T h o u g h t / L i t e ra r y Fe s t i val2015/home.aspx.

Tickets must be purchased online for main events and workshops.

scripts, was proposed by Hari Prabu and seconded by elected Academic Board representative Tooba Mushtaq.

Prabu told UGM that the school “has a duty to respect the wishes of the student,” before adding: “I don’t want this motion failing on quoracy. Imagine the message that would send to academics... Make them know we really need this, we really want this.”

Tooba Mushtaq informed UGM that “we have been lobbying the school” and that there was “no lack of interest among academics” in securing exam feedback for students.

Following the proposal of these motions - neither of which were subject to any formal opposition the Sabbatical Officers present updated UGM with reports of their progress and activity. Buckley-

Irvine declared that the proposed change that mental health advisers may not be employed outside of term time “can’t happen,” and also registered her discontent that Urbanest are planning to charge students up to £10,000 for rent.

Sebastian Bruhn updated UGM about his work on halls and halls committees, the literary festival and the BME network, while Alastair Duncan mentioned graduation ball and a more inclusive AU among his priorities for the coming weeks. Mahamid Ahmed, Postgraduate students’ officer, took the opportunity to implore candidates in upcoming LSESU elections to take heed of “postgraduate issues”.

General Secretary Nona Buckley-Irvine also had a message for the LSESU Feminist Society, which had been targeted online

by the now defunct facebook page LSE Secrets, and of which several committee members were present.

She said: “keep doing what you’re doing” before adding, “shout out to you guys. You’re bloody brilliant. Ignore the haters.”

Following this, the Sabbatical Officers, joined by Disabled Students’ Officer Mark Malik, answered questions and gave advice pertaining to LSESU elections.

Highlights of this segment included Alastair Duncan’s advice that “it’s good to flip out during campaign week... I shouted at a tree.”

The next Union General Meeting, this Thursday, will take the form of a hustings, at which candidates in the elections will give speeches, and after which campaigning for elections will formally begin.

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News

Tuesday February 24, 2015

Artichoke Report suggests LSE affects employment choices Alex Hughes News Writer Survey results published late last week by the London School of Economics (LSE) Student’s Union (SU) Artichoke Society report that the LSE significantly influences students’ career preferences. Eighty-three per cent of those polled claim that the LSE environment has encouraged students to choose careers in the public sector, investment banking, and consultancy. Overall, the four most popular sectors are: financial services, government/policy/civil service, consultancy, and law.

The aim of the study was learning about the trajectory of career choices an LSE student experiences from pre-arrival to graduation. First year students surveyed were more idealistic than their third-year counterparts; freshers were largely interested in pursuing a personal interest and helping others, whilst pragmatic final years were most motivated by salary, prestige, and good working hours.

Results also show that international students, those who come from outside of the European Union and pay higher fees to study at the LSE, were more confident in their career plans than home students upon arrival, although home students ‘catch up’ to similar confidence

levels by third year. As a whole, undergraduate students surveyed became more confident as they progressed from first to third year – with forty per cent of final years declared being confident with their plans.

The attitudes driving these career choices were found to be starkly different between international and home (UK+EU) students. The results show that larger social burdens predispose international students to pick careers that help others and pay a significant salary. By contrast, home students were much more interested in careers that helped them fulfil a personal interest.

The report postulates that these differences illustrate the ‘tugof-war’ students face between individualist idealism and the pressures of institutional and social norms – a finding which is corroborated by studies placing the LSE’s reputation at the top of the list in London for employability and financial careers.

To read the full report, visit: artichokesoc i e t y. o r g / p u b l i c a t i o n s

“Red Lips Project” comes to LSE Maria Cannatella News Writer Maria Cannatella comments on the upcoming London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) Red Lips Project and why she believes all ladies on campus should get involved.

“Calling out to all women of LSE! A phenomenal idea which originates from Stanford, USA is now here at the London School of Economics (LSE), ‘The Red Lips Project’! The LSESU Red Lips is a “week-long project aiming to remind women students of LSE of their intrinsic strength and power”. I cannot think of a more invigorating way to promote the wonderful and powerful women of LSE. The project coincides perfectly with the upcoming International Women’s Day on the 8th March and the team of organisers want nothing more than for us to celebrate it by painting LSE red!

Who do we have to thank for this amazing endeavour? Anisha Shah (known to most as Ani) the president of LSESU Women’s Leaders of Tomorrow with over 460 members and Stephanie Nina Menggu President of LSESU Women in Business with over 250 members are leading the project. Both have commented by saying that they want “to start something exciting and challenging at LSE”. The Super Women of WLT and WIB, Ani and Steph have been working

on the project since Christmas and turning this simple question into a week long campaign. The project has been endorsed by Nona , Alastair and Gee which has given this inspiring project serious credibility in the Student Union.

So what lies in store for us?

We have all been invited to kick start the LSESU Red Lips Project week on Tuesday 24th February with a Launch Party! From 7pm we can expect an evening of laughter, conversation and of course a party. I am excited to say that the keynote speaker will be Connie Jackson, ‘an LSE alumni and female BOSS, who is the General Manager for the UK and Europe at Fashion Fair Beauty Products LTD’. There will also be 70 goodie bags worth £15. Tickets sold out in less than 24 hours! But everyone is invited to come along and enjoy the evening and get powerful.

The LSESU Red Lips Project has gained massive support from all areas of the university and has joined forces with the LSE Athletics Union! The event ‘AU Fight Night in collaboration with the LSESU Red Lips Project’ will take place on Wednesday 25th from 7.30pm!

We are encouraged to “put on your lippy and be powerful”. This is a fantastic opportunity where we can all come together for an evening of entertainment and involvement in such a positive endeavour!

The week comes to a close with an exclusive pre-party at Sway Bar! LSESU Red Lips Pro-

ject takes over the ‘cream room’ and for ONLY £5 per ticket you will get FREE drinks and FREE entry to Saucy ‘Sub Focus’. This will be the perfect opportunity to come together and celebrate the end of an empowering and unifying project! Oh, and don’t forget the Red Lipstick!!

The project comes to life with a simple idea of red lips, its simplicity unifies women and magnifies our power and energy. What do red lips signify? To me they are bold, loud, elusive and perceptive...well, they can be anything we want them to be. This project does not only exist to highlight how powerful we are but what we can achieve with this power. I am so proud to be surrounded by such talented and powerful women on a daily basis and I cannot wait to immerse myself in this inspiring project with you all. This is not only an opportunity for us to come together and have fun but also the perfect forum to discuss our successes, our desires and our future. Let’s paint our lips RED. So tell me women of LSE, what makes you powerful?”

News In Brief Library increases seating for LSE students The Library has increased the number of study spaces in the Course Collection and the 4th Floor.

Ninety nine study spaces are now available exclusively to LSE students in the Course Collection on the Ground floor of the Library, while twenty additional study spaces have been opened on the Library’s Fourth floor.

The project came following feedback from LSE students to increase the amount of quiet study space available to them. The Library has listened and the result is substantial new space dedicated to quiet study for LSE students.

The Course Collection space was made available by removing unused and out-of-date material, although copies of all titles have been retained and remain available to students.

The changes increase the total number of seats available in the Library from 1,782 to 1,844.

Constitution UK crowdsourcing comes to LSE

Are you fed up with the political system? Do you want to change how our country works? Interested in influencing public policy and debate?

Then join the Institute of Public Affairs as we work to shape the future of the UK. We are crowdsourcing a new constitution for the UK and want to hear what students and members of the public have to say. Join the debate at constitutionuk.com and tell us what you think should be included in a new codified constitution for the UK. There are ten topics to submit your ideas to, each facilitated by LSE students. Two facilitators Andrew Bulovsky, MSc Comparative Politics (Democracy) and Christine Farquharson, MSc Economics share their experiences and tell you why you should get involved.

Christine and I have spent the past couple of months facilitating the Government (Prime Minister and Cabinet) challenge. This basically means that we aim to stimulate healthy online discussion by encouraging user posts, moderating content, and gauging public sentiment around a variety of topics.

We also promote the project by posting tweets, Facebook posts, and news articles to Storify—a social media platform that aggregates information for user consumption.

This project has shown us the varying priorities and concerns that users have with the current political system, and the online platform itself provides users with a simple and accessible opportunity to make their voice heard.

So get involved and have your say on how public policy and constitutional law should develop in the UK. Visit constitutionuk.com.

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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The Year of the Sheep starts with a baa-ng Khushboo Khanna Staff Writer Xin Nian Kuai Le (Happy New Year!) 19 February, 2015 marks the beginning of the Year of the Sheep/Goat in the Lunar Calendar of the Chinese. The Lunar Year is the most celebrated and biggest festival of China, when a population of 1.3 billion come together to join in the festivities.

Also known as the Spring festival in China, the festival runs from Chinese New Year’s eve until the fifteenth day of the calendar, the night of the Lantern Festival. Since this is the only Lunisolar calendar and China is not the only country following it, the term Lunar New Year is used to mark the longest festival in the Chinese year.Additionally, the Lunar New Year marks the world’s largest migration as 2.8 billion trips are made in China.

Chinese search engine Baidu is tracking all these journeys in the

form of a fascinating satellite map. Chun Yun, as the migration is called, is the journey of workers, students, and citizens working abroad back to China on New Years Eve to be with their families.

This holiday is traditionally celebrated with friends and family. The evening after the New Year begins is reserved for a reunion dinner where Chinese nationals from across the globe migrate back to their hometown and spend time with their families. On the third day most people prefer to stay at home. It is also customary to clean the house, including hanging red paper cuttings and decorations on doors and windows as a way of cleaning any ill-fortune or bad luck.

Since red is the colour of the festival, it is given prime importance.

The tradition has its origins in the popular legend of the monster Nian, who would enter Chinese towns on New Year's Day and eat crops, harvests, and even children. People started keeping

food at their door and it is believed that after having the food, Nian would return to its lair. One day, a man saw God in his dreams and was told to put red lanterns and firecrackers outside of his house. Seeing these, the monster retreated. The Chinese people then realised that Nian was scared of the colour red, which symbolises fire, and the firecrackers. Ever since, it is a ritual to light crackers, have red decorations and wear red to avoid the monster.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) language centre organised a gathering for students taking their Mandarin course on Wednesday, 18 February 2015.

The two hour long program was scripted, directed, and performed by students under the supervision of Mandarin tutors Xin Hongxi, Lijing, and Katherine. Beautiful songs and ballads, talk shows, a very traditional fan dance, and a hip pop dance were some of the crowd pullers. Each student

was handed a red envelope with chocolates and Chinese currency in it, traditionally known as 'packet-money'. In China, married people give out these envelopes to unmarried youngsters as a way of wishing good luck and as a gift.

There were traditional games like picking beans with chopsticks and a game of Taiji. Attendees also played passing the parcel where a red and golden stuffed goat was passed around. The food was nothing short of scrumptious and the whole evening had a very homely, traditional Chinese feel.

The performances were judged by attendees such as the director of the Language Centre and Confucius Business School, prizes were given out to winners, and tokens of appreciation were handed out to students who helped in the organisation of the program. The celebration was a reminder of how grateful we should all be to have had the chance to be part of something that is essentially a family event.

A very sweet Valentines on Houghton Street Victoria Cheah News Writer Whilst everyone was still caught up in the hype of Valentine’s day, some students may have received an anonymous e-mail or text to pick up a Valentine’s Candy Bag on Friday 13th of February. Attached to each hand packed bag was a handwritten note from friends, lovers or anonymous admirers. Each bag, wrapped with care and effort, was in support of children in crisis.

“This is really for Blue Dragon; it’s a fantastic organisation, and a cause that we believe in” said Sophie Barber, one of the event organisers.

The London School of Economics (LSE) Students' Union (SU) United Nation’s Society B​lue Dragon Children’s Foundation Initiative​ , founded last November by Victoria Cheah (First Year) and Sophie Barbier (Second Year), has been striving to raise awareness and funds for the B​lue Dragon Children’s Foundation​ in Vietnam.

This Valentine’s Day, these students wrapped one hundred and twenty bags of candy and raised three hundred pounds which will be sent to the foun-

dation. Blue Dragon reaches out to children in crisis in Vietnam providing street kids, children suffering from poverty, and victims of human trafficking and slavery, with education, support and a safe home.

Earlier this academic year, the initiative part of the LSESU UN Society’s Outreach Team helped organise a Human Right’s Day Panel, which saw Bill Hayton, BBC reporter and expert in SouthEast Asia’s geopolitics, speak.

In an effort to raise further awareness and funds, the group decided to incorporate the idea of sharing love on Valentine’s Day with spreading global awareness at LSE. “I think this Valentine’s Day project is a great way for students to get to know the initiative in an approachable manner.

It’s fun, it’s yummy, and it makes people smile” said Vicky Cheah.

Vicky and Sophie would like to express their gratitude to everyone who ordered, received from and supported this event.

The Blue Dragon initiative hopes to grow within the LSESU UN Society as well as within LSE, ultimately aiming to become a sustainable initiative that will continue to grow even

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News

Tuesday February 24, 2015

What do trans women need feminism for? A discussion at LSE Jade Jackman Staff Writer It is a beautiful thing when the speaker sitting at the head of table, slightly separated from audience, acknowledges their position of authority and directly challenges it. Although Roz Kaveney was certainly in a position to begin London School of Economics (LSE) Student Union (SU) Feminist Society’s discussion, “What do Trans Women need from feminism”, her immediate recognition of the hierarchical structure of the room was empowering. The event, “What do Trans Women need from feminism”, was organised to look at the institutional effects of transphobia and transmisogyny, and how feminists and feminism can feed and encourage systemic discrimination.

Given that feminism has historically excluded trans women from the movement, it was reflective of the considerate nature of Roz Kaveney to start out by creating a inclusive and comfortable environment for open conversations.

Roz, the first out of three speakers, opened her discussion

by talking about autonomy. She eloquently articulated the chasm of difference between academic debates on sex and gender identification and the retaining focus on the issues, such as lobbying laws, which affect day-to-day life for women. Her argument seemed to be one of practicality as she suggested that feminism needed to focus on what was important such as the criminalisation of women due to miscarriages, laws surrounding changing facilities and how society treats asylum seekers – the very fact that a bureaucrat is able to say well, you do not look very trans to me. She concluded that feminism must be intersectional and listen to everyone’s needs but that we shouldn’t be aiming for a safe space. We should demand and create a vibrant living space instead where everyone is able to come together on equal terms.

The second speaker, Sarah Brown, is another highly acclaimed activist. Her speech was one of raw honesty that touched the whole audience. Immediately, she opened up by saying that she wanted to be left alone and went on to explain why. Some sceptics dismiss personal stories as over

emotive but within this context it was extremely powerful. The abuse transwomen suffer at the hands of our society is scarring and Sarah’s heart-breaking story is one of many. However, the individualisation of experience is vital so that these stories become real as opposed to statistics. Many people will not be able to associate with the fear, nervosa and breakdown induced by attempting to live one’s life as yourself. Her voice served as a potent reminder as how feminism has a duty to support and elevate the experiences of our sisters as challenge the loud shouts of TERFs who hope to suppress them.

Finally, J from Zambarau, spoke. She reminded us the importance of accountability and through this managed to reconcile the recent claims that minority rights were a challenge to freedom of speech. In simple terms, J said that we were all entitled to holding our own views – prejudiced or not.

However, we cannot control other people’s reactions to those views hence you are accountable for the consequences of those views. Her voice energised the whole audience and sent laughter around the whole room. Additionally, J

discussed the experiences of trans women of colour and the other forms of discrimination she has faced due to race. She continually found herself being the only black woman in organisations meant support trans women so she decided to set up a group dedicated to the experiences of black trans women.

J faced us with passion, energy and spirit however also mentioned how bouts of depression disproportionately affect trans women.

Discussion spaces are more important than ever. Only last week, the liberal Pope further marginalised members of the trans community by declaring their existence to be as unnatural as nuclear weapons. This kind of hate speech and intolerance can only be counteracted through opening our eyes and education. Our continual silence on these matters is destructive and is a mark of our privilege.

We should use our power to amplify, support and respectfully listen to the voices marginalised by a system that unfairly benefits us.

It is our responsibility to feel move and act on these human emotions otherwise we show complicity in a system that having violent affects on the lives of our sisters.

