832

THE NAB: LSESU GIFT SHOP and The Chronicles of Nonia

Beaver Issue 832 | 17.03.15

the

newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union

Student Body Has No Beef With Meat Free Mondays

Feature Interview: Emily Brothers

• Highest turnout at any UGM this year • Motion asks LSESU to lobby school • Unclear when meat will go

Liam Hill Managing Editor

Comment:

AT THE PENULTIMATE Union General Meeting of the term – and of the academic year – a motion proposing the introduction of Meat-Free Mondays was debated, and subsequently passed by a margin of 454 in favour to 366 against, with 11 voters registering as ‘undecided’. With 833 votes cast, the motion became the most voted-on motion of the year so far.

The motion, proposed by Sara Hyder and Raisa Huq, will mandate the elected Sabbatical Officers and the Environment and Ethics Officer to lobby the school to stop serving meat on Mondays in The Bean Counter, the Fourth Floor Restaurant and Café Bar, The Garrick, Café 54, Plaza Café and George IV pub. The motion would also mandate the Trustee Board – which will next year include present Environment and Ethics Officer Nadia Raslan – to “offer students a wider variety of

meatless and dairy-free foods within SU catering outlets.”

Sara Hyder’s proposition of the motion began with the environmental justification for the policy: “We want the LSE to recognise that animal agriculture is the most environmentally regressive industry,” she said, adding that we produce enough food for 10 billion people, but divert much of that to animal agriculture, and over 1 billion people suffer from malnutrition as a result.

Raisa Huq, seconding the motion, echoed Hyder’s points about the environment, adding: “This is not about forcing vegetarianism down anyone’s throats.”

The motion was opposed by Jon Ray and Maurice Banerjee-Palmer. Ray made it clear to begin with that he supported Meat Free Mondays in principle, but had specific objections to the motion in terms of how it was phrased. BanerjeePalmer also began by stating his support, in principle, for Meat Free Mondays, stating that he enforced them in his own flat.

Meat Free Mondays: “Maybe young adults should symbolically ‘opt-in’ to meat eating by slaughtering their own dinner” page 10

FemSoc:

“Discussing whether song lyrics can be classed as ‘rapey’ does not help women who suffer horrendous forms of physical violence” page 11-12

Ray’s argument was that the impact of Meat Free Mondays at LSE would be negligible, since LSE’s catering services already have very high environmental standards in terms of the sourcing of its food.

Banerjee-Palmer suggested that a part of his rationale against Meat Free Mondays is that it would inevitably be seen as a ban, which would be bad publicity for the Students’ Union. “We don’t want to alienate people,” he said, “we want to bring people along.” He added that a better proposal than prohibiting meat one day a week would be to consider ideas along the lines of ‘nudge theory’ to encourage people to consume less meat with incentives.

Following the formal proposition, seconding and the oppositions to the motion, all the speakers coalesced on stage to take questions from audience members. This format lent itself to very specific questioning about specific clauses of the motion and facts claimed within the motion.

Continued page 4

White Privilege:

“Look to the sons of Arab Sheiks who cruise Knightsbridge in their Porsches; just because you are white doesn’t mean you have privilege” page 9

Sport The City

LSE Volleyball in The end of European Finals OPEC?

Page 31 Page 23

George Greenwood meets first openly transgender parliamentary candidate Continued page 25

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

Beaver

the

the

Beaver

Executive Editor Alexander Fyfe

editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Managing Editor Liam Hill

Established in 1949 Issue No. 832 - Tuesday 17 March 2015 - tinyurl.com/beaver832 Telephone: 0207 955 6705 Email: editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk Website: www.beaveronline.co.uk Twitter: @beaveronline

managing@thebeaveronline.co.uk

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

nab@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:

Abir Qazilbash, Alec Howells, Alex Leung, Alexander Fraser, Alexander Fyfe, Alexandra Lulache, Amelia Thomson, Ameya Badwe, Anuradha Santhanham, Ben Phillips, Bronwen Mehta, Camilla Naschert, Ceri Morgan, Chloe Holden, Choudhry Azizuddin, Christopher Hulm, Daniel Sippel, Dominic Hung, Dominic Tighe, Dorothy Wong, Ellen Wilkie, Ellie Peake, Gabrielle Beran, Gaia Manners-Armstrong, Gareth Rosser, Gee Linford-Grayson, George Greenwood, George Harrison, Gregory Kist, Hari Prabu, Hayley Toms, Isabella Mosselmans, Jack Hodsall, Jade Jackman, James Evans, Jasper Heeks, Jennifer Ruther, Jodie Momodu, Joe Grabiner, Joe Walters, Jon Allsop, Jon Foster, Julia Wacket, Kanan Parida, Katie Budd, Kavita Kalaichelvan, Khushboo Khanna, Koko Owusu, Laura Weigold, Leen Aghabi, Lena Schofield, Liam Hill, Louis van der Linden, Mahatir Pasha, Mali Williams, Malvika Jaganmohan, Mark Malik, Martha Petrocheilos, Maryam Akram, Matthew Pennill, Maurice Banerjee-Palmer, Megan Crockett, Mercedes Domenech Ensenat, Michelle Warbis, Mika Morissette, Mike Pearson, Milan Neergheen, Monopoly Rakus, Molly Brien, Minerva Rakus, Nona Buckley-Irvine, Ollie Hill, Perdita Blinkhorn, Phoebe Amoroso, Rachel Chua, Rahat Siddique, Raisa Huq, Rayhan Chouglay, Rayhan Uddin, Rian Watt, Richard Serunjogi, Robert Charnock, Robin Park, Rohan Ahlawat, Rohan Soni, Ronda Daniel, Ryan O’Rourke, Sam Barnett, Sam Povey, Samantha Jury-Dada, Sanya-Jeet Thandi, Saran Richards, Sebastien Ash, Sophie Donszelmann, Suyin Haynes, Taryana Odayar, Tom Maksymiw, Tooba Mushtaq, Vikki Hui, Zita Chan, Zwan Mahmod.

Any opinions expressed herein are those of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the LSE Students’ Union or Beaver Editorial Staff.

The Beaver is issued under a Creative Commons license.

Attribution necessary.

Printed at Mortons Printing.

From the Executive Editor Alexander Fyfe on discussion, debate and the internet.

‘I THINK THEREFORE I am’, Descartes’ most famous statement, is now an irrelevant footnote at the feet of todays egoistic commentariat. ‘I am therefore I am’, the pertinent, internet age interpretation. The internet is ostensibly a mobilising, revolutionary medium; bringing education, communication, entertainment and business as it colonises the four corners of the globe.

Yet, despite the amelioration, I am increasingly jaded by the democratic nature by which it affords anyone a platforming from which to voice opinions no matter how facile nor fallacious. Perhaps I’m just a misanthropic snob, an old-school journalist who believes in quality control, as well as free speech. Perhaps its the end of term. More likely however, my insouciance comes from the sheer weight of clamorous jabbering and synthetic outrage.

Who then, are todays commentariat, the chattering classes as Auberon Waugh disparagingly coined?

They are almost exclusively found on the internet, for a start. They also, the moment they put digit to keyboard, develop a vast ego that despite its size is impossibly fragile. I like to think of their egos like weath-

er balloons; grossly over-inflated, with skin a hairs width in diameter, and liable to burst at a moments notice.

Look around on Facebook, the balloon heads can be seen everywhere, just a contradictory comment away from bursting and spreading deleterious fragments across the cyberspace. Perhaps it’s the virtuality; our grey matter failing to respect the rules of decency, and the ability to critically interrogate. Sequestered in our rooms, and unable to visibly observe the human in our interlocutions through a screen, we become convinced in our opinions. In fact, not simply convinced; entrenched in our cognitive superiority. I am right. I am! I am! I am! The result of this conviction? Condescension and retreat towards defining issue only as dichotomous. And if we’re not actively participating, we can offer up that most sycophantic of group-think reactions; the holy Facebook Like. Internet debates are self-flagellating and self-defeating by every conceivable measure.

And my god it’s exhausting.

It’s exhausting to keep up. To be dragged into it. To read. Avoid it, you say? Impossible.

It’s not that I abhor opinion that

isn’t agreeable to my own. I edit a paper to provide a responsible platform of discussion for all students. I engage, comment and evaluate; just as all our readers do. I abhor what the internet has done to this sort of discussion; it’s no longer measured and considered, but immediate, shouty and bereft of consideration for the human behind the pixels.

And I’m tired of it. Time we reclaimed proper debate and discussion.

Have a good Easter break, this is the last edition of The Beaver for academic year 14-15. It’s been fascinating, challenging and constantly exciting to have been involved at the forefront of this publication for that time. I hope you’ve enjoyed things as much as I have, and look forward to the next academic year. A quick thank you to our departing section Editors; best of luck with your endeavours, it’s been a great year thanks to you lot!