Growth in the Gulf debated by HRH Price Abdul Hari Prabu Staff Writer On the evening of Thursday 19th March, London School of Economics (LSE) Entrepreneurship in conjunction with LSESU Entrepreneurs Society and LSESU Business Society hosted a discussion between George Gaskell, a Pro-Director of the School, Professor Zoltan Acs from the Management department and HRH Prince Abdul Aziz bin Turki Al-Saud on the subject of Growth in the Gulf and Entrepreneurship.

The discussion began with Gaskell going straight to the core of the topic with the question of ‘What comes after oil in the Gulf ’? Prince Abdul acknowledged that Saudi Arabia had a ninety per cent dependency on oil and the stark reality of plummeting oil prices but he was unable to suggest a potential solution to the problem, simply saying that we must ‘invest in people’ and ‘educate them well’ so that they can provide ‘the right answers’. Zoltan brought up the unwillingness of many resource-rich countries to diversify their economies by narrating an encounter he had with a Chilean government official where he recounts being told ‘Zoltan, this entrepreneurship stuff is interest-

ing but it’s hard. Much easier to dig copper out of the ground and sell it’.

For him, diversification could only be a gradual process and not something that he could foresee advancing quickly at the current moment in time.

Gaskell then put forward the idea that perhaps a key question surrounding diversification is how interested young people in the Gulf are in beginning an entrepreneurial career. Prince Abdul responded by saying that such a mind-set was being cultivated through the Saudi government’s provision of scholarships for their young people to study anywhere in the world for free and an opportunity to take out an interest free loan upon their return to the Kingdom to enable them to set up a business.

Gaskell wondered though whether this approach to fostering entrepreneurship was simply ‘throwing money’ at people or whether it was supported by evidence that people who took these loans did go on and start up successful businesses? For Zoltan though, the fundamental test to determine whether people in a given culture had the potential to become entrepreneurs was more than just whether they had access to funding but whether they would be likely to receive a positive response from their family if they said ‘I’m going to go

become an entrepreneur’. Moreover, once they got this approval, he stated that they had to have enough skill and ambition to realise their desire.

A recurring challenge in the question and answer session with Prince Abdul’s presentation of opportunity in Saudi Arabia was that it did not extend to the women of the country whose rights are severely limited.

Prince Abdul however refused to countenance such disadvantage and said how repeatedly being asked such questions by people ‘who have a point to prove’ frustrated him. He pointed to facts that the first scholarship given by Saudi Arabia for a student to study in the United States was given to a woman and that the largest

women only university in the world is located in Riyadh to defend his statement that Saudis ‘believe in women’.

The talk ended with a revealing anecdote to the students present.

While Prince Abdul had said earlier that his advice to students looking to become entrepreneurs was the Latin phrase ‘veni, vidi vici’, he finished with a story of how people at a Kazakh wedding he attended were in awe of how he confidently gave a speech without preparation with his hands in his pockets. He enlightened us that he did so only ‘to keep [his hands] from shaking’, perhaps to say that to be successful you have to pretend first that you already are.

London Uni Round-up After a two year campaign

by KCL LGBT Liberation Association, controversial King’s College alumnus Lord Carey looks set to be removed from Strand’s windows after being branded homophobic for his comments on gay marriage. Commenting in 2010 that “Same sex relationships are not the same as heterosexual relationships and should not be put on the same level”, Roar sparked a petition to remove Lord Carey, graduate of Divinity and 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury, from the Strand windows back in late 2012, racking up 680 comments, and has supported his removal ever since.

Consumer advice group Which? has released a report into how universities change courses once students are already enrolled, with only The University of York being the only institution to obtain the best practice rank, grade A. LSE and Imperial College London are ranked as group B, while UCL came under Category C, named as ‘needing improvement’. 40 universities including Oxford, SOAS, Durham, Bristol, Edinburgh and Cambridge were judged to be under ‘bad practice’ Category D, while King’s College London and St Andrews were judged to be breaking the law by Which? in their place in Category E, specifically the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

After a lengthy battle with red tape, researchers from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London will perform the first human trials in nearly half a century into the medical benefits of psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms. Academics in the UK require a £3000 Home Office license and approval from NHS research ethics committees in order to study psilocybin, and in the last few years studies have suggested that hallucinogenic drugs could aid depression, anxiety and patients with substance abuse problems. The experiments are due to start in April and will involve studying the changes in the brain of 12 patients.

News

Tuesday February 24, 2015

LSESU TERRA Society, Feminist Society and Film Society Screening: Is Pocahontas a Racist Movie?

By Mercedes Doménech Enseñat Deputy News Editor Last week, the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) Students Union (SU) Terra Society, in a collaboration with LSESU Feminist Society and LSESU Film Society, hosted a screening of popular movie Pocahontas, which is part of Disney’s princess franchise.

The aim of the event was to create a platform for healthy discussion on colonialism, feminism and native american rights as portrayed in the animation.

The conversation which followed the screening started by comparing the real story of Pocahontas to Disney’s representation of her life, and several similarities were noted between Disney’s children animation and William Shakespeare’s universally known play Romeo and Juliet.

Representatives of the Feminist Society also engaged with the rest of attendees in an edu-

cated discussion of representations of masculinities and femininities in the movie, although the main theme clearly surrounded representations of Native American cultures and how they are often stereotyped by the media.

Towards the end of the event, students discussed the possible repercussions of media content on children, as well as how the film making process influences messages sent by these products. In general, the event was a success for the three societies and all students involved had a chance to share their ideas and opinions.

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A. C. Grayling Speaks About Faith, Rationality And Atheism Liam Hill Managing Editor Last Monday, the 16th February, Professor A. C. Grayling delivered a lecture in a packed Sheikh Zayed theatre entitled “Is Atheism just a matter of faith?”

The event, organised jointly by the LSESU Philosophy Society and the LSESU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society, was chaired by Simon Glendenning, Professor of European Philosophy at LSE. Grayling, who is Master of the New College of Humanities, spoke about the relationship between Secularism, Humanism

and Atheism as concepts, exploring the overlaps between them.

Grayling said that religious groups and institutions are like ‘special interest groups’ and that the ‘religious voice tends to be heard at high table’. While calling for state secularism, he explored its history, noting that secularism is an idea originated by the Church, which didn’t approve of the state’s ability to interfere in its affairs.

Unsurprisingly for one of a number of popular modern writers on atheism, Grayling, while admitting that ‘one cannot know that there is no God,’ defended atheism as the most rational theological position to take, likening

belief in God to belief in creatures such as fairies.

Robert Barrett, President of the LSESU Philosophy Society, told The Beaver: “The event was a great success. A. C. Grayling was, as always, eloquent and comprehensive in his argument that atheism should be the default position for any rational observer.”

Kamyar Dadfar, interfaith officer of LSESU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society, told The Beaver: “We are very happy everyone seemed to enjoy the event, and we’re pleased at how popular it was. I’d also like to thank A. C. Grayling, Prof Glendinning, and the stewards who volunteered their time.”

Could you be an LSE Peer Supporter in 2015-2016?

The LSE Student Counselling Service is looking for undergraduate or graduate students, including PhD students, who are interested in becoming Peer Supporters in the 2015-2016 academic year.

In this voluntary role you will receive 34 hours of training from the LSE Student Counselling Service in listening, questioning and responding skills, plus fortnightly supervision and on-going training throughout the year. These skills will enable you to provide emotional support to your peers at the LSE through the Peer Support Project.

Previous Peer Supporters who have completed the Peer Support training said they gained a tremendous amount from it. In addition to meeting regularly and developing close bonds with others who attend the training, Peer Supporters found that they gained an increased ability to listen and respond supportively in all walks of life. Becoming a Peer Supporter offers transferable skills in listening, communicating and relating to others, as well as enhanced learning about yourself within inter-personal and organisational settings. Being a Peer Supporter is widely recognised as enhancing CV’s, with increased emotional intelligence and social capital.

One of the benefits of becoming an LSE Peer Supporter is the possibility of an offer of accommodation within one of six LSE residences for 2015-16: Bankside House, Carr-Saunders Hall, High Holborn, Northumberland House, Passfield Hall or Roseberry Hall. Offers of accommodation will be made after students have attended and successfully completed the training.

Training: This will consist of 6 training days to be delivered at the end of June/beginning of July in Summer Term, as part of Maximise Your Potential. Please note: the training will not equip you to become a counsellor, but someone who is equipped to support their peers in an approachable, informal and supportive way.

Peer Support Supervision & On-Going Training: On completion of their training, Peer Supporters are organised into supervision groups. The supervision meetings are facilitated by a counsellor. It is a space where Peer Supporters can discuss issues arising through the support they provide to others.

We will be holding an Information Session with Lunch provided on Thursday the 19th of March at 1.30pm – 2.30 pm in room OLD 5.11. Some of the current Peer Supporters will be attending so you can ask them any questions you want.

Selection Process: There is further information on the Peer Support page on the Student Counselling Service website. If you are interested in becoming a Peer Supporter please download the application form from the website or request an application form from student.counselling@lse.ac.uk. Closing date: Friday the 1st of May 2015. We will be interviewing interested applicants in early May. http://www.lse.ac.uk/intranet/students/supportServices/healthSafetyWellbeing/adviceCounselling/studentCounsellingService/peerSupport/peersupport.aspx

LSESU Fashion Show Photos by Ottavia Ampuero

Photo 9 Tuesday February 24, 2015

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Comment Section Editorial: This week has made me incredibly excited for the next academic year. I am ill. My nose has been competing with Niagara Falls on its liquid output and it feels like a descent of (apparently the collective noun for) woodpeckers have set up home inside my skull. All I want is to go home, curl up on the couch with my dog licking my face and my mum serving me freshly baked shortbread.

Next year we will have a reading week. This means that come this point in term where the essays (I have two due in the next week) and the readings and the polluted London air get all too much, the idea of taking a 7 hour Megabus home will be a genuine possibility. For the moment, due to the essay deadlines, the readings and the lack of 5 beautiful university free days my nose must remain at the grindstone for the foreseeable future. My poor lovely dog will remain uncuddled, my mum’s shortbread will remain unenjoyed and my spot on the couch will remain cold and empty for three more weeks. Someone pass me the tissues. Partly to wipe away the tears from how much I miss my dog, and partly to wipe my poor snotty nose.

Comment

Ellen Wilkie

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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Section Editor: Ellen Wilkie Deputy Editors: Ella Sun, Mali Williams comment@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Some LSE Secrets Should Be Kept Secret Facebook page should be for gossip and debate, not for harrassment Tim Preisenhammer Postgraduate Officer of LGBT+ Alliance Thank you, “LSE Secrets”.

I was moved by the straight guy who wanted to ask another guy out for Valentine’s day. I laughed about the comment on the annoying mails about trips to Bath and Stonehenge and the LSEtypical banter about investment banking. Yet, some posts on the Facebook page where people can anonymously share LSE-related “secrets” take it too far. Take for instance a 3rd year student who said he looked like a “fag” after he shaved for an assessment centre.

The posts on the website started a lively discussion about whether providing a platform for derogatory speech is a good idea. This week, the administrators decided to close the website. In my view, “LSE Secrets” would not have to go this far, some adjustments would help to keep this brilliant document of everyday LSE gossip alive.

Flashback to 2009 where the National Union of Students (NUS) gave the feminist campaigner Julie Bindel “no platform” to share with

its officers due to her “transphobic view”. De facto, this meant that the campaigner was not allowed to speak at any NUS event. In contrast, in 2013, LSE overwhelmingly voted against a motion that would have forbidden platform for “fascists, Holocaust deniers and/ or distorters and rape apologists”.

The discussion remains divided.

On the one hand, proponents of “no platform” argue that allowing people to air their views could strengthen these opinions. On the other hand, the critics of this view argue that this is censorship, stressing the ideals of a debate and argumentation against statements.

Back to “LSE Secrets”. When the page was still active, the administrators were on the side that favours a debate rather than “censorship”. All of a sudden however, they closed down the page entirely, explaining that the “only secret at LSE is that it is filled with “vile, obnoxious, bigoted twats”.

The LGBT+ community should be grateful for this move. Finally, there is no platform for people who are transphobic, homophobic, racist and so on. The administrators have my highest respect for their sensitivity to our issues.

However, I want “LSE Secrets”

back. While I was shocked by the use of “fag” in one of the posts, what followed was a very interesting and quite balanced discussion about derogatory language. “LSE Secrets” even posted a comment condemning the derogatory language of the post, although this remark was submitted to them.

Hence, I believe that the infamous gossip board can actually lead to an interesting discourse about the values we hold as a university, just as promised by the pro-platform proponents. Still, the word “fag” is out there on the main post and many people may not even have followed the discussion. Thus, we must limit our enthusiasm that the “debate” will make everything good. “LSE Secrets” is a voice of the university considering its 4,000+ likes, its posts, and its name. Thus, LSE’s rules should apply to it. We all want our campus to be a safe space for men, women, BME, and LGBT+ persons. That is why the school has the LSE harassment policy, which clearly states that “homophobic remarks or unwelcome jokes” are a form of harassmentw.

Hence, “LSE Secrets” and all of us are facing a dilemma. We want gossip and we want discussion but we cannot accept harass-

ment. The administrators reacted by deleting the page. However, just two hours later, “LSE Secrets 2.0” popped up with a less “moralistic, sanctimonious editor”.

Unfortunately, it is likely that the leap of faith to close down version one will not make any difference.

Thus, “LSE Secrets” should consider re-animating its page with a couple of changes. Firstly, the website should make it clear that they honour LSE’s harassment policy, and that it aims to create “an environment where it is clear that harassment is unacceptable, thereby reducing the chance that harassment will occur in first instance”. Secondly, the administrators should eliminate harassing language in comments to create a safe space for all students. Thirdly, they should post the submission with clearly highlighted corrections. Thus, a dialogue around the post can still emerge. Lastly, we need to know the administrators.

They should earn all out respect for putting up such a fun page but also be personally accountable for their decisions on what they post and what not. I want a platform where it is asked why gays are so easily offended, not one where gays are “fags”.

A Feminist Reading Of LSE Secrets

LSESU Feminist Society do not deserve the vitriol they receive online Natalie Nunn President LSESU Feminist Society The only thing I can truthfully say about LSE Secrets that I think everyone would agree with me on is that it’s incredibly divisive. I’d like to say that I see merit in the idea of having a “secrets” page- LSE can feel awfully isolating at times and having an anonymous platform to air things you feel upset by, or things you need to get off your chest can be immensely cathartic. There was a secret on the original page detailing how the reaction to the Men’s Rugby leaflet had confirmed to someone that they were not responsible for their own sexual assault. Another secret told of dashed university hopes of friendship. And another expressed the direct feeling of comfort in knowing that not everyone was having a fantastic time at LSE. The secrets page can allow students to come together and form meaningful community.

Too often however, it’s used as

a vehicle to spread vitriol and hate anonymously and without any accountability. As a feminist at LSE, I’ve seen feminists called “feminazis” too many times to count on secrets that have been posted. My family is from Poland; my grandmother and great grandparents survived Nazism in Poland – I cannot tell you quite what it feels like to be compared to a group of people who victimised my family, and mercilessly brutalised 11 million other people. I would urge anyone using the term to please think again; consider how it trivialises the pain that survivors of the Holocaust feel, consider how it trivialises a truly racist, murderous and dangerous entity when women organising for equal treatment are compared to Nazis.

In addition to the demonisation of feminists, I’d say the scapegoating of feminists at LSE is bordering on abusive. As the President of the Feminist Society, it is intensely demoralising to witness my society being blamed for all campus ills, even when there is categorically no FemSoc involvement, whilst simultaneously having all our achievements

and positive contributions erased.

Last week, we ran an incredibly successful production of the Vagina Monologues which raised £1797.81 for charity, whilst our Tough Guy (er...gal) team raised another £758.

Another week, a member of our committee organised a Riot Grrrl themed Part-B for the Beaver. Two weeks ago, we ran Call It Out week along with the SU, which aimed to promote different liberation movements under the cause of feminism; we hosted the chair from Movement for Justice who campaigns against the racist practice of immigration detention that re-traumatises women (usually women of colour), we held a panel discussion on the harassment of transgender women from feminists ourselves, we held police monitoring workshops to help people feel safe from police brutality, as well as a cross-faith panel discussion on the problems that women faith leaders encounter. As a committee, and individually, we put hours and hours of our time into planning and running events, and trying to maintain an online space for marginalised people to feel com-

fortable. Please don’t forget that we’re volunteers who do this work because we’re passionate; please don’t think we’re obliged to do anything at all, because we aren’t.

The targeting, harassment, and name-calling of feminists on campus serves a wider political purposeto shut us up. What purpose is there to call women “feminazis” other than to portray us as hysterical and to try to coerce us into silence and reassert dominance over us? I’m sure it’s been successful in some cases- I’ve even doubted myself once or twice- and I had to take some time out to take care of myself. I came back to a slew of supportive messages and comments. The solidarity from within the Society was incredible, and it convinced me that what we’re doing is worthwhile.

Ironically, the community some are looking for through LSE Secrets I found through the Feminist Society. The only reason there is such backlash against us is because we are successfully challenging patriarchal ideology, and that’s worth more than any number of nasty secrets written about us.

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Comment

Tuesday February 17, 2015

Why My Curriculum Is Not White

Contrary to what the BME Network campaign, my curriculum is incredibly diverse Rayhan Chouglay I HAVE BEEN HEARING A lot about the ‘Why is my Curriculum White?’ campaign at LSE and have watched the Youtube video on the subject. Overall, I respect the efforts of everyone involved and I think it’s a really interesting campaign but from my perspective, I do not find the curriculum to be ‘white’. This is just my own personal view.

I have had limited experiences with courses in LSE so I can only give a very narrow viewpoint and am therefore not in a valid position to comment on the campaign as a whole. Nonetheless, I thought I should share the diversity in my curriculum to provide a contrast and show other departments and courses what they should aspire to be.

I am studying history at LSE and have loved it, overall. This is partly due to the diverse nature of the modules that I have taken. HY113 was one of the most diverse modules and is probably one of my favourite modules.

Studying the history of countries such as India, Japan, Gha-

na, Rwanda, Cuba, Nicaragua and Palestine was interesting and was used as a springboard for my choice of modules in my second and third years. Furthermore, the reading lists were very diverse and included figures such as Frantz Fanon and Ayesha Jalal. In the video, I heard one student say that HY116 was very Europe-centric and I agree with that. However, I feel this is unfortunate for them because I think the module was designed to be studied in accompaniment with HY113, as it is mostly structured for history students to get the best perspective and fullest enjoyment from the history of the twentieth century.

The former is designed and focused on Europe and the United States, while the latter focuses as much as possible on the rest of the world. Anyway, this diversity also spilled into HY114 in my first year where we studied mostly early modern European history but also the history of the Ottoman Empire, some history in Central America and some of the military history of the Mughal Empire in the early modern period.

This diversity continued into my second year with HY233 where I studied the history of India (and later Pakistan and Bangladesh) from the Mughal period up till the present day and included figures such as Edward Said and Sumit Sarkar on the reading list, among others.

There was a specific topic and theme in that module focusing on orientalism and how the history of South Asia has changed over time and was distorted by Europe-centric thought. It basically explored the exact themes people in the video were asking for. The module HY203 focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict and was both interesting and useful as it gave me a much wider understanding of the conflict as a whole up until the present day, which I believe the vast majority of people lack, whichever side of the debate they are on. This module included a wide variety of historians on the reading list ranging from Arab historians such as Rashid Khalidi to Israeli historians such as Avi Shlaim.

The HY242 module focused on the history of the Soviet Union and had a uniquely Russian per-

spective with historians such as Vladislav Zubok, Elena Zhubkova and Yuri Slezkine on the reading list.

Now in my third year this diversity continues with HY321 focusing on the struggle for the Persian gulf and has focused on the history of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen and Oman.

The reading list has included great diversity with western historians such as W. Taylor Fain and William Roger Louis but also includes historians such as Trita Parsi and Ali M Ansari.

The HY311 module has been more American focused but as it is a module on US involvement in Korea and Vietnam, this is understandable. Even then historians such as Lien Hang T. Nguyen have been used. Finally, my dissertation (HY300) has allowed me to really delve into India’s history from an Indian perspective. Going to Delhi for my research was a brilliant trip and I have been able to use the letters of figures such as Dadabhai Naorji as well as historians such as S.R. Mehrotra and Sudhir Chandra and many more too numerous to list.

I believe this shows a huge diversity in my curriculum and one which is far from ‘white’. I think this is one of the reasons why I have really enjoyed my time at university. My friends know how much time I spend studying my subject, gleefully sharing with them what I have learnt. I believe that if you ask some other students from the history department they will share similar views. However, I can’t guarantee it and have found from the video and my own experiences that there is some ‘white’ focus in the degree, at least in some areas. I guess I might have just gotten lucky with my choice of modules.

Again I would like to express my interest in the campaign and am not intending to criticise it in anyway. On the contrary, I hope my experience can be used as an example to show the rest of the university what they can do to introduce diversity into the curriculum, if they are indeed ‘white’.

A Message From The Underclass Ronda Daniel I C O M E F RO M A V E RY impoverished background, in one of the poorest areas in, not just the UK, but Europe. My family has relied on the welfare state to survive as a lot of people do where I live. When I tell people from home that I attend the LSE, I generally receive the same reaction. ‘Wow, you’re so going to get out of this place’.

When did being working-class or the wonderfully phrased ‘underclass’ become something that needed escaping? And with Britain’s economy being how it is now, everyone is looking for someone to blame. That scapegoat just so happens to be the ‘underclass’.

The British media have a disturbing hold over the public today, especially in the way it stigmatises people. I feel that it’s necessary, especially attending an elitist institution like LSE, people should hear the reality of what it is like to be one of these ‘scroungers’ and ‘loafers’. Hopefully, here are a few busts for myths produced by the wonderful Daily Mail and TV programmes such as ‘Benefits Street’: Most people receiving benefits are in employment; they

just do not earn enough to solely rely on their income from their jobs. This is probably because of the rise in zero-hour contracts, and the fact that the minimum wage really isn’t a living wage.

We do not have this life of leisure and luxury that people believe we have. Whilst Prince William and Kate Middleton reside with their child in a 21-bedroom apartment, courtesy of the taxpayer, me, my 6 siblings, and many families like mine grew up in overcrowded housing. The UK is currently a crowded place; we are constantly told there is not enough housing for everyone.

Meanwhile, there are numerous derelict sites with available land, and apartments bought by those who can afford it, that go unlived in. And who do the government and media place the blame on? Immigrants, for ‘overcrowding’ the country.

This is since the unfortunate rise in support of UKIP. MPs and big businesses regularly get away with avoidances and frauds. A survey carried out

by Ipsos Mori uncovered misconceptions the general public hold; within this, those surveyed on average held the belief that 24% of benefits money

was claimed fraudulently. The real statistic is actually 0.7%.

In the same survey, teen pregnancy was believed to be 25 times higher than official statistics and estimates; 15% of girls under the age of 16 are believed to fall pregnant, whereas the NHS estimate 0.6%. Not only did ex-Prime Minister John Major declare that young girls were merely having babies to get housing, but there is a rhetoric that haunts society today that just because a mother is young, she is incapable, and has made the ‘wrong choices’. This almost implies that mothers who have had their children at an older age are better mothers?

We live in a society of double-standards: one that will endorse the spoon-feeding of children of the elites yet call people who need help ‘scroungers’; one that will overlook corporate crime daily and broadcast minority benefit frauds; one that blames immigrants and big families for a lack of housing whilst millions of uninhabited properties are sold off to those with the money. I would rather be a member of this ‘underclass’ than a sucker for all of these media images and double-standards.

Photo: Flickr: Mal Booth

Comment

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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How To Go About Bringing Peace To Ukraine

Here’s a hint, it isn’t to arm Ukraine or to escalate existing economic sanctions on Russia Gregory Kist IT IS HARD TO UNDERSTATE the impact of events in the past few weeks, or even days, in Ukraine. First, there was the major separatist offensive that began in January, followed by a marathon session of diplomacy in Minsk last Friday that resulted in the agreement of a ceasefire between government and separatist forces, and then just in the past few days and in blatant violation of this ceasefire, the separatists dealt a massive strategic blow to the government by forcing the military to withdraw from the critical town of Debaltseve. The prospects for Ukraine look bleaker now than at any point in the year long conflict between the government and the Russian-backed separatists, as the rebels have proven able to defeat the government time and time again owing to their overwhelming superiority in firepower, courtesy of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now more than ever does peace look unlikely. The rebels continue to win on the battlefield and Putin has so far been unmoved by the sanctions placed on Russia by the European Union and the United States, while the negotiations led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande appear to have failed for the second time.

All of this has led to many in the West wondering what to do now, as it appears that the previous approach has failed. In Washington, the current zeitgeist is the arming of Ukraine, with a recent letter signed by several prominent think tanks and individuals calling on President Barack Obama send “defensive” weapons to Ukraine in order to raise the costs of Russia’s meddling in the country.

In contrast, the majority of European states reject the idea of arming the Ukrainian government, and instead propose escalating the economic sanctions on Russia, saying that arming the Ukrainian government would lead to Russia escalating its involvement in Ukraine.

However, the fact is that neither of these responses will work in convincing Russia to withdraw from Ukraine or suffi-

ciently deter it from potentially repeating such interventions in the future.

Starting with the proposal to arm Ukraine, the deficiencies of this response are four-fold.

Firstly, as the letter itself states, such as response will not be able to actually force the Russians out of Ukraine, since even a better armed Ukrainian military will still be vastly inferior to the military resources Russia can call upon. Secondly, while arming Ukraine will indeed raise the costs of Russian support for the rebels, for Putin, the preservation of Russian influence in Ukraine is considered a core interest of Russia’s and thus he is willing to absorb the extra costs of Russian involvement. Thirdly, as warned by European leaders, such as Chancellor Merkel, arming the Ukrainian military with even defensive weapons will almost certainly be met by some form of escalation in Russia’s support for the separatists, and because the exact nature of Russia’s involvement are murky and because Putin is incredibly unpredictable, it is hard to guess what exactly the nature of this escalation would be. Finally, even if the West did arm the Ukrainian government, the benefits of such assistance would take weeks if not months to take affect as would take time to train the Ukrainian military to use such advanced systems.

By the time that they would be ready to deploy the new weapons, it could well be too late for them to matter anymore.

The counter-proposal of escalating the economic sanctions on Russia, as favoured by the EU, likewise will fail to create a lasting peace in Ukraine largely because Russia is willing to bear the costs of the sanctions. While increased sanctions will continue to ravage the Russian economy, it is exceedingly unlikely that they will affect Putin’s calculus because he has been able to shift

the blame of Russia’s economic decline domestically away from the actions of this regime and on to ‘Western aggression.’ Because of this, support for his regime remains unchanged as the Russian population hunkers down into a ‘siege mentality’ where they are willing to bear the costs in order to fight perceived aggression. In addition, the proposal of increased sanctions suffers from the problem that it is unlikely that more sanctions could even be agreed upon. With European economic growth still laggard, many elements of European society have come out against further sanctions against Russia as it could result in even worse economic growth at home. Russia also still has decent relations with a handful of European states, primarily Hungary, whose Prime Minister, Victor Orban, recently hosted President Putin in Budapest, and Greece, where the newly in power Syriza party appears to yearn for warmer relations with Moscow. With potential opposition from just these two states, getting the necessary unanimous member state approval necessary for the EU to place more sanctions on Russia could prove to be very difficult.

Instead the West must opt for a third approach in dealing with Putin that combines a realistic assessment of the situation

“Diplomacy is still the only viable option for the West in resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine simply because Russia holds all of the cards in this contest.” on the ground with taking steps to shore up the West’s defences against this possibly happening elsewhere. Despite the low chances of it succeeding, diplomacy is still the only viable option for the West in resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine simply because Russia holds all of the cards in this contest.

While the West’s interests in the conflict are fairly low, Russia’s interests are massive and because of this it is willing to expend much more resources on Ukraine than Europe or the US are. This simple fact has almost preordained that any resolution to the conflict will be inevitably be favourable for Russia, as they are willing to risk

more on achieving a result they want than the West is. The best case scenario for Ukraine on the diplomatic front is an arrangement where in exchange for restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine, Ukraine will agree to remain non-aligned and not join either the EU, NATO, or Russia’s Eurasian Union.

Secondly, while the West can’t use military power to end this conflict, military forces can be used in order to prevent a similar one from happening elsewhere. Putin almost certainly has his eyes on the Baltic States, which are members of both the EU and NATO, and it is not completely unreasonable to suggest that he may try to repeat the Ukraine scenario in a country such as Estonia where there are significant ethnic Russian populations. Thus NATO and particularly the United States should abandon their long adhered to informal policy of not permanently basing their forces in these states, which was initially done out of a desire to not antagonise Russia. Times have clearly changed though, and while this will certainly upset Putin, unlike arming Ukraine it is unlikely to lead to an escalation in the conflict, while at the same time reassuring the Baltic States of the NATO commitments to their defence. The priority for the major Western powers right now should be the defence of their NATO allies and ensuring that such a scenario is prevented from happening in the Baltic States.

While the situation in Ukraine is certainly tragic, there realistically is little that can be done to salvage Ukraine, and as it is not a NATO member it is also not the West’s strategic priority in the region. The West should prioritise the defence of its treaty allies in the region while also attempting to manage the Ukrainian war diplomatically to as great an extent as possible in the hope of achieving a situation where Ukraine can survive as a state, even if that may mean it is denied ever having a chance at full integration into the West.

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Tuesday February 24, 2015

LSE100, Will You Be My Valentine?

In the modern world there are alarming similarities between romantic love and nationalism Shanice Khoo Love and nationalism both exist for the purpose of harmonious living, both may be watered-down into a checklist of factors, and both are in decay. We know, from our expansive LSE100 knowledge, that the force of globalisation has dimmed nationalist fervour. The same apathetic attitude is found towards love.

Four in ten Americans are disbelievers of marriage, rejecting all the romance attributed to it. Are we spiralling-down into a bleak world with no sense of national identity, and worse still, no love?

It is almost a necessary attribute of an LSE student to consider all concepts as ‘social constructs’, making it only natural to think of love and nationalism as manifestations by society. How can this harsh reality be truth? Love and romance is used in poetry, and poetry is used to capture the soul. Moreover, your breath shortens and your heart beats faster when you look into a lover’s eyes. Biology doesn’t lie.

Love has to be a force of its own.

Yes - biology isn’t lying and Barrett Browning was serious about counting the ways she loves thee. But love is not a force of its

own, and neither is nationalism.

As the human race developed, we adopted more ways to advance our kind apart from mere hormonal urges, and we produced this useful tool called ‘love’. Love has not only provided a greater incentive to procreate, but it has helped us get along with our partner. The power of love lies in its lack of definition.

Its mystery makes it a malleable tool for solving internal conflicts.

We feel more convinced and inclined to stick with one person because of the ‘power of love’. But the brutal underlying reality is that it is just much more economical – emotionally, physically and monetarily – to stay with one partner.

Likewise, nationalism is used for social cohesion; a tool to unite a large body of people. It may be used as a political tool for support, such as Tsar Nicholas I’s ‘Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality’, the Commonwealth’s fight for decolonisation and, of course, Nazism. It is clearly a construct. But I propose that even in its purest state, if culture were the only factor governing nationalism, it is still a social tool contrived to create a sense of purpose in order to maintain harmony.

The second similarity is that love and nationalism may be conjured by a checklist of factors. Slo-

bodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia, manifested Serbian nationalism during the Yugoslav War. He created a common culture through exaggerating the injustice of Serbia’s defeat by the Ottoman forces at the battle of Kosovo Polje, which happened 600 years ago. By adding a common political cause, forming a ‘Greater Serbia’, Milosevic engendered Serbian nationalism. We can draw on many other examples that justify the same equation: common culture + political ideology = nationalism.

Love also has its own equation, though some might object.

An article in The Telegraph argued against the reliability of a mathematical formula that solves L, the predicted length of a relationship. L is derived from adding together 10 variables, including factors such as the importance a male partner attaches to honesty.

The journalist tested it out and found someone the formula predicted would give her 12.9 years of love, but she concluded, “The only trouble is… I don’t fancy him”.

I am not arguing for a single equation of love that is universally applicable. What’s more, I am interested in love, not how long you can cohabit. I believe that the factors governing love are personal,

but may still be discerned through careful introspection. There are some governing features that may appeal to all: lover = caring + relatable + attractive + etc.