P.S. Thinking about commenting on this piece? Bear in mind the concept of irony and how it will prove my point. If you disagree so strongly as to comment, instead, email me and we can sit down and actually have a meaningful discussion.

Liam Hill reflects on the year and invites you to our Beaver Hustings on Thursday

From the Managing Editor

MY EDITORIAL LAST WEEK turned into an extended party political broadcast on behalf of the Wessex Regionalist Party (Central Devon branch), which I wrote on the coach on the way back from home. As such I feel I should write a proper editorial this week about something I both know and care about. As I have already written an analysis piece about UGM and LSESU democracy (see page 4), that means I have to find something else I care about to write on.

That leads me fairly nicely to The Beaver. We have elections coming up this week that we have opened up to absolutely everyone to strongly consider standing. My own contribution notwithstanding, The Beaver is undoubtedly

amongst the best student newspapers in the country, and is run by people whose talent and dedication to their roles is unmatched by anyone else in any position I have witnessed at LSE. I cannot pay tribute enough to some of my Beaver colleagues. You have made being part of The Beaver a fantastic experience for me, and I can only hope that the nice people who read my Master’s application grant me another year with you.

As you’ll see on page 13, we have elections coming up. If you have even a passing interest in any of the positions please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We would love as many people as possible to stand and – even if you don’t win – we will do our best to find a way in to

involve and incorporate everyone who shows an interest in contributing. The Beaver is as much your paper as it is ours. It is in that spirit that we have tried to make it as inclusive as possible and as relevant to as many LSE students as possible. That’s why we introduced The City section. It’s why we’ve made a concerted effort to diversify the voices in Comment and Features to include as much as possible the opinions and experiences of marginalised groups.

We hope you think we have succeeded in this. If you do, help us keep up the good work. If you don’t, please stand and get involved. Or at the very least come along to our Hustings and ask Alex your difficult questions.

Tuesday March 17, 2015

2

Beaver Election Hustings!

Join us on Thursday from 5-6pm in TW1 2.03 for hustings. There will be a Q&A with the Executive Editor, hustings and The Beaver awards ceremony. Voting on positions opens immediately after hustings for 24 hours. Only members of the collective may vote.

We’re electing News, Comment, PartB, The City, Sport, Online Editor and Collective Chair.

DOES YOUR SOCIETY NEED A COMPUTER? We are getting rid of our old Macs, as the annual fund has given us some shiny new ones. The old ones aren’t actually that old, and if your society would be interested in gettting one email the Dave Bradshaw at the SU! Jon Ray @mynameisjon @beaveronline if you guys are going to summarise my argument in three points, at least spell my name right.

The Beaver @beaveronline @LSESUActivities starts by explaining that @TomMaksymiw, @nonajasmine and @Seb_Bruhn are all busy #HopefullyNotSlackingOff Tom Maksymiw @TomMaksymiw @beaveronline was at a @LSEGovernment departmental review #noneedtofear Nona Buckley-Irvine @nonajasmine @beaveronline @LSESUActivities @TomMaksymiw @ Seb_Bruhn on booked annual leave thank you very much.

Dennis Mooney @Dennis_R_M @lsesu @beaveronline Censorship one week, love-in the next...

Stella Creasy @stellacreasy Bit weird 2 be shown ‘bargain bucket Stella creasy’ in @beaveronline -er sure BBC3 show awaits 4 such comedic genius!

3

News

Tuesday March 17, 2015

Section Editors: Megan Crockett and Mahatir Pasha Guest edited by Liam Hill news@thebeaveronline.co.uk

This week saw the White Privilege Project hosted on the first floor of Saw Swee Hock centre. Students were invited to write on a board what White Privilege means to them.

LSESU India Society recieves “over-whelmingly positive feedback” for Economics Forum Kanan Parida Deputy News Editor RECENTLY RE-NAMED London School of Economics (LSE) Students' Union (SU) India Society held its Second Annual Economic Forum for India at LSE on Saturday, 14th March. From its conception last year, EFIL is a conference focusing on contemporary Indian politics and economy and providing insight on what lies ahead for India. The conference comprised of three panels: a Finance Panel focused on investing opportunities in India and expectations for the Indian Economy in the coming years, Politics Panel looking at Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure ten months in and an Entrepreneurship Panel focusing on the vibrancy and opportunity available to young entrepreneurs in India today.