There is a tangible argument for this. In the movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore, who falls in love with his intelligent Operating System. The physical aspect of relationship is also explored by the movie through the use of a surrogate human. Even with my prior disbelief of falling in love with something like Siri, I ended up convinced. If an intelligent system is able to discern our personal factors governing love, a computer code may be all we need for love.

More realistic evidence is a study by psychologist Arthur Aron, who taps into the more intangible aspect of love. He successfully made two people fall in love in his laboratory by making them answer ‘36 questions on the way to love’. The path to love is now a free app, endorsed by The New York Times. Great news guys, love just takes you 36 questions and even better, it is literally priceless.

Now that I have firmly established how love and nationalism are similar in their use as social glue and in their ability to be construed, I return to the question:

does the dwindling evidence of love and nationalism mean we are spiralling into a bleak world?

The answer is simply, no. The reason for the dimmed evidence for love and nationalism is that the underlying reasons governing their existence can be found elsewhere.

As a social glue, globalism or arguably, westernisation, has superseded nationalism. We have less use for love as our increased wealth negates the need to form lasting marriages to reduce the burden of costs. And this ability to discern, or at least act, according to the foundations of what we actually require is a positive reflection on humanity.

The human community continues to progress in our search for the truth of society’s existential needs.

I am not an anti-love pessimist. In fact, I’m quite the opposite – I love love. I believe that we should embrace our ability to construct love. It’s fun. Test out the 36 questions, it may reveal more things about you than the person opposite. Most of all, remember that love’s diminished state is evidence for our economical lack of need for love. We should use it less seriously, not as a premise for a marriage, but for all its perceived magic, and all its kind acts.

Remember, Feminists Are Humans Too!

LSE SU Women’s Officer lets off steam about her experience of feminism and mental health

Gee Lindford-Grayson LSE SU Women’s Officer Let me just start off by saying that this article is as much for me as it is for you. I need to get some things off my chest, and there are a lot of people who need to hear this, for good and bad reasons. Secondly, it’s going to be personal; as the old feminist rallying cry goes, “the personal is political”.

We need to talk, LSE. We need to talk about mental health, and especially the mental health of feminists, and especially the people who damage it. As if it wasn’t hard enough

realising that the whole world is one patriarchal, hyper-capitalist, unequal shitstorm, the abuse you then get for remarking on and trying to change this gives new meaning to the phrase “kicking a woman when she’s down”. I know, because I’ve been there, and have pretty much been there since week one of LSE. After my successful campaign to become the Women’s Officer, I finally cracked.

The abuse got too much, the frustration I felt trying to convince the “I’m-a-feminist-but...” brigade made me want to pull out every hair on my head, and most importantly, I wasn’t feeling supported. I had a nervous breakdown, sank into a deep depression and suffered from such severe anxiety that I couldn’t even come onto the LSE campus without having a panic attack, let alone sit my exams. You know what the worst part is? All of that could have been avoided.

The wonderful Malvika Jaganmohan has already done a fantastic job of telling us feminists how we can start looking after ourselves better. Therefore, I’m going to focus on the

enemy. That’s right, you know who you are. I’m about to give you an education on how to renounce your feminist bashing ways, because the haters don’t always gotta hate hate hate.

1) Feminists are human.

The classic tactic of any oppressor is to dehumanise their subject and feminists suffer a similar treatment. We’re not Austin Powers Fembots (although I do wish I had machine gun breast). We feel pain, and that pain isn’t there to be played with. Take for example the much debated tables and chairs incident, for which I suffered a huge amount of abuse, despite the fact the decision had nothing to do with me. That abuse firstly meant that I couldn’t look at the furniture in my house without my blood boiling, but on a serious note, came at a time when I was dealing with serious personal problems after the passing of my grandfather and an old friend. What I really didn’t need was certain members of the AU harassing me about the biggest non-issue in the world.

2) Get your facts straight.

Feminists can handle genuine

and evidence based criticism. In fact, we’re bloody incredible at it, we live for that shit. What isn’t fair game is criticism for decisions that aren’t made by feminists (see above), and that are not based on no evidence. Time and time again I hear “FemSoc are intimidating”, “FemSoc are aggressive”. In response, I ask “have you ever been to a FemSoc event?” and “have you ever spoken to anyone from FemSoc?”.

The answer? You guessed it folks, a resounding no. FemSoc have spent a great deal of time this year reaching out to various groups, making their society more inclusive, and addressing genuine complaints from people. Do your homework before you go crying to the teacher.

3) Be an ally.

Unfortunately, not everyone will read this article and be reformed and there will always be those who feel the need to hate on feminists for a myriad of reasons (their parents probably didn’t love them). Feminists need support, because what they’re doing is for the common good. Women win, men win (I could write an article about this

but just google it), non-binary people win. Nothing picks me up quite like receiving an email from someone saying they agree with me, or support me, or just don’t hate me for speaking out. Use your voice to give feminists that boost they need.

In conclusion, play nice, play fair, but remember that ironically, it’s not a game. Women live through harassment, abuse, and violence every day, so no, your “banter” has no place here.

“We’re not Austin Powers Fembots (although I do wish I had machine gun breast). We feel pain, and that pain isn’t there to be played with.”

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Tuesday February 24, 2015

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Israeli Apartheid Week: Discussion

Those In Favour

The horrors that the people of Palestine suffer under Apartheid justify a week in solidarity LSE SU Palestine Society

Israeli Apartheid Week exists to raise awareness surrounding the daily struggle of the Palestinian people as well as to highlight the systematic and oppressive policies undertaken by Israel, which adamantly dehumanise and relegate Palestinians to second tier citizens of such a “liberal” and “democratic” state. To do anything but call for an internationally concerted effort to address this troubling status quo would be a failure on our part, as students of an institution, which prides itself on serving society. Israeli Apartheid Week should be a non-partisan issue, where we all seek to address the alarming discrepancies in Israeli law regarding the rights of Palestinians and Israelis in attaining education, water and health amongst other basic civil and human rights.

Of course, to a few, the presence of Israeli Apartheid Week needs to be justified. One could point to the ludicrous disparity in the quality of life endured by Palestinians and enjoyed by Israelis just metres apart from one other.

Or the fact that Palestinian students have to work many multiples harder to even have a faint hope of leaving their war-ravaged nation to seek higher education. Or maybe even the fact that the level of healthcare received by Palestinians and Israelis is generations apart. Palestinian women have a 30% chance of surviving breast cancer compared to the 75% of females living in Israel, again, just

miles from each other.

However, for those seeking more definitive violations of international law, they can be provided in abundance. Article II of the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, sets out the “inhuman acts” constituting apartheid. The convention outlines that one aspect of apartheid will be the “legislative measures designed to divide the population along racial lines.” This motif appears several times in Israeli law, most worryingly in relation to its laws regarding marriage where residents of the West Bank and Gaza will not be permitted automatic residency to Israel, which usually occurs through marriage to an Israeli citizen. Moreover, Israel’s encroachment on Palestinian land by means of its illegal construction of settlements without any proper compensation is an affront to the human dignity of the Palestinians displaced from their homes time and time again by the aggressive settlement policies of numerous Israeli governments. Their policies are becoming of the colonialism of the 19th century and have no place in a parliament of today.

Apartheid also constitutes “any legislative measures calculated to prevent a group from participating in the political, social, economic, and cultural life by deliberately creating conditions preventing the group’s full development.” This is most clearly demonstrated through Israel’s relentless bombing and blockade of Gaza. The 1.8 million individuals imprisoned in 360km2 depend on only 291 water and

waste water facilities, which regularly rely upon back up generators and have to shut down uncomfortably often. Moreover, the heavy handedness dealt by Israel to their own conscientious objectors (Refuseniks) or Palestinian individuals who oppose occupation is not worthy of the “liberal” image it has painted of itself abroad. “The denial of rights to life and liberty of person” is prevalent in the way Israel handles the movement of Palestinians. Amnesty International considers the regular practice of Israeli soldiers denying and delaying women in labour the right of passage at checkpoints as “cruel, inhuman and and degrading.”

The evidence is overwhelming.

The time to act is now.

The term “apartheid” is most commonly associated with South Africa. Detractors of Israeli Apartheid Week claim that this term is far too robust to use when describing the “liberal” state of Israel.

This assertion is simply not true. In fact, the former South African Ambassador to Israel, Ismael Coovadia, declined a “certificate” from Israel acknowledging that trees had been planted in his honour due to the parallels he drew between the racism and oppression of apartheid South Africa to those of modern day Israel. An increasing number of South Africans who lived through apartheid are becoming vocal against Israel’s consistent and brazen neglect of human rights. In fact, in some instances, Israel’s behaviour has pushed the boundaries of barbarity as exhibited by their, well documented, non-consensual administration of contraceptive

pills to Ethiopian migrants in order to ethnically cleanse their population and preserve the current genetic status quo. The birth rate of Ethiopian migrants halved due to this disgusting policy and leaves no question as to the discriminatory policies of Israel within its own borders.

The London School of Economics was vociferous in its damnation of South African Apartheid and should be as vociferous in the face of all forms of oppression.

One must call on the methods used to finally exhaust the will of the racist regime in South Africa and try and implement similar actions to stop the prejudiced policies of Israel. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a demand for all those concerned with the value of human life to join a concerted effort to achieve 3 goals: The end of Israeli occupation and colonisation of Arab lands and the dismantling of the Israeli West Bank barrier The recognition of the fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel as equal.

The respect, protection, and promotion of the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes and lands from which they were expelled.

The means to achieve these goals will be akin to the methods used in pervious and similar campaigns; through cultural, economic and academic boycotts against organisations complicit in the undermining of Palestinian human rights.

There can be no peace until

there is equality; there is no peace between the oppressed and the oppressor. As the murdered Palestinian novelist Ghassan Kanafani exclaimed “I have discovered what you have probably discovered a long time ago: how inevitable it is for some people to die for some others to live.”

His words have echoed through the decades since his death. The worth of lives is not equal in Israel. We have relied too long on the resilience of the Palestinians to endure their suffering without a meaningful effort on behalf of those of us who can but don’t help.

Our attention was focussed on Gaza when Israel murdered 2140 Palestinians, of which 75% were civilians and 519 were children, as well as displacing 18000 families from their homes. 6 Israeli civilians were also killed in the conflict.

Amnesty International has called for an investigation to be conducted by the International Criminal Court into the indiscriminate killing of Gazans by Israel. However, our attention was, as usual, all too easily relocated when the murder stopped but the struggle of the Palestinians remained.

Injustice will punctuate every day of Palestinian lives as long as Apartheid exists.

Join us this Israeli Apartheid Week to learn more about the difficulties of the Palestinian experience and how we can help to alleviate their pain if we join an international effort to call out Israel’s crimes and work to stop the oppression. More details can be found on our Facebook page: LSESU Palestine Society.

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Tuesday February 24, 2015

Those Opposed Israeli Apartheid Week simplifies a complicated conflict and stands in the way of progress Sam Barnett MANY PEOPLE NOT DIRECTLY connected to the Arab-Israeli conflict by blood, religion or ideology are scared of the issue. In four years at LSE, I have met dozens of people who don’t want to hold a position on it, or even learn more about it, for fear of the scorching intensity of the discourses and violently personal clashes that surround it. It’s hellish. It has come to represent a clash between Left and Right, East and West, majorities of Jews and majorities of Muslims. It is a global obsession. But what happens on the ground is almost a different conflict altogether from how it is represented in these clashes on campuses and on the internet. On the ground, there is a complicated but comprehensible struggle for national rights and a permanent peace inching forward in adverse circumstances. On the ground, the shape of a shared future is visible, though distant and fragile, in the work of those who want peace and are prepared to make it possible.

There are many enemies of peace, in the region and in the world. Settlers, terrorists, cynical politicians in Jerusalem and Ramallah, shapers of global politics in the capitals of the world- plenty of actors can benefit from the hate spun out of the stand-off, who can deflect their own failures on the other side, who can strengthen their own position through war and tension. Evidence of this exploitation is everywhere. But in the region itself, despite their weariness and jaded views, there is evidence of readiness for peace everywhere. It’s in the work of NGOs like the Peres Peace Centre and Portland Trust, in the co-op-

eration of Israeli government and Palestinian Authority, and in the everyday interactions of the thousands of people who work and live and speak alongside each other.

The Palestinian people deserve a peaceful, prosperous state, and so do the Israelis. Every negotiation, every joint project, every friendship and every relationship makes this a little more likely. A new Palestinian state would rely on Israel for help with nearly every facet of its existence; Israel already relies on the Palestinians for security. In the Gaza Strip, where the violence is on a level of real war and the occupation is stifling, the collapse of this kind of middle ground has been devastating. In the West Bank, where violent Islamist Hamas does not rule, there is the embryo of a Palestinian state, and peace talks in 1993, 2000 and 2007 show a pattern of painstakingly building an acceptable plan, albeit one that is still too much for current leadership. This dialogue is everything for both parties, and enough strands of understanding will one day be a bond. If it is lost, endless

“The shape of a shared future is visible, though distant and fragile, in the work of those who want peace and are prepared to make it possible”

war and misery is a guarantee, and the consequences for the wider world are acutely scary.

“Israel Apartheid Week is a direct challenge to this vision of compromise and perseverance. ” The Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement and its flagship Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) is a direct challenge to this vision of compromise and perseverance.

Based on a narrow analysis of the conflict that uses elements of Marxism and discourse analysis to justify outrageously one-sided action and even violence, it caricatures the entire situation. It has absolutely no room for anything that contradicts its mentality. While many of its recruits mean well, it is by design a vehicle for a special kind of resentment against all things Israeli that frequently becomes all things Jewish- attacking supermarkets that have kosher sections, pushing stereotypes that link back to blood libels and pogroms, actively lauding Israeli deaths. This is not, however, as many think, the hijacking of a good movement by extremist minorities. Instead it is the inevitable by-product of a movement that seeks to discredit, smear and destroy a whole country and the national group that is connected to it by the same thoroughgoing historical forces that they applaud in the Palestinian case. Improving human rights, supposedly the core value of a self-proclaimed anti-

apartheid movement, is in practice subordinated to the all-consuming proclamation of Palestinian rights to every part of the whole area.

It is massively counter-productive and astonishingly brazen, and the entire edifice relies upon using shock on the liberal and appealing to rebellion in the radical. It strives to make the Middle East an epochal conflict, a millennial cause, a new South Africa and a turning point for the Global South- this would justify any means. But in reality it is a long, slow, slogging regional conflict that is little different from any other ethnic conflict in a post-colonial country, except more convoluted and more emotively treated.

BDS uses Israel Apartheid Week to campaign for direct action. One preferred method is a cultural, academic, sporting and economic boycott of all Israeli institutions they see as contributing to the current situation, which in their opinion is everyone who disagrees with them. Yet this year’s Israel Apartheid Week includes a screening of a documentary that won a prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival- it’s sufficiently critical, I suppose. Meanwhile, Rawabi, the gargantuan housing project that flies the world’s largest Palestinian flag across the valley from an Israeli settlement, is despised by the boycotters as ‘collaboration’ because some Israeli companies were involved in helping build it.

The attempts of the Peres Peace Centre to get Israelis and Palestinians to play football are similarly vilified. The elite Technion University in Haifa is a target, too, for developing remote-controlled bulldozers used in Gaza - giving the 21% of students that are Arabs

a lot to think about. Personally, I don’t like telling Arabs where and where not to learn the skills to better their communities. BDS has no such compunction. Neither does it worry about telling Arabs where to live, or with whom to trade or play football. There are words for that kind of attitude, but none of them is ‘peacemaker’.

“Israeli Apartheid Week caricatures the entire situation and has absolutely no room for anything that contradicts its mentality.”

David Trimble once said that, in Northern Ireland ‘There are two traditions…There are two main religious denominations. But there is only one true moral denomination. And it wants peace.’

Israel-Palestine is little different.

LSE students should go to IAW events and consider the arguments made there. To be pro-Palestine is commendable, and that’s what many of the activists are. However, the overarching project goes beyond that: it’s anti-Israel, and that’s the kind of sectarian, petty attitude that keeps the conflict going. Talk of collaborators and imperialism and a hatred of compromise is a bit outdated. BDS is far too much of a blunt instrument and a distortive narrative to belong to the moral denomination.

There is a better way.

Tuesday February 24, 2015

NYFW Street Style AW15

Photo credits: Vogue USA

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Tuesday February 24, 2015

THEATRE/MUSIC

REVIEW: PORNOGRAPHY BY SIMON STEPHENS

P

ORNOGRAPHY is set during the week of Live 8, G8, London winning the Olympics 2012 bid, and the 7/7 bombings. It is a play about doing things we shouldn’t, about living and not wasting our opportunities when other people lose the opportunity to live their lives at all. The pace and mixed bag of characters exhibits the variety of life in London, its buzzing streets, its beating heart.

The play’s characters are all on the edge of something – they are each lonely and discontented, yearning to reach out but not always possessing the wherewithal.

Beset by the difficulties faced by anyone wishing to use a performance space at LSE, Drama Society stalwart and veteran director Jon Foster did not know where he would stage his interpretation of Simon Stephens’ monologue-based masterpiece, until 3 weeks prior to performance. The piece worked fantastically well in LSE’s Old Theatre, where the thrust stage was not the only focus of the audience’s attention.

In the fifth of seven parts, Jack D’Arcy provides an assured perfor-

mance as Jason, a malevolent rascal in school uniform, which truly stood out in the first half. His hypnotic and fastpaced monologue filled the stage, despite scarcely using it. D’Arcy leaps in and out of the auditorium with an unrelenting energy, terrorizing members in the front row before propositioning his schoolteacher and finally putting his cigarette out on her face. The school bad boy with dreadful parental models, frightening amorality and violent use of language, is familiar. He goes into detail about the minutia of holding a cigarette to one’s mouth, a favorite occupation of the high school menace.

During scene changes, one’s gaze is diverted to projections of the harrowing images of the aftermath of the 2005 London bombings, the foreboding presence of which throughout the play explodes into life in the final of seven parts. A suicide bomber, brought to life with mastery and a beguiling attention to detail by Nikhil Parmar (A Slight Ache, Pygmalion), delivers an outstanding crescendo. His suicide bomber is reasonable, well spoken, understated and likeable. When on stage, it is impossible to take one’s eyes off of Parmar for a single second. The exultance and terror experienced by the man about to martyr himself are perceptively combined, culminating in a writhing tumult of astonishing physicality and depth on an inter-city express train. This is against the still backdrop of his fellow commuters represented by the rest of the cast, reading and attending to their smartphones. This last scene is a triumph. As the bomber talks about all the things he’d like to do, things he’ll never get the chance to do, the music of Pink Floyd starts up, as if

this is the music in the bomber’s head, the last music he’ll ever call to mind.

Other notable performances include Blaithin Dockery as the porn-obsessed and lonely old woman waiting to die, and Alice Harrison as the mother.

The rest of the cast: Gregg Andrews, Robyn Connelly-Webster, Maximilian Auer and Gemma Edom, all bring something very much their own to their characters.

Pornography spans around two and three-quarter hours including the interval, and given the few occasions that any of the actors are on stage at the same time, this is a challenging piece to direct. The fact that Simon Stephens provides no stage directions or guidance on staging makes it even more difficult, however gives a director an opportunity to put his own stamp on the play. Foster has certainly done this. He rightly chooses to use props and furniture sparingly, with the same pieces being re-used and re-purposed throughout. This imbues an already serendipitous piece with a particularly free-flowing quality, with items disappearing and reappearing for short scenes, as if by their own volition. The sensation is similar to that of being in Ikea, turning corner after corner and finding oneself in a multitude of different rooms, the suggestion of different lives, walking through them unhindered by walls and distance. Foster’s innovative use of multimedia provides a regular reminder of the aftermath of the bombings, though the blackouts are too long.

JAMES DUNN

Poster and rehearsal photo credits: Jon Rhys-Foster

Northern Invasion/London usurped as cultural heartland?

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LASGOW’S on fire. This isn’t about the Old Firm derby. The city’s premier electronic music record labels Luckyme and to a lesser extent Numbers are filling an avant-garde role in electronic music left vacant by London with spectacular flair. Labels like Hessle Audio in Leeds are doing the same thing.

It isn’t as if London isn’t producing excellent and exciting creative work (see the Night Slugs label, Steez and 90% of grime) but the locus of electronic music’s creativity in the United Kingdom has shifted 200+ miles north of the M25. Perhaps this is to be celebrated: the dissemination of cultural relevance beyond the capital’s borders.

Sound’s much-anticipated debut album is due for release on the 9th of March. Luckyme, Numbers and Hessle Audio have released some of the UK’s most significant electronic music in recent years including Pangaea’s still-fresh and aptly titled double-EP ‘Release’ in 2012 which served to indicate the artist’s increasingly overt and seemingly accumulative foray into the realm of techno. Now a Pangaea set is likely to consist of little else.

in London recently at Dalston’s Dance Tunnel, the creative rivers of Glasgow and Leeds are being made tangibly congruent with pomp and ceremony at Fabriclive: Hessle Audio. The label’s trio of pioneers: Ben UFO, Pearson Sound and Pangaea will be joined by special guest Jackmaster in a fitting celebration of the northern invasion.

As well as more marketable music, Numbers have been releasing work by SOPHIE, an act which seeks to deconstruct pop-music and appears to plateau at the zenith of pretentiousness.

Tickets are available at Fabric’s own website:

https://fabriclondon.ticketabc.com/events/fablive06-03-15/

The Guardian’s* ‘A night out in Glasgow’ created last year by Luckyme consists of an impressive list of artists and tracks from Mogwai to Rustie that make it apparent that genre is a spectrum.

The mix illustrates the potency of latent creativity in post-industrial cities. Simultaneously, the good people at Hessle Audio are consistently redefining the barriers between genres even as they reinvent them.

Or on Resident Advisor:

http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?676417.

The North is a microcosm managing to effect success through creativity; a rarity in the largely homogenous – if we incorporate other popular genres – realm of music production. Glasgow’s Hudson Mohawk is producing tunes for Kanye West; Leeds’ Pearson

The salient issues at play with regard to London’s decline in the universe of electronic music are up for debate. As creative individuals native to the city are marginalised and pushed further and further away from the stimulants which inspired them in the first place, a corresponding decline in cultural production is to be expected.

Perhaps the effects of gentrification haven’t yet been felt in E3 engendering grime’s enduring critical success.

Numbers co-founder Jackmaster’s contribution to electronic music’s cultural milieu is certainly contentious as he is yet/refuses to produce his own tracks, however his role as a DJ is ostensibly a postmodern one: Jackmaster –and other DJs that don’t produce their own work – rely on pastiche. It is Jackmaster’s eclectic track selection and ability to imbibe a crowd’s disposition at a particular point in time that places him on a pedestal shared by few others in the UK’s house et al. music scene.

Although Hessle’s Ben UFO and Jackmaster have played b2b

A seminal factor in electronic music is that it operates as a leveller** in a way that other genres have failed to since the 90’s. *The Guardian should not be taken here as a legitimate representative of electronic music culture. **However, 2013 Mercury Prize winner and post-dubstep extraordinaire James Blake did attend Latymer…

CONOR DOHERTY

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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FOOD/LITERATURE ISLINGTON NIGHT OUT

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new place just opened in Islington. It’s called The Dolls House and I think you will really like it. I was invited for the opening and so I got a really nice presentation of the venue. First of all, it has 3 floors and really looks like it was modeled to keep the house feel to it. It is quite well done. The lighting is subdued and the décor is on point. Just enough chandeliers to make it look classy, but not tacky.

If you venture your way to the top, you see a slight change in the décor because it’s a smaller area. Here, you will find their second bar where the barmen take great attention to the cocktails they are preparing for you, something I truly appreciate. They are also really nice, which as you may have noticed in my last articles, is something I think is very important if you want to run a successful bar or restaurant. We were offered two free drinks so we got to taste a fair amount of beverages. The Espresso Martini, the Old Fashioned and French Martini were all fabulous. The flavors were strong but not overpowering and they look really nice as well (always a nice bonus). But I should be telling you more about the food to make you want to go even more.

To be honest, because we were upstairs, we did not get to taste as much of the hors d’oeuvres as we would have liked to. That being said, what we had was very good. There were chicken skewers with a tomato dipping sauce, grilled sea bass and mussels, and spicy vegetables. Like I said, all very tasty, but we would have liked to taste more food. The atmosphere is very fun. It’s kind of like a neighborhood joint but a little bit more elegance. Just a 5-minute walk from Highbury & Islington tube station, it’s well worth a visit. I will definitely go back to try a full meal next time. If you’re looking for a fun night with yummy drinks, the Dolls House is definitely the place for you.

Find them at: 181 Upper Street, London N1 1RQ CAROLINE SCHURMAN-GRENIER http://mademoiselleaventure.blogspot.ca

NOVELS FOR AN ELECTION YEAR

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E may have now entered the Year of the Goat, but 2015 is also the year of the election. Already election results in Greece have sent ripples throughout Europe, and there are even more ahead 2015, lest it be forgotten, will feature a General Election here in the UK. (For what it’s worth, this seems an opportune moment to draw attention to Education Officer Tom Maksimyw’s voter registration campaign.) Even more pressing are the Student Union elections at LSE: candidate hustings take place on Thursday and Houghton Street will be awash with bright colours. It is with this in mind that the Beaver brings you our titles for election fever.

BREAKING THE CODE BY GYLES BRANDRETH

One of the first whips to release his memoirs, Gyles Brandreth details one of the more interesting periods in modern British political history. His autobiography details his rise from tentative politician to government whip. His recollections of the chaos of John Major’s government are candid, and Brandreth’s desperation as each vote is decided by 2 votes may even prove prophetic reading as the possibility of minority or coalition government raises its head. Brandreth’s frequent references to his many celebrity friends seem a little fawning (and out of date for those of us born after 1990), but he writes well and his time as MP flies by.

SEEING BY JOSÉ SARAMAGO

José Saramago doesn’t do small pieces of work. Instead he tends to prefer the effect of the small on the larger community, showing how one simple change might derail an entire town, or country, or planet. Seeing is one such novel, set in a country where on election day, despite record turnout, the vast majority of ballot papers are left blank. The fallout is captivating, and the Saramago’s stream of consciousness narrative style is at its best when portraying the confusion and panic of both citizens and officials. Although not the easiest of reads, Seeing is well worth the effort and will have you really thinking about what it means to cast a vote in an election.

THE SIGNAL AND THE NOISE BY NATE SILVER

In a world of political polling gone mad, Nate Silver is often portrayed as a saviour, encased in the body of an American statistician. Famous for 568, his website dedicated to correctly predicting the outcomes of elections in the USA, this is Silver’s first book. In it he shines a light on his own personal philosophy of predictions, ranging from earthquake prediction to - you guessed it - elections. So much data exists for politicos, it’s a relief to be told that much of it is meaningless, and whatever your political inclination the ability to be more critical of political polling can only be a good thing.

GARETH ROSSER

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Tuesday February 24, 2015

SPECIAL INTERVIEW

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lastonbury? What does that mean? Outlook? Are you talking about a life-altering shift in your consciousness? Were all the Dimensions going weird after some psychedelics? Basically, the point is, very few festivals do what they say on the tin. Except, Brainchild does… in fact Brainchild festival came about in order to encourage collaboration and generate ideas between young people. One of the festival directors, Marina Blake, caught up with me over coffee and modestly passed on some of her thoughts about the festival. According to Marina, Brainchild is a project that is constantly growing. It responses to the needs of society’s creative community and seeks to inspire people to develop and empower themselves through a variety of art forms.

JJ: Where is it going to be held this year?

MB: Lewes! Near Brighton… the country park even has a mini railway!

JJ: Haha! Crazy… Sounds like it is going to be quite a fun social spot!

MB: Yeah, the festival is about creation but it isn’t just about the finished product. We wanted to curate the festival in such a way that Brainchild supports the creative process and connects people on a personal level too.

JJ: Is that a challenge?

MB: No, not yet. I am so lucky to be surrounded by some of the most inspiring, talented and kind-hearted young people so we are very able to get a community together… Of course, programming for over 1000 people is always going to be a challenge and accommodating contemporary interests into the line-up.

JJ: A thousand people! Woah! You must be excited…?

MB: Ah, I cannot even begin to explain. I am so excited about so many things… There are so many unique collaborations going on between various musicians, artists and filmmakers already. It is really touching that people are making some new material especially for the festival... Actually, on that thought, there is a lot of really cool interdisciplinary work happening at the moment. People seem to be pursuing topics, following issues and finding the medium to best convey a certain thought as opposed to attempting to master one technique. I’m so excited about that because it feels fresh and experimental and I’m looking forward to chatting to people about that on a peer-to-peer basis.

JJ: Sounds like you have a lot going on?

MB: Limitations are not our thing! In order to do the most with the space, we have quite a few areas. The Forum is a place where we hold spoken word events, discussions and talks – we want to make that a lovely and relaxing place. We have the Steez café which is a very important part of the festival… It embodies the young and un-hierarchical spirit because anyone can join in and get up on the open mic. It isn’t just about being invited to be a performer! That kind of participation really makes the experience of being at Brainchild so much more immersive. Our main stage is outdoors and then we also have the Shack.

The Shack is our container for dance and electronic music. It is going to be really cool as it is like a tower, with speakers and decorated with illustrations. Then, last but not least, we have the cinematic yurt.

JJ: The what?

MB: (laughs) The cinematic yurt! In the past, we had a few problems with light at our screenings… So, we decided to build a yurt. It is going to be totally blacked out there and, hopefully, have a foam floor.

It will be the perfect place to recline, away from the sun, with a beer and watch some awesome films.

JJ: Rumour has it that you guys will be screening a film by an Oscar nominated director?

MB: It looks that way at the moment…

JJ: Do you feel that you are directing Brainchild at a young age?

MB: Age is awesome. It is so positive as I feel filled with a youthful energy and vitality… We all have a crazy drive and sense of self-belief at the moment… You know? It feels like we can all really create some amazing things together. Other people might view me as immature but I haven’t seen it as a challenge yet.

JJ: But it can be hard for young people to be taken seriously?

MB: For sure. I know it can be super difficult… That is an issue that really gets to the heart of Brainchild. It gives young people, me included, an opportunity to take work more seriously. The arts industries are notoriously cold and virtually impossible to break into. However, we are all emerging and desperately curious so we have the advantage of being able to provide a platform without being exploitative… or making people feel like their work is taken for granted.

JJ: What is the one thing you’d like people to take away from the Brainchild experience?

MB: Hmm, the community aspect. I’d love people to feel like they had developed a new network and found people to be creative with. We want it to grow through people recommending us to friends of friends of friends… You always hear politicians chatting about the disillusioned youth of today but, in an a-political sense, we’d like to gather people together and show one another that there is an interest in the arts and in each other! The aim really is to create new friendships and to provide people who attend Brainchild with a space that inspires them to work together.

JADE JACKMAN

The LSE SU German Society presents the German Symposium 2015 Facing new responsibilities: Germany’s new role in Europe and beyond? #GermanSymposium

Get your official programme from our stall on Houghton Street from March 2nd - March 6th!

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the German Reunification, the LSE SU German Society is delighted to announce its 14th Annual German Symposium. We are proud to welcome many distinguished speakers, including:

Christian Wulff Joschka Fischer Peter Altmaier Frank Mattern Joe Kaeser Claudia M. Buch Martin Blessing Julian Nida-RĂźmelin Urban Priol

Former President of Germany Former Foreign Minister/Vice Chancellor Head of the German Federal Chancellery Firm Functional Leader, McKinsey & Company President and CEO of Siemens AG Deputy President of the Deutsche Bundesbank Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors, Commerzbank AG Philosopher German Kabarett Artist and Comedian

Find the full line-up on our website http://www.german-society.co.uk Get your official printed programme at our Houghton Street stall from 2nd March - 6th March and learn how to get a free drink at the German Symposium After Party.

SPONSORING PARTNER

‘More like twaterpillar cake

Am I rite?’

The NAB: At The Oscars Swindler’s List With Andrew Farrell

87th Hackademy Awards Your host:The Beaver’s Comment Editor Ellen Degenerate.