EFIL began with a thin crowd of people filing in the room. The Finance Panel began with nearly half the audience yet to arrive but by the end was full. The first part of the panel was a video interview with Indian Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Jayant Sinha. Mr. Sinha set the tone for the rest of the panel to look into investing opportunities in the India market.

The panel involved a stimulating discussion about the Indian market, made simple for those who may not be investor whizzes. With

comparisons of the Indian market to the English Premier League, discussion was informal but intelligible amongst the speakers from panel moderator and proprietary investor Mr. Ramesh Damani to each panelist- Raamdeo Agrawal, Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd., Deutsche Bank’s Global Strategist Sanjeev Sanyal, Dr. Punita Kumar-Sinha, founder and managing partner at Pacific Paradigm Advisors and Mr. Jayakumar of Prime Securities.

After a short break, the Politics Panel began with a heated debate on the recently passed Land Acquisition Bill in India between the National Spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janta Party, Shaina NC and spokesperson for the Aam Aadmi Party Raghav Chadha. Moderated

by Dr. Mukulika Banerjee from Department of Anthropology at the LSE, the panel was joined by Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, Shri Piyush Goyal via video conference. Despite minor technical glitches with the video call resulting in a slight delay in proceedings, discussion was stimulating and engaged many members of the audience. Open to the floor, it soon became clear what was to become a resonating theme for the remainder of the conference, the recent censorship exercised by the Indian government- in terms of banning beef in

Maharashtra and banning the documentary India’s Daughter, based on the famous rape case in Delhi in 2012. A particularly striking moment occurred when a member of the audience questioned the Mr. Goyal’s statement that India wasn’t safe for women whereby she was put down in a rather controversial stance, saying that she represented the “feminist” view.

After lunch, the Entrepreneurship Panel succeeded these panels.

Moderated by former MP Patricia Hewitt, the panel gave opportunities to the speakers- Saurav Sanyal, founder and managing partner at Strategica, Kiran Kumar Grandhi, Managing director of GMR Infrastructure and Sandeep Raheja, Managing Director of K. Raheja Constructions to share their journeys and visions for India in the future, with a look at the potential for social entrepreneurship in India.

This was followed by a media and entertainment segment looking at the inner workings of the Bollywood industry with award-winning director Zoya Akhtar and Professor Daya Thussu moderating the discussion. Starting off with a lighthearted discussion of Ms. Akhtar’s reasons to get into the film industry, questions began to engage in a debate over whether films should be purely for entertainment or whether they must have a degree of ethical responsibility to the audience.

An exceptionally well-conducted conference, EFIL promises to keep

growing for the years to come.

Vice President Sidhant Gupta says, “Organising EFIL was more challenging than I ever imagined. But at the same time, it was a lot more rewarding than I ever imaged. The team's efforts culminated in a very successful event - I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback.

This makes me confident that EFIL has a great foundation on which to become even better”.

Beaver Sent Complaints About Election Practises George Greenwood News Writer THE BEAVER HAS BEEN contacted by several students to complain of aggressive strong arming and guilt tripping during election campaigning over social media experienced in the recent election. We received the following screen shots of messages sent out during the campaign.

Continued on Page 5...

News

Tuesday March 17, 2015

4

Meat Free Mondays Passes UGM With Biggest Turnout of the Year Liam Hill Managing Editor Continued from front page Hyder accused the opposition of “glossing over the benefits” of Meat Free Mondays, and said that regardless of the result of the motion: “we have raised a topic that is worth talking about… It’s currently totally underepresented in the environmental debate.”

UGM itself began with Sabb reports, but with Nona BuckleyIrvine, Tom Maksymiw and Seb Bruhn variously on holiday and in meetings, only Activities and Development Officer Alastair Duncan and Postgraduate Students’ Officer Mahamid Ahmed were present to give updates to UGM. Alastair Duncan began

by congratulating the new AU Exec, stating “I’m really proud of the new AU Exec. It represents a range of clubs it historically hasn’t.” Duncan also updated UGM about the SU’s campaign in relation to the school’s ethical investment policy. Duncan confirmed that The Council, the highest decision-making body in the school hierarchy, would be proposing changes to the school’s ethical investment policy.

Mahamid updated UGM about postgraduate free breakfasts he had organised, campaigning work to improve PhD scholarships and his future work with the National Union of Students.

Sara Hyder, who is President of the LSESU Animal Rights Society, told The Beaver, with regard to the motion passing: “We

are ecstatic that this happened.

The aim of all of this was to raise awareness about how damaging animal agriculture is to our planet – and the voter turnout reflects how successful we were in doing this. It’s wonderful to know that the majority of LSE students that voted had the foresight to recognise that this motion will speak volumes about our campus’s attitude towards environmental sustainability. Well done, LSE!” Disabled Students’ Officer Mark Malik, who had made his opposition to the motion very clear via several facebook statuses, told The Beaver: “The saving grace with this motion is that it only sought to ban meat in School food outlets, where the SU has no

control. So there is unlikely to be any change. Still, it’s sad that students and the SU will waste their time campaigning for something that the School will not implement, rather than coming up

Week MT 2 3 4

Date

Motion

Result

Yes

No

Undecided

Turnout

=/- Quoracy

10.10.2014 17.10.2014 23.10.2014

Student Council LGBT+ Officer NUS Referendum

Abandoned Carried Rejected

297 302

17 530

11 32

325 864

75 -836

9 LT 2 2 3 3 5 5 6

5.12.2014

Sir Lanka Massacre

Carried

298

15

29

332

82

23.01.2015 23.01.2015 30.01.2015 30.01.2015 13.02.2015 13.02.2015 20.02.2015

Carried Carried Carried Rejected Carried Carried Carried

370 239 208 127 338 432 323

32 165 42 55 30 36 32

11 11 9 16 15 30 13

413 415 259 198 383 498 368

163 165 9 -52 133 248 118

6 9 10

20.02.2015 13.02.2015 20.02.2015

Condemn Anti-Semitism Free Education Anti-Counter Terrorism Bill Charile Hebdo Solidarity LSE Ethics Code Divest From Fossil Fuels Zero Tolerance to Sexual Harassment Yes to Exam Feedback Meat Free Mondays Increasing Sabbs’ Pay

Carried Carried TBD

560 454

5 366

16 11

581 831

331 581

Liam Hill Managing Editor AFTER 12 MOTIONS SO FAR and (as it stands) just one more next week, another academic year of LSE student democracy is about to come to an end. On paper, with all but one UGM motion so far having reached quoracy and with Lent Term elections

with sensible ideas that may actually stand a chance of becoming School policy.”

Next week, a motion proposing that Sabbatical Officers’ salaries should be pegged the average starting salary for LSE graduates will be debated at UGM and voted on.

The motion is set to be proposed and seconded by Geography and Economics student Harry Maxwell and President of the LSESU Politics and Forum Society Christopher Hulm. It is, however, unclear at the present time whether Maxwell, who resigned as a member of the LSE Students’ Union last week following Lent Term elections, will be able to propose a motion and speak at UGM, given his nonmembership of the Union.

Notes

Referendum with a higher requirement for quoracy

Only inquorate motion

News Analysis: On Our Faltering Student Democracy yielding a record turnout, you might think the idea that our democracy is healthy is defensible.

But let’s remember: quoracy is a low threshold. 250 students is fewer than three per cent of the LSE population, and the fact that we failed to reach that for any motion this year - or any motion, any year - is itself a damning indictment. To mobilise 250 people from a student body of over 9000 should not be difficult at LSE, one of the most politically engaged campuses in the country.

Still under-promoted and under-attended, the UGM is an important avenue for students to express themselves and a vital

facilitator of change within the Union, and at LSE. Without better attendance, though, students simply won’t engage with the motions and the arguments sufficiently. Some of the debates that take place in UGMs are genuinely stimulating, and that more students are not there to interact, learn and base their vote on what they hear is a shame.

At the beginning of the year, a proposal for a 45 member ‘Student Council’ - consisting of SU officers, appointed members and elected members - was mooted. While my own view is that the idea itself was irrevocably flawed, the immediate impact was that LSE students with

a passing interest in SU politics briefly started talking about what would be best for our democracy.

And when the Student Council motion was abandoned, a consultation into how to improve SU democracy was launched, although nothing ever came of this. While the Student Council was a flawed plan, its abandonment also postponed a vital discussion about how best to engage students with our Union General Meeting, and with the Union more generally.

The idea that LSE students can’t be trusted to turn out and vote on important issues has been disproved this year. The

LGBT+ name change motion and the exam feedback motion show that students can be trusted to speak for themselves, to make themselves heard when it counts. That, and the strong turnouts in recent motions on divesting from fossil fiels and Meat Free Mondays shows that when people campaign hard and make the effort to engage students, bigger turnouts can be achieved.