Best Picture: Nona Country for Old Men Banned Budpest Hotel Chair-iots of Fire LSE Ethics Code: Fifty Shades of Grey Area

Best Actor: Andrew Farrell in Swindler’s List Alastair Duncan in Ali D IndaHouse Best Actress: Natalie Port-Nunn in Hack Swan

Bruhn After Reading

Gee-se Eisenberg in The Women’s Network

The Woolf Report of Wall Street

Best Director: Not Craig Calhoun

Mrs Bruhn’s Boys

Probably The Chinese Government?

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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RE-ELECTION FEVER

Elections are on everybody’s minds, yet we still don’t know who is standing and what for. Hence, for your enjoyment, The NAB speculates as to what might happen if the current sabbs launch a re-election bid...

NONA

ALI

TOM

SEB

Nona will hijack another viral cause after her nonanomination last year.

This time round, she’ll appropriate the Ice-Bucket as a cunning metaphor for freezing literally everything.

If Tom runs again, he has told his friends to shoot him because he cannot take another year working with the other three. Tom will revive his Choo Choo Maksymiw Thomas the Tank Engine costume in the hope it will run him over.

If MC Nortee Nortee runs again he will be beaten to death by a mob composed partly of parents who mistake him for a disreputable 70s popular entertainer, and partly by normal students who just can’t bear any more shtick. He’ll recieve an endorsement from the MRWG as a ‘Good

After being told by his Malcolm X poster to liberate the SU by ‘any means necessary’, Seb will promise an SU inquiry into the truth surrounding the death of ‘Tupac’ Shakur. The grass will certainly be greener on the other side with Seb’s re-hashed campaign.

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Tuesday February 24, 2015

Society Listings The LSESU Red Lips Project is a week-long project aiming to remind women students of LSE of their intrinsic strength and power, organized in conjunction with the International Women’s Day. Women Leader of Tomorrow, Women in Business and the Women’s Officer have come together to bring to you this new campaign! As we all know LSE women are powerful and this week to mark International Women’s day on the 8th of March we want to paint LSE Red!

LSESU CYCLING SOCIETY Cycling Club Casual Ride to Vauxhall City Farm, Sunday 1 March, leaving Old Building Steps at 11.15

The City Section Editorial:

On Friday, the Greek Governement managed to agree on an eleventh hour bailout extension. This follows weeks of speculation on whether Greece would leave the Eurozone (and indeed some like Martin Vander Weyer for The Telegraph would still like to warn us that we “should not be fooled by the idea that ‘Grexit’ is now impossible”) and what effect this would have on European business. Opinions needless to say ranged from the good to the bad and the very ugly.

One company which has at least moderately benefited from all this, however, is an American company called GrexIT. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the tech company behind the domain grexit.com says that they witnessed a boom in traffic with unsuspecting Googlers falling on the site when they searched for news on the Greek economic crisis.

Co-founder Niraj Ranjan Rout says that this has not, however, translated into an increase in sales, which is unfortunate because if Silicon Valley execs are to be believed, technology is the solution to all problems.

Oh well, not a total loss all round at least, including for the Greek governement.

The City

Mika Morissette

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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

Features: The Japanese Recovery: Abenomics?

Page 28

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Sport: Fight Night LSE Boxing Page 32

Rest in Peace, Father of Nutella

Was it fate that Michele Ferrero, creator of Nutella, passed away age 89 on Valentine’s Day? Channon Gray City Corespondent Michele Ferrero, the creator of Nutella, which helped to transform the lives of many, has died aged 89 on Valentine’s Day. Mr Ferrero died at his home in Monaco following many months of illness.

The Man behind the chocolaty empire was known to be the richest

confectioner and Italy’s most wealthiest man. The BBC reported that he was worth an estimated £14.9bn.

His company introduced some of the best-loved confectionary products to the market such as Ferrero Rocher, Tics Tacs and Kinder.

Ferrero was internationally known for his genius hazelnut spread, which was first made in 1964. It now features in 160 countries and is produced across 11 different factories.

The Ferrero company now em-

ploys over 22,000 workers, this is a far cry from the small factory Mr Ferrero’s father, Pietro, started out with in 1942.

Pietro Ferrero originally created Nutella in 1944, however at the time it was called Giandujot. He aimed to create a luxury that many people could afford by combining hazelnuts with a small amount of cocoa.

Michele Ferrero later went onto refine this into the Nutella we know today.

The family business was passed to

Michele after Pietro’s death in 1949.

Over the past 66 or so years Michele Ferrero has developed Kinder in 1968, Tic Tacs in 1969 and Ferrero Rocher in 1982. Although in 1997 he handed the private company over to his two sons, Pietro and Giovanni.

Giovanni has been in charge since the death of his brother, Pietro, who unexpectedly died of a heart attack.

He was considered a great entrepreneur who revolutionised the chocolate industry.

Sweet Juicy Chocolate-Covered Secrets

Ferrero the man was just as secretive as the recipes which made him billions Julia Wacket City Corespondent One of the most famous, but also most secretive family-run multinationals lost its visionary leader on the 14th of February.

Michele Ferrero, Italy’s richest man with a fortune of about £23.4bn and creator behind sweets like Nutella, Ferrero Rocher or Kinder eggs, died last week after a long illness at his home in Monaco. But who was the man, whose creations are hardly ever absent from a family home? And where will the company be heading after his death?

Ferrero, almost as secretive as the recipe for his hazelnut-chocolate spread Nutella, was not like any other businessman. He died, having never given a newspaper interview, was rarely seen in public (and if so only with his black sunglasses) and never went to any extravagant business-community gatherings. His focus was the company, his family and the constant innovation of new products at the highest standards.

The rise of the company Ferrero began in 1946 in Alba, a small town near Turin, where the company still has its headquarters.

Michele Ferrero began working at his fathers’ pastry shop when he was 20. In the scarce post-war years the Ferrero’s had the idea to create a chocolate-like sweet using cheaper hazelnuts from the countryside around Alba, instead of more expensive cocoa. The hazelnut cream, first called ‘pasta gianduja’ became so popular that in 1964 Ferrero internationalised it with a new name: ‘Nutella’. Today, the recipe of the Nutella spread is still one of the well-kept secrets of the company. Only so much is known: In every 400 gram glass Nutella there are 50 nuts, meaning with

365 million kilos global consumption yearly, Ferrero now makes up one quarter of the total world consumption of hazelnuts.

New products and brands like Mon Cheri, Kinder, Ferrero Rocher and Tic Tac followed Nutella. In addition to secrecy, Michele Ferrero’s main strategy was that he did things differently, for instance by using hazelnuts instead of cocoa or selling Kinder surprise chocolate eggs all year around instead of only for Easter. Each of Ferrero’s products is a brand in itself. Very unique too is that the company remains privately held and so far resisted all partnership or merger propositions from rivals. Staying traditional, family-run and tenacious are Ferrero’s main aims.

Michele Ferrero not only had most of the ideas for the company’s products, he also understood that its future lay on the global arena.

The company launched in Germany in 1956 with Mon Cheri, cherry liqueur chocolates, “to raise the morale of the Germans and bring something sweet into their lives”.

Winning over post-war Europeans with Mon Cheri was only the start of success abroad. Expanding globally in the 1970s Ferrero was ahead of many other companies and could win over market by market, never through acquisition but by introducing products catering to local tastes. For instance, Michele Ferrero waited until 1983 to take Nutella to America, introducing Tic Tacs first because he did not want to compete with the national spread peanut butter.

Today Ferrero is successful worldwide. The company now employs 24.000 people in 18 factories globally. With revenues in 2014 of € 8.4bn Ferrero now is the world’s fourth biggest chocolate confectionary company, behind Mondalez,

Marks and Nestle. In Germany it is still the market leader in chocolate confectionary up to today.

So what will the future look for Ferrero after the death of its main leader? Already in the 1990s Ferrero handed over the role of chief executives to his two sons Giovanni and Pietro. When Pietro died of a heart attack in April 2011 while cycling, Ferrero’s second son Giovanni took over. However, his sons are known to be more willing to take

risks and more open to change. Pietro for instance, initiated a bid for Cadbury in 2009, which his father however vetoed, leading Cadbury to go to Kraft. Giovanni is now planning to strengthen the business in bigger markets like the United States or Asia. It will be interesting to see where Ferrero, without the creative product ideas and perfectionism of its leader Michele Ferrero will be heading.

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The City

Tuesday February 24, 2015

In Conversation with His Royal Highness, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Turki Al-Saud

Society Space

Choudhry Azizuddin Entrepreneur Society

Who: Nicki Fruth, the Google Student Representative for LSE, will be running the event on Campus

GoogleStudentSkills Last week Entrepreneur Society invited the Prince to talk about Entrepreneur- Seminar:D i g i t a l Marketing 101 ship in the Gulf LSE Entrepreneurship, in conjunction with LSE SU Entrepreneurs Society & LSE SU Business Society, co-hosted a dialogue between HRH Prince Abdul Aziz bin Turki Al-Saud and Professor Zoltan Acs with Professor George Gaskell as chairman. HRH Abdul Aziz is a successful Saudi entrepreneur who believes the Gulf needs a change in mind set. Professor Zoltan Acs is an internationally recognized expert on entrepreneurship. They meet in a panel chaired by Professor George Gaskell, LSE, to discuss solutions.

The LSE SU Entrepreneurs Society was honored to co-host an event that boasted of one of the highest turnouts of any event at LSE. The event consisted of two parts: The first involved the chair asking the two speakers questions that were relevant to the dialogue; the second involved opening the panel to the audience for their questions.

The chair kicked off the session by asking HRH about what comes after oil. The reply was diversification into renewables and other sources of energy. The chair followed it up by asking Professor Zoltan about the main constraints to diversification.

He answered that it is difficult to give up what is relatively easy (drilling oil) in favor of something difficult.

The next question addressed HRH’s business interests in nuclear power at Belgium. He replied that the world is heading towards nuclear power, and he wants to recruit engineers and experts to create something that would benefit his country and the wider world. Regarding the importance of investing in people, Professor Zoltan elucidated that the best entrepreneurs come from the best schools in the world such as Harvard, Stanford etc. This shows the importance of education and training in promoting entrepreneurship. HRH followed it

Where and When: It’s going to run from 6 to 8 in the East Building, room 171, on February 26th.

up by stating that the Saudi government provides interest free loans to citizens to start their own businesses.

The government ensures that the funds are spent in the right direction.

However, what should countries that do not have the funds of Saudi Arabia then do? Professor Zoltan confessed that it is a very difficult question to ask since one could anticipate that the next generation of businesses would start in places such as Germany or France. Yet, they are emerging in China. Maybe they are a result of individual aspirations that stem from the culture. Reflecting on some of the mistakes done in business, HRH stated that it is important for one to get one’s priorities right, and do not mix them up.

Some of the interesting questions asked by the audience included the role of women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia. HRH claimed that the government generously supports women entrepreneurs and provides them with equal opportunities. He also stated that the oil money is not what’s keeping the kingdom together; it’s the values and aspirations of its people. He then compared the kingdom to the US, stating that there are more people in the Saudi congress as compared to the US congress. The next set of questions consisted of macro economic dynamics: falling oil prices and differentiated skill sets in Saudi Arabia. HRH replied that it isn’t good for oil prices to go up and admitted that although the skill sets

were not differentiated; it’s not the case anymore with Saudi’s pursuing more diversified education. Professor Zoltan admitted that it’s extremely difficult to understand why men start all the biggest startups, maybe because women feel responsible for child rearing, whereas men could ignore this duty.

The event concluded with HRH telling the audience a story about his adventures in Kazakhstan, which left the audience laughing. The event was quite humorous with both the speakers cracking several jokes, which left the audience on the edge of their seats. However, it deepened our understanding of the macroeconomic implications of entrepreneurship in the gulf and around the world.

What: Digital Marketing 101: Basically, it will introduce the evolution of online digital marketing, provide some background and history, and educate students on how technologies such as those found at Google create more targeted and effective marketing and advertising campaigns. Following this, I will explain (in terms of concepts as well as numerically), what kind of metrics these tools can measure, and why these provide a more transparent understanding over traditional methods.

At the end, I will then introduce a skills based class I will be running the week after the 101 presentation (on campus) called “Adclass”, where I will be teaching students the Adwords platform to develop their applied and practical marketing skill portfolio. These classes will help the students enrolled become Google Certified (a internationally recognized skill they can put on their CV, and which is useful for digitally marketing any business campaign they run in the future).

The event will also introduce the Google Online Marketing Challenge, a free Challenge for students to get access to advertising money from Google in order to fund a campaign for their favorite social cause or small business.

Why: Google wants to Teach students about online Marketing, and toraise awareness regarding it’s current technologies. It is also to teach practical skill development in the Marketing and Advertising, using the latest technology.

Features Section editorial: THIS WEEK, I FIND myself in the position of Features Editor alongside fellow first-year and partner in crime George Harrison. Yes, you read that correctly - there are two first years running the Features Section of The Beaver and challenging the status quo!

Apart from the highquality analysis of current affairs across the globe that you would usually find in the Features Section, this term, George and I are planning to run a series of high-profile interviews with learned members of academia, visiting diplomats, and some of the UK’s most eminent and controversial politicians. And what better way to start off our first issue than with an exclusive interview with former leader of the EDL and a paradox in himself, Tommy Robinson, conducted by our very persevering Deputy Features Editor, George Greenwood.

This week in Features we also examine Welsh legal devolution, Abenomics in Japan, the role of scale in climate change, and human trafficking. We hope you enjoy engaging with this week’s issue as much as we enjoyed compiling it!

Features

Taryana Odayar

Tuesday February 24, 2015

Section Editors: George Harrison and Taryana Odayar

26

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

features@thebeaveronline.co.uk

“We have been Betrayed”: Tommy Robinson on Class Politics, the EDL and British Islam George Greenwood Deputy Features Editor WHILST WRITING THIS article, I had to balance two very difficult concerns.

On the one hand I do not simply want to produce an attack article.

This takes no skill, and would not be a fair reflection of the man I met in Luton. The tabloid press have done a good enough job of this already for Tommy, often on the very same pages that they print damaging stereotypes of British Muslims of their own.

On the other hand, I feel that Tommy is someone who still clings to the caricatures of Islam he created for himself during his leadership of the EDL. He is not a racist, or a Nazi, or an unintelligent man, but he retains some deeply troubling views about Islam, if not individual British Muslims. His work with Quilliam has clearly challenged his prejudices, but his assumptions that the extremes of Islam reflect the quotidian still remain.

While it is easy to look at the whole EDL movement in terms of black and white, Tommy Robinson is someone deep in the grey. And I conclude later, we cannot simply ignore these groups and hope they will go away. We have to deal with them head on.

My conversation with Mr Robinson follows.

What was the final straw that encouraged you to set up the EDL? “The final straw was the Royal Anglican Regiment’s homecoming (where Muslim soldiers spat in the faces of returning British soldiers).

But there was a lot more prior to that. I had organised a protest back in 2005, called “Ban the Luton Taliban”. Growing up in Luton, I had noticed a change in the town, witnessed so much I thought was wrong, and so many things going unchallenged. But the final straw was the soldiers. The reason for that is that I’m a working class kid, I grew up in a working class estate, and a lot of the lads joined the army. In that regiment we had had a local lad die, another lost his legs. It wasn’t what the protesters had done that day, it was that they were allowed to do it. The council and the police took them through the town hall to do it, and allowed them to do it. This was years and years of appeasement.

No one said no to them. These groups could do what they want. So we were like no they can’t, they can’t! And you can look at the progression since then, burning poppies on Armistice Day, to beheading a soldier in Woolwich.”

“I witnessed so much I thought was wrong, and so many things going unchallenged” Do you think the EDL was treated differently?

“If we said we wanted to protest outside a mosque, they wouldn’t let you. The EDL, and I have left the EDL now, said that they wanted to protest against a conference that was going on in Bury Park, they were made to do it a mile away. Muslim groups, when they want to protest against our soldiers, you stick them a mile away! But they don’t. They just don’t give us the same minority rights.

In many areas of this town, white people are the minority, and white English kids are a minority in many schools in this town. They are not protected when they are being bullied as a minority. It’s a taboo subject that no one wants to tackle. And it’s not just minorities in general. Blacks don’t get an easy ride either. You just need to look at the statistics. We had a black lad here recently killed in the cells. None of that happens to the Muslims. British Africans are still getting it real hard. They don’t get tiptoed around.”