Much more can be done.

I hope next year’s Democracy Committee think carefully about how to breathe life into the democratic institutions of our union. There is much room for improvement.

5

News

Tuesday March 17, 2015

How to Improve LSE Reading Lists?

Anup Aryal News Writer UNIVERSITIES ARE INCREasingly using latest technologies in teaching methods and updating their IT infrastructure. Reading list is one of the key areas of learning process which needs constant re-invention, however it has not been given the same importance as other academic rigours. There has been concerns about quantity, quality and underutilization of technology in the reading list at LSE, however these voices has not been channelized into improvements. This article highlights some of these concerns and attempts to provide few recommendations.

The current system of reading list has considerable scope of improvement in objective setting, better classification (essential and background), use of technology and maintaining an efficient feedback system. The core issue here is absence of a strong internal process to ensure that the reading list is maintained in an efficient and effective manner which meets students’ expectation by continuously evaluating their feedback.

So the issue is primarily of quality, quantity, technology and feedback.

Sample this: it would take an estimated three months of continuous reading time (5 hrs a day) to study the articles in reading list for just one subject. Even if we were to count just the core reading list it would take estimated one month to just scan through the papers. It is neither desired nor essential to have such an excessive reading list which is not productive and outcome based. Similarly on an average, a student spends more than an hour every week to just browse and download the materials as suggested by the reading list.

This issue of quantity is not restricted to few courses. Over 50 courses have an essential reading list of more than 200 articles. As per the discussion with an expert in the library management field, these reading list might be the longest one in not just the university but maybe longest when compared to any other

institution. The average articles in the reading list is 209 and varies from 1700 to just below 10 articles which shows that there is a scope for rationalisation in the total number of articles. Ideally, the reading list should be set with a minimum requirement and allow students freedom to explore with more depth and breadth of knowledge.

Based on the research using the data from online reading list from over 900 courses, it is observed that 32% of the course reading list is categorized as essential or core reading. More than 50% of readings are classified as essential for courses in Management Science, Information System, Economics, Statistics, Management and Accounting. The challenge is students are not provided with learning objectives for each reading without which it is very difficult to prioritize the readings in the limited time they have. The argument here is not for a textbook or a hand-holding approach, but better signposting in the reading list with a very concise core list. Also other approaches like discussing about next week’s reading list in last five minutes of lectures might as well help.

Apart from the above challenges, there are technical issues as well. It has been observed that Departments of Law, Finance, Mathematics, Accounting and Social Psychology have converted only half of their courses into online reading lists even after 3 years of implementation of electronic reading list. It is apparent that LSE has invested heavily on this IT infrastructure without adequate mechanisms to track the usage and fully utilize its benefits. In the absence of an online reading lists, students have to spend considerable time searching and gathering reading materials. The electronic reading list provides other features like a digital dashboard to course moderators on usage statistics which at the moment is not effectively used to manage and update the reading list. It shows that that the technology can be a great enabler in the process of maintaining a better reading list and LSE is way behind in its adoption.

Based on existing research by scholars, the fulfilment of reading list by students is at 20-30%. Although there is no such survey at LSE yet, similar outcome can be expected.

The low rate can be attributed to the lack of justification in reading selections, no correlation between essential reading and classroom teaching, lack of diverse content, accessibility issue and a mismatch between course text literacy levels and students reading abilities. The lack of diverse sources such as websites, newspaper & audio-video content within the reading list makes it less likely to hold students’ attention.

We have more millennial students than ever, constantly feeding themselves with social media and are much more technology savvy than their predecessor or the academia.

They would like to absorb the information from various sources and formats. The reading list also has to evolve with their preferences by having diverse source and shorter versions of academic papers. This is an age where even politicians and policymakers use twitter’s 144 characters to communicate their ideas and one page infographics are used to express the complex problems. In this age, it is out of sync for scholars to continue to recycle their ideas into 40 page long articles. Institution like LSE has to encourage scholars to evolve and come up with better ways of communicating their ideas along with the changing times and in future this will automatically reflect in the reading list.