What was it like dealing with the far-right within the EDL? “With a nationalist organisation, it was always going to attract all manner of people. And we weren’t ready for what was going to happen. Boom.

One minute you’re an average bloke, six months later you’re leading the biggest street protest movement in Europe. The problem we had was when we were telling these guys that the EDL was not for them, the media and left wing politicians are telling them it is. Because they put a “far right” label on English Defence League, and we weren’t far right, you invite in all these people, who suddenly think “this is the group for me.”

It was consuming all my effort and time in keeping these groups out, and they just formed these splinter groups which circled around the EDL, they still do it now. It’s fucking hard. It’s a harder fight than battling Islam. But I have learnt a lot now. I’m off license in July, so I’m looking at other options. I left the EDL so I could look at different ways to proceed, a more political way of addressing the problems we face. And I just see the problems

getting worse. I don’t think people should be scratching their heads looking around when thousands of people are back on the street.”

What would the Tommy Robinson of today say to the Tommy Robinson of 2010?

“Grow up. Fucking grow up. I was 26, when I started, just a young lad. I don’t know how it happened so quickly. For a few years there I neglected my wife, my kids. I kept my feet on the ground as best I could, but the pressure of the stress, all the police arrests, the financial restraints, prison, death threats, it just fucking went boom. I weren’t ready for it.

If I was going to do something now, I know where I went wrong. Before those years I wasn’t a big drinker, but when I was in the English Defence League I would be drinking three times a week. That’s not me, I have only drunk twice now in the last two years. I was one of those people, who would turn up in the morning, get pissed up, and go to a protest. Everything around the EDL was focussed around pubs. We couldn’t get halls, all we could find were local pubs to use as venues. But alcohol and protests don’t mix. Punches get thrown. They should never mix, in hindsight, but I see that now I’ve got a clear head.”

What do you think of UKIP? Do you think it will make a difference?

“I think it is sad that working class people are looking to UKIP as an an-

Tommy Robinson, formerly of the EDL

swer, because they don’t really represent working class people. Everyone is so desperate about immigration, and the stuff about the EU, that they end up voting for UKIP. Labour are going to lose quite a few votes to UKIP, but UKIP aren’t going to realistically get more than three seats. And then you’re going to get the whole country on a fucking downer, because all of these people who think that they are going solve these problems, realise they are not. There is going is to be a really big vacuum to fill. 40% of UKIP think they are going to win the election. I mean, come on! When that doesn’t work out, you are going to have a lot of angry people. And you will have a void. I don’t know what will happen. I am still evaluating what I am going to do when I come off license in July, but I think Britain is primed for something.”

What do you think needs to be done? Do you think a new working class party is the answer?

“You can’t fucking do it with a political party, everything is against you.

The answer would be for Labour to reform. But they need to admit how wrong they have been. They need to get rid of that twat Milliband, Tell the Unions to fuck off. The Unions are not what they used to be. The Unions used to represent working class people. But they don’t today. The average worker would like to tell them how fucking angry they are about

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Tuesday February 24, 2015

what’s going on, but they just seem to do nothing about it. Labour, I would have liked to seen Labour a few years back, come out and say yes we fucked up. As working class people, who are Labour voters, become more successful, they go to the Conservatives yeah, and that the progression there is, it seems to me. Labour wanted a loyal vote base, and they realised that it’s not the working class. And they have just gone for the immigrants, and they have just imported droves. I could just talk about this town. Labour get voted in in this town, every year, because they get 30-4000 votes from Muslims.

That’s it. So all of us, we don’t matter. The council don’t give a shit what I think, the politicians doesn’t give a shit what I think. The only thing they

toons. As a front page. None, but one media outlet in this country, showed the Charlie Hebdo cartoon. In fact, I don’t know if you saw Sky news?

They dived, off air when it came on.”

So do you think Islam has a future in the UK? “No. I think that, unfortunately, with Muslims its going to come to a head. It’s getting worse and worse.

Not until Muslims want to leave Sharia at the door. These blasphemy laws that they were protesting about this Sunday are just one fucking example, where they protested against the cartoons being shown. You can be offended! Just don’t tell us what to think and say. I think that you need to be offended. It’s part of society. I am offended on a daily basis, by things

were at war with the Germans, we wouldn’t have allowed them to walk around, we didn’t, we interned them.

Until the war was over. We are at war.

Get them off the street.”

Do you think people such as Mo Ansar, and Quilliam, are doing enough?

“Mo Ansar adds to the problem.

Maajid Nawaz is only one man.

Usama and Quilliam can only do so much. Usama and Majiid, are not representative. However many Muslims speak out, the reality is I think that we have 90% of Mosques in the country that are propagating this Islamist ideology. Death to apostates, death to homosexuals, and all these sort of views that are widely, widely shared. That’s what we need to get a

says yeah yeah I know. She said, it was amazing for to see how fundamental and conservative that they are in comparison to Pakistan. I don’t know one Muslim woman in this town, who doesn’t wear a Hijab. Last time at LSE I went to a talk showing the victims of extremist Islamism in Muslim countries. I have always viewed that we are on the front lines, but this documentary showed me it was Muslims who are the victims in the majority of these cases. Women were being told by the Taliban they were going to blow up their school. Taking their kids to school, they might get blown up.

We don’t have to face that. But these Muslims are still doing it to get a better education. Now that really made me think. That was then LSE kicked

“That’s how I feel mate, yeah.

Where Muslims in this country believe in freedoms. I think it would have been great after Charlie Hebdo, to see Imams coming out saying, you know what, our prophet would have been more of a man than to care about a cartoon. But they can’t because they would be seen as apostates.

And they would be targeted like Usama. Four Imams in London signed a leaflet calling for his death when he spoke about evolution. That’s fucked up, right!”

Tommy asked me, as I made my way to Luton station and the promise of home, what I felt the solution to the problems we are facing are. I responded, that I felt engagement, and sitting different communities

give a shit about is what the leader of the council of the Mosque thinks. Because that’s who votes them in. That’s what Labour has become in towns like Luton. Maybe not in towns like Newcastle or Middlesbrough, predominantly white cities, but in Luton, they have just betrayed us.”

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, do you think we need to be concerned over constraints on free speech in the UK? “Well we have restrained free speech. I think it is so hypocritical to see David Cameron marching in Paris, talking about free speech, I don’t have free speech, they have taken free speech away from me. Before my speech at the Oxford Union, they told me what I can and cannot talk about.

It’s fucking bullshit. If I didn’t have three kids then I would have just said what I wanted to say. But I have been taken away from my kids too often, for stupid shit, so I just didn’t do it. We are already living under a sort of blasphemy law. Everyone is already petrified of offending Islam, and certainly, the cartoons. One of these magazines in London, they made a cartoon, and the whole front cover was basically just ripping the piss out of Christianity. But if a Christian walked in there and shot them, every newspaper in Britain would have rerun the car-

Islam says, Muslims say and do. The Mosque down there in Luton just put out at Christmas a three page statement as to why apostates should be murdered. That offends me. Not that I’m going to go down there and beat them all up, or shoot them. But look, that’s what they are cited to do, in many senses, by the ideology. Kill those who insult their prophet. Not have a go at them, but kill them.

“The Charlie Hebdo murderers, again, were known. What are they doing walking around France? If we accept that we are at war with extremist ideology, which we are very openly, at war, they should be interned. All these Muslims who hold this extremist ideology, who wish to overthrow our government and implement Sharia. It’s no point going to war in Syria, 4-5000 of them are in Europe. They are from all over the world. But we don’t accept we are at war. I look at the growing numbers out there fighting for ISIS, that’s 2000 who have been brave enough to go. Fucking, 10,000’s support it here. We have 3500 of them being monitored 24/7, 9 million pound a year cost to the taxpayer, intern them! You know they are a threat, we know they are a threat, we know their views, they are the enemy, Intern them! When we

“I think you need a revolution from young Muslims; they need to kick out the older generation.”

me out to avoid as not someone they wanted to be associated with. I feel political correctness, cultural sensitivity, these things will play a major role in preventing any answers, or progress.

“I read a thing once that said 50% of British Muslims don’t feel represented by many of the mainstream organisations. I get frustrated, not with the average Muslim, but with the organisations. The Muslim council of Britain. Whenever I look into these organisations, I find loads of crazy stuff, foreign links, and extremism.

These groups get pushed forward, but probably aren’t representative of the average Muslim. In fact, the majority of Muslims I meet, even after I have led the EDL, are very polite, and I have a lot of very interesting discussions with them while walking around the town centre. I think you need a revolution from young Muslims, I think that they need to kick out the older generation, I think they really need to call for a British Islam, because the Islam we are seeing today at the minute, is propagated from foreign far right places, and reflects tribalistic views. It’s not warranted here, it’s not welcomed here.”

So, if anything, an Anglican Church of Islam is needed if it’s to have any future in the UK?

down together at the lowest level, is the way forward to break down the mutual misunderstandings that each has of the other. I stand by this now, and I think that this is the lesson of Tommy Robinson. To show the value of engagement across cultural boundaries. There has been a real change in what he is saying since the apoge of his leadership of the English Defence League. Even the most hardened anti-Muslim, once sat down with ordinary British Muslim, to talk through their concerns, must be forced to critically assess their own views, as Tommy did with Usama Hasan and Maajid Nawaz. While I think he still holds some deeply problematic views, to label and exclude Tommy and the rest of the EDL as irrecoverably prejudiced might help our liberal sensibilities, but it is simply not going to be a solution to the problem.

The only way we can positively deal with the EDL is to tackle their concerns and prejudices head on, by showing them they are wrong about these stereotypical beliefs about Islam while accepting that on other issues, such as the lack of a working class voice, they may actually have a point. Excluding them from society will only radicalise them and lead to further problems.

grip on. We need to change the 10% into the 90%. Fuck, but are we going to do it? Are they going to do it?”

Is the future of people from a Muslim background to stop becoming Muslims, and just integrate with the rest of the population?

“If it wasn’t punishable by death, I think quite a lot of Muslims would do it. And even those that do, they never speak to their family again. You said some of your mates have done it.

But were they middle class?”

Are the issues with Islam also a class issue?

“When I went to Oxford University and spoke at the Union, a Muslim girl I spoke after told me how she walks around freely in Pakistan without a veil. I said to her, You’d get grief in Luton, you do know that, and she

Features

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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The Pocket Japan Economic Spotlight Philosopher: The Japanese Recovery: Sense and Reference Could ‘Abenomics’ be the solution?

Alexander Howells Pocket Philosopher

AS WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY seen, the Direct Reference Theory (DRT) of language runs into two problems. Let’s recap: DRT says that the meaning of a proper name is only that which it refers to, the object it picks out in the world. Firstly, it encounters the problem of Non-Reference; it is incapable of accounting for ‘empty’ names, like Pegasus, which fail to pick out a real object. Secondly, it’s unable to distinguish the difference in significance between true statements of the forms ‘a=a’ and ‘a=b’.

The second problem was the main motivation for one of the most famous theories of Gottlob Frege, the early 19th century philosopher, mathematician, and logician. He considered ‘The Morning Star’ and ‘The Evening Star’. To those not astronomically in the know, both refer to the planet Venus. ‘The Morning Star = The Evening Star’ offers us significantly more information than the trivial ‘The Morning Star = The Morning Star’. Both sentences are true and, furthermore, can be logically derived from each other, but whilst the first sentence (‘a=b’) can tell us something we didn’t know, the second (‘a=a’) cannot.

Frege’s answer to the problem is to move from DRT to distinguishing between what he calls the ‘Sense’ of a name and it’s ‘Reference’. The Reference of a name is, as in DRT, the object which it denotes in the world. This means that both ‘The Morning Star’ and ‘The Evening Star’ have the same Reference.

The Sense of a word is trickier; there is much debate about what Frege meant. A good way to think about it is what the name means when it doesn’t refer to anything.

Let’s take ‘The Director of LSE’.

At present it refers to Craig Calhoun, but it has referred to others and could even refer to no one, if we were between Directors. Nevertheless, there is a meaning to the title which holds independently of the bearer. Something like, ‘the one who holds certain directorial responsibilities at the LSE’.

Frege believes this solves the problem: the two names for Venus may both have the same Reference, but they differ in Sense. It also offers a solution to the problem of Non-Reference; the empty names, whilst having a Sense, simply fail to have a Reference.

Zita Chan Deputy Features Editor THE ECONOMY OF JAPAN has long suffered from a remarkable deficit. In 2013, Japan recorded a Government Budget deficit of 7.6% of the nation’s GDP; the recession was exacerbated with the government’s refusal to cut state expenditure.

In 2012, there was a record low -9.20% growth in GDP, however, Japan seemingly reached the light at the end of the tunnel when it finally exited recession in the fourth quarter of last year

to Shinzo Abe and his tactics.

Nonetheless, doubts remain regarding the long-term sustainability of the growth of the Japanese economy.

The most important issue is that the increased capital within the economy, in the form of increased government expenditure, fails to trickle down to the common masses. Increased government expenditure results in real-estate prices rocketing.

The Japanese government has continually injected money into the domestic economy, which is counter-intuitive as a tonic to the high housing prices in Japan.

resolve the inertia against consumption among the masses in the domestic economy. This is particularly highlighted by the fact that consumer sentiments are still lacking despite Abe delaying the increase to sales tax originally scheduled for October 2015. Domestic consumption takes up more than half of the Japanese economy, although its 0.3% increase is less than the projected 0.7% increase. Shinzo Abe seemingly does little to work on consumer sentiment despite it accounting for such a significant proportion of the domestic economy; the growth

count for the current GDP of Japan. It is highly ironic that these manufacturers hold huge amounts of cash due to their successes in exports and trade, but are unwilling to deploy the cash into the domestic market.

The government fails to provide confidence and incentive for corporations and capitalists to invest. The current growth is a result of the government’s cash, which would eventually run out without capital support from the wealthy corporations. Therefore, the current growth is merely temporary, should industrial firms and corporations maintain

It would benefit property-owners naturally via increasing the value of property, but not the working class. Also, the yen devalues. With the devaluation of the yen, exporters would profit from their merchandise, but not domestic consumers. Therefore, an expansionist fiscal policy only succeeds in making the rich richer but is less than helpful to the common people. With the momentum of the entire economy dependent on the limited few where wealth is concentrated amongst them, the growth in Japanese economy may be rapid, but not sustainable, nor is it reflective of the true scene of the domestic economy of Japan.

Also, Abe’s policies fail to

achieved now is dependent on exports. However, the exports market is volatile as it is easily influenced by various circumstantial factors that are unforeseeable. Abe’s current policy fails to garner a secure source of demand domestically and render the national economy very much reliant on the exports market, which is unstable, and, hence, unsustainable.

Not only is momentum lacking in consumption expenditure, but also in investment expenditure. Corporations and firms, both domestic and from abroad, lack confidence in the domestic Japanese economy. This is reflected via low figures in investment expenditure that ac-

their indifference.

It would be unfair to negate the efforts of Abe and his government. It is undeniable that an exit from recession is an encouraging sign. However, much work regarding domestic consumption and investment will have to be done, as well as modifying current policies to be more multi-dimensional in order to suit the reality. The current tactics employed by Abe and his government is a be-all and end-all panacea for growth in Japanese economy. The Japanese government should mind that “One swallow does not a summer make”. The economy of Japan is truly revitalized when growth is sustainable in the long-run.

Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe as reported in February 2015.

The Japanese economy has expanded by 2.2% following two previous quarters of recession and a trail of economic deficit.

However, whether ‘Abenomics’ would steer Japan into perpetual growth is yet to be certain.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has adopted a novel and bold approach, in order to revitalize the Japanese economy that was dampened over the years. His expansionist fiscal policies to drastically increase government expenditure, in hopes of raising the GDP of Japan ensuing the Multiplier Effect, are dubbed ‘Abenomics’.

With the 2.2% growth in GDP, this is certainly a statistical nod

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Examining Welsh Legal Devolution: Watch out for the the Jagged Edges Mali Williams Second Year Undergraduate O N 9 F E B RU A RY 2 0 1 5 the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Welsh Assembly had acted outside its legislative competence in passing the Recovery of Medical Costs for Asbestos Diseases (Wales) Bill. Since then, commentators have argued that instead of providing clarity regarding the Assembly’s legislative competence as the judgment is supposed to have done, the jagged edges of Wales’ model of conferred powers have been further exposed.

Of course currently, Scotland’s reserved powers devolution model differs from Wales’ conferred powers model. The Scottish Parliament has the legislative competence over all areas other than those reserved for Westminster by the Scottish Parliament Act 1998. In contrast, the Welsh Assembly can only legislate on areas which have been conferred to it by the Government of Wales Act 2006, unless it crosses an exception to those areas, but confusingly

not if it comes under an exception to those exceptions. Thus, it is not hard to see why plenty of lawyers and political commentators have described the jagged edges of the Wales’ conferred powers model as ‘arbitrary’.

In cases of doubt over legislative competence, the UK Supreme Court has jurisdiction to decide the legality of devolved legislation.

Over the years, devolution cases in the Supreme Court have ebbed and flowed across all the UK’s devolved nations. However, whilst Scottish and Northern Irish cases have been consistently referred to the Supreme Court by interested private parties, only Welsh legislation has been referred for review by the UK Government. This appears to be due to the complex constitution of the Welsh conferred powers model and the higher threshold for legislative competence that the Welsh Assembly is required to prove. As the recent Asbestos Bill case has demonstrated, the referral to the Supreme Court not only wastes valuable public time and money, but also under-

mines the efficacy of the devolution settlement itself.

As a consequence of this recent case, it has been argued that the catalyst for change has been provided, and following May’s General Election, we will witness a move towards a reserved powers model for Wales corresponding to a parity with Scotland. Indeed, whilst the Silk Commission, set up to review devolution in Wales in 2011, published a report last year recommending the introduction of a reserved powers model for Wales, it has not yet been given effect by the UK Government.

However, more recently, the Conservatives have pledged to offer limited powers over tax for the Welsh Assembly should they win in May; Labour has offered more areas to be devolved, such as powers over policing and youth justice if they win. Moreover, in recent months both David Cameron and Ed Miliband have been caught using the language of “Welsh Parliament”, as opposed to Assembly, signalling a move towards more serious powers for the Welsh legislature amongst

UK politicians.

Yet, whilst the language of “parliament” is evident, the language of ‘reserved powers’ is noticeably absent outside Cardiff Bay. We might attribute this to the perceived incompatibility of a reserved powers model for Wales with a single legal jurisdiction shared with England i.e. the laws of England and Wales.

However, whilst this may be true, it is not an insurmountable issue; there are many solutions, primarily, separating the jurisdictions of England and Wales. The reluctance towards introducing a reserved powers model is more consistent with the incremental devolution seen by Wales since 1997. Yet, whilst further powers are framed as being within the conferred powers model, they are in fact consistent with a thrust towards a reserved powers model.

By striking down the Asbestos Bill, the Supreme Court appears to have progressed the journey towards a reserved powers model for Wales, and in doing so, blurring the jagged edges of Wales’ legislative competence.

Climate Change and The Role of Scale George Harrison Features Editor THE GLOBAL CLIMATE IS changing; no matter the extent to which data is spun and made deliberately opaque by rival environmental groups and climate change “deniers”, data from sources ranging from the USGS and NASA to the Met Office makes it undeniably clear that climate oscillation is a staple of life on planet earth.

What is often omitted from the fierce debate raging over climate change is the role that scale plays on our perception of such a perceived

Graph 1 (Above Left): Source: NASA GISS Graph 2: (Above Right): Source Robert A. Rohde Graph 3 (Below Right): Source: Lisiecki & Raymo (2005)

issue. Climate scepticism in the real world is considerably more rife than it is amongst the LSE community; 41% of Americans in 2014 believed that climate change is not as bad as the media portrays it to be, whilst 37% of Americans surveyed in 2013 believed that climate change is a hoax entirely. Whilst the American situation may be on the extreme end of the climate change denial spectrum, large swathes of the electorate in many countries question the extent, severity or anthropogenic nature of climate change.

However, when graph 1, which shows NASA temperature data since 1880, is considered, it appears to be

an act of lunacy to question that our planet is in danger of a climate apocalypse. The steep rise in global temperature suggests impending, unpreventable doom, although the temporal scale remains relatively small: data spanning over a century seems at first to be substantial in scale, yet when a geological perspective is considered, in which epochs span tens of thousands of years, the picture is painted differently.

Graph 2 zooms out the timescale, showing aggregate temperature anomalies for the current geological era, the Holocene. Over 12000 years of the Holocene, up to 2004, temperature data varies enor-

mously, showing peaks and troughs, yet with a tendency to indicate that global temperatures aren’t rising on the whole. The graph shows data from tens of sources, with the average consensus shown by the bold black line; from this graph alone, panic regarding global warming seems entirely unfounded. This serves to highlight the role of temporal scale in considering climate oscillation, and, consequently, in considering the extent to which climate changes are anthropogenic.

In order to illustrate the true extent to which data can be warped by temporal perspective, this final graph, from a study by Lisiecki and Raymo in 2005, shows estimates of global percipitation temperatures: a geological proxy for global temperature. This data can be plotted over a 5 million year scale, which suggests a trend towards increasing oscillations, yet an overall decline in global temperatures.

The point is that our perception of many issues is rooted in the consideration of the scale in which we can perceive them. Sometimes, taking a statistical step back from issues and rethinking our perspective can be illuminating. Whilst the climate debate is bound to rage on regardless, consideration of differing data perspectives may well inject scepticism that, in the eyes of 41% of Americans, has previously been lacking.

Cracking Down on Human Trafficking Taryana Odayar Features Editor FRIDAY THE 20TH OF February 2015 marked the commemoration of the World Day for Social Justice. UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-Moon delivered a powerful statement on the significance of this year's commemoration, as it comes at a crucial point in time given the high volume of human trafficking, approximating 21 million women, men and children as of date.

Alluding to the International Labour Organization (ILO), Ban Ki-Moon went on to say that, "New instruments such as the ILO Protocol and Recommendation on forced labour and human trafficking are helping to strengthen global efforts to punish perpetrators and end impunity." However, he also added that complacency is simply not an option, and that, “We must continue to do more. We simply cannot achieve development for all if we leave behind those who are socially and economically exploited.”

Human trafficking, as defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.” In terms of statistics, the 2012 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons conducted by the UNODC, showed that adult women were the most targeted victims, comprising 55 to 60% of all trafficked victims ( a global baseline estimate). Adult men accounted for approximately 14% of trafficked victims, and children accounted for 27% of all globally trafficked victims.

The report also revealed that out of every three child victims, two were girls and one was a boy.

Given these abhorrent statistics, it is not surprising that this year's World Day for Social Justice has been marked as an important starting point in an attempt to renew existing efforts to eradicate the scourge of human trafficking. In the words of ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, “There is no inevitability, no excuse: Forced labour can be stopped.”

Sport

Tuesday February 24, 2015

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LSE Hockey Aim To Cap Off Hugely Successful Season In Amsterdam Perdita Blinkhorn Staff Writer I think it’s fair to say that the LSE hock ey clubs have had an amazing ly successful year so far, with the women’s fir st team even be ing awarded the title of an “elite sports club” at LSE .

Both the men and women’s fir st and s econd teams, as well as the hockey mixed team, have been consistently displaying their worth with their results.

T he women’s fir st team have taken to coining the hashtag #AllWeDoIsWin due to their streak of convincing wins, having not lost or drawn a sing le match all year. T hey were so successful that as early as two weeks ago in their g ame ag ainst their close rivals Reading, which they won 5 -0, they g ained enough points to guarantee promotion.

A significant factor in the team’s position at the top of their league with a massive point dif ference i s their weekly, intense fit ness sessions. T he deservedly proud Captain Sahar Khan explained “Hard work and dedication at training, tactics and fitnes s sessions week-in-week-out has paid of f on the pitch. Our success i n the recent quarter finals of the cup has also proven

that we are contender s in the next league up.” In last Wednesday’s g ame they also saw themselves through to the semi-finals of the cup.

T he men’s fir st hockey team, having been knocked out of the cup, have not lost a sing le league g ame this year either. T heir most successful win this year was a stunning 9-2 result ag ainst the Essex team, and they now have strong point difference 5 clear of the next highest team. It is highly unlikely that the team won’t be promoted to the next league due to their incredible display of skill on the pitch.

T he team benifited from an inf lux of skilled fresher s and postg raduates as well as a consistant training regime.

T he women’s second team have also ear ned the respect of many this year. T his part of hockey is also at the top of their league, even if not in ter ms of goal dif ference.

Captain Tessa Hutchinson described her team’s perfor mance as “amazing” and hopes for the continued success of her team. T heir hard work and tenacity to improve has been made clear, proving that the 2s deserved their promotion last seas on. Early on this year they smashed their way into the limelight with their win ag ainst Portsmoth having a 15-0 result, and then beating them ag ain

This week saw a record number of struggling AU-ers being shown the door in Zoo. Chirpsing, chat and chunder were the key themes of the evening as most members had team dinners and NOT rugby took netball on a round of pub golf. With many rev-

this week.

T he men’s 2s maybe bucking the trend to an extent, as they are third in their league. While it does not look like they will be promoted they have given a strong perfor mance this year, playing consistently well. T he skill of individuals has been noted but hasn’t seeming ly been translated into league results. A suggestion has been that improvement could come with more consistent training, even though the passion and drive is there.

In what is seeming ly be coming a new hockey tradition, the mixed team have also experienced g reat success. T hey have not lost a g ame in two year s and are g rowing in the number of player s who cons tantly play on Sundays week-in weekout. While conventionally a more relaxed, less competitive environment for playing sport, the mixed team has shown that fun and success can be enjoyed in equal measures. Good fresher intake and a mix of abilities are key part of the visible results according to Captain Krishna Aswani. While many player s come with thoughts only of being social member s, hockey mixed has been an excellent way to get them involved in the g ames itself.

In light of their achieve-

ellers having seen 50-shades over the weekend, this was prime time to find the perfect BDSM partner. Although the boys struggled to match the charms of Christian Grey, the seeds of romance always blossom in Zoo and this week was no exception.

A feisty first team lady went home on an Ark, and NOT rugby Will be pleased to have Listened in the madness. Ex-Mr LSE has a baccaLAUREate in identifying fine specimens, but this week he truly punched, leaving Zoo with a Godly girl. Let’ s hope a certain

ments, the LSE hockey team made histor y at the University by becoming the fir st team to receive finance from the Annual Fund for a hockey development tour in Amsterdam, undertaken last weekend. It aimed to enhance the skills of the player s and provide experience

fresher doesn’t get the Jo-ke.

There was a rumble in the jungle for two netballers as a CC Captivated us with some mALICE at pub golf. We can’t see much Roome for improvement for a birthday done in true AU style and send our condolences for his lost Thursday.

Subo held a private after party for Wayne and despite making it all the way south of the river, one social sec failed to Liv up to expectations. Unfortunately he had a Little struggle being sober enough to perform. And finally one baller

of sport at an inter national level. Whatever the results at the end on the season, this club has clearly proved their mettle and that, due to their hard work, they should by no means be underestimated.

was so keen to Maximise his time in Zoo he almost took the DJ with him. Someone should get that musical master a drink, think of the sights he’s witnessed this term.

Get your boxing gloves ready for next week where we will see some true heroes sweat it out in Fight Night. Until next time you animals.

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

31

Sport

Tuesday February 24, 2015

England Self-Destruct In CWC 2015 Robin Park Sport Editor

Classified Results

INSIDE THE CAKE TIN in Wellington, the Black Caps comprehensively dismantled a piss-poor England team, full of South African rejects and below-average county/school boy XI players.

Ian Bell, reluctant opener

and full-time messiah, was hitting everything wide of offstump, until he faced one that was actually hitting off-stump.

In fairness, Tim Southee went to King’s College, Auckland, in an era where their 1st XI was probably better than the Australian team of the early 2000s.

Southee, who along with Trent Boult was called by the Englsh media as being ‘workmenlike’

showed the presumably nonworkmenlike English batting order how things are done in the Southern continent.

Gary Ballance, occupying KP’s number 3 spot, was utterly hopeless. Spending nearly an hour in the middle and only scoring 10 runs was absolutely criminal. However, it wasn’t just Ballance who cocked things up. Not one batsman hit a six,

although again in fairness they only had 33 overs to bat. Perhaps one redeeming thing about the performance is that it is usually standard to double your score from 30 overs. Maybe if all of the England players didn’t have brain explosions then they might have gone on to make 250.

What could have been the cause for this utter humilia-

tion? A few have asked whether BMAC is the best captain in international cricket. McCullum had four slips and a gully for around 10 overs, IN AN ODI. If that’s not imaginative captaincy I don’t know what is.

So yes, it probably was the captaincy, as well as New Zealand just being the best damn team in the world. Watch out Australia.

You’re about to get trampled.

Women’s Volleyball

Men’s Football

Mixed Golf

Women’s Hockey

LSE 1s 0 - 3 Essex 1s

LSE 1s 1 - 1 Hertfordshire 2s

LSE 1s 3 - 3 Surrey 1s

LSE 1s 3 - 2 Queen Mary 1s (Cup)

Netball

LSE 2s 3 - 0 Portsmouth 3s (League)

Men’s Basketball

LSE 1s 1 - 2 Imperial 1s

LSE 1s 50 - 41 Imperial Medics 1s

LSE 2s 2 - 0 Buckingham New 4s (LSE 2s Become BUCS 2014-15 League Champions)

LSE 1s 26 - 33 Queen Mary 1s

Men’s Squash

LSE 6s 7 - 4 King’s GKT 5s

Women’s Rugby

LSE 1s 0 - 5 Birmingham 1s

LSE 1s 39 - 5 Brunel 1s (Cup)

Men’s Hockey LSE 2s 1 - 3 Surrey 2s

Residential Services

Win Prizes for Yourself and Your Hall The 2014/15 Student Accommodation Satisfaction Survey is now LIVE! All you need to do is complete the survey to be entered into a prize draw to win Amazon vouchers, bottles of Champagne, cocktails in The Shard, iPads and more.

Residential Services is also giving away £250 to the hall with the highest participation rate, to be used towards entertainment for your end of year party.

15_0185 Advert for Beaver.indd 1

If you live in halls, please take the time to tell us what you’re happy with (and what you aren’t) so that LSE residences can keep improving.

All current residents have been emailed a personalised invite and an individual link to the survey. To take part, please click on the link you were sent.

Email residential.life@lse.ac.uk if you didn’t receive the link, or if you need us to send you another one!

11/02/2015 14:19

Sport

Submit a match report and get your team’s achievements in print

the

Beaver

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

Fight Night: LSE Boxing DOB: 04/01/1995 Height: 5ft 6 Weight: 63kg

Kamran Miah

Ringname: Kam Style: Inside fighter/counter puncher Why you’re fighting: I first started boxing because I lacked confidence and really needed to lose weight. I taught myself using books, tutorials and fight footage for a year before I stepped foot into a boxing club. Since then I’ve been hooked to the sport and it’s become an important part of my life.

DOB: 15/07/1991 Height: 5ft 9 Weight: 82kg Ringname: Razor Style: Boxer/counter puncher Why you’re fighting: No comment

DOB: 17/12/1992 Height: 5ft 9 Weight: 72kg Ringname: Stevie ‘Wonder’ Kim Style: Boxer/power puncher Why you’re fighting: The reason I’m fighting is because when I first started boxing it was only a weight loss program at the time. But once I saw last years fight night I knew then that I really wanted to take boxing as a serious sport that I want to thrive in.

Stevie Kim

DOB: 19/04/1994 Height: 5ft 9 Weight: 72kg Ringname: JG Style: Inside fighter/power puncher Why you’re fighting: No reason.

Just another day in the office.

Raza Rizi

Jang-Gun Park

DOB: 17/02/1984 Height: 5ft 3 Weight: 53kg

Sam Carter Allison

Ringname: Sam Style: Southpaw Why you’re fighting: I was set to fight 2 years ago, but it was cancelled as my opponent broke her nose and then my doctorate meant I fell out of the sport for a while. This has been a really nice way to step back into it and remember why I enjoyed it in the first place.

DOB: 22/09/1987 Height: 5ft 3 Weight: 56kg Ringname: Femke Style: Inside fighte/swarmer Why you’re fighting: No comment

Femke Bolle

Fight Night will be held Wednesday, 25 February. If you want to submit a review article Email sports@thebeaveronline.co.uk