As we have seen, the challenges in the reading list are diverse in nature, it becomes important to understand if LSE provides any avenues to capture feedback from students. The only feedback mechanism is a student survey at the end of each course and a staff-student liaison committee (SSLC) for each department. For the liaison committee, which meets each term at department level, the discussion on reading list is not specifically listed as an objective of such committee. Based on the aggregate data of the student satisfaction on courses for last 2 years, it shows that more than

30% students are not satisfied with the existing course content and reading lists. But there is no granularity on this data to analyse the dissatisfaction nor evidence of any actions taken to understand it. The key reasons for such high dis-satisfaction rate maybe the non-electronic and length of essential reading list, but more study is required to understand the issues and find appropriate resolutions.

It is right time to ask the following questions: Is the reading list reasonable in length for today’s students? Is there a diversity of content in terms of authors, sources: journals, magazines, audio-visual to engage the students? Is the reading list designed considering the learning abilities of an average student? Do the readings have a defined purpose and learning outcomes? How can we use technology to make the reading list effective and efficient? Is there a method to capture the student reading habits and adapt the reading list accordingly? Is there a way to capture the most effective readings and provide a ranking? Do readings supplement class discussions? Can students readily access written materials?

It is high time that an effective feedback system involving students, academia and library/IT department is established which incorporates in and adapts to contemporary technology. In terms of the proposed reforms, firstly it is important to have a continuous feedback mechanism using online surveys to evaluate the reading list so that more granularity in feedback is collected. Secondly, the review of electronic reading list usage by reviewing the digital dashboard should be made part of key role of the course moderator. Thirdly, annual best practice sharing between academia, students and library or IT department will help everyone with an opportunity with the evolution process with an effective and evolved reading list that fulfils the learning aspirations of every student.

(The statistics are based on over 900 courses which are currently in electronic reading list and other standard assumptions)

LSE Places in the top 25 in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings Merecedes Demenech Ensenat News Writer THE TIMES HIGHER Education World Reputation Rankings, released annually, has placed the London School of Economics in the 22nd position. This is a 2 stop improve from 2014, when the LSE occupied the 24th place. The better news yet is that 2015 marks a four year race in which the LSE has been continuously climbing the ranks. Since 2011, the university has risen 15 places.

The top 30 universities, mostly from the United States, only include 5 institutions from the United Kingdom.

The University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford take the second and third place, respectively.

Imperial College and University College London both have ranked in the top 20.

In a statement to the LSE website, director Professor Craig Calhoun expressed pride in the continuous rise of the university’s reputation: “LSE’s priority will continue to be a focus on teaching excellence, recruiting the world’s best students and staff, and producing world-leading research which makes a real difference. If we do that right then the strong reputation will inevitably follow.”

The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings is part of the annually released Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings, and positions in the highly regarded list are decided by more than 70,000 responses from invited senior academics.

Universities in the United States seem to keep dominating the top 100, although this year the United Kingdom has seen an increase in the number of its institutions placing in the report. London, as it starts to become tradition, has ben regarded as the top city in the world for higher education institutions.

Beaver Sent Complaints About Questionable Election Practises George Greenwood News Writer Continued from Page 3 ...

The recipient of these messages, who wanted to remain anonymous, stated: “Who knows, these guys may even be best for job. I have no idea and I don’t want to condemn anyone to Gaza. But i don’t necessarily want to vote for these guys. It’s uncomfortable. Can I

run and say if I’m not elected, I’ll kill myself ? I’m that confident I’ll do a good job!”

We have talked to numerous other students who received similar such unrequited messages.

In response to complaints about such tactics, the Democracy Committee stated that “We spoke to both Haytham and Ahmed about this on Thursday. Ahmed reassured me it wouldn’t be happening again, but wanted to know which rule it had broken.

We do believe this is not an appropriate way to campaign, but it isn’t technically against any existing rules we have. We will definitely think about this in our review, and the extent to which anyone can campaign in this manner.”

It should be noted that the candidates for and by which these messages were sent were not in fact elected.

News

Tuesday March 17, 2015

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London Uni Benny Wenda Speaks at LSE and Students Round-up Rally Support for Free West Papua Campaign Rebecca Wembri News Writer

FILM STAR GERARD BUTLER was spotted speeding down Strand as film crews descended on Somerset House to shoot a blockbuster action thriller. Strand was placed in lock-down, with a huge helicopter parked in the courtyard of Somerset House, and swathes of people dressed as police on roofs around the cultural landmark. Roar believes the film being shot was London Has Fallen, the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen starring Butler and Morgan Freeman.

LAST WEEK, AS PART OF the Women@Imperial project, the College played host to a number of events celebrating past and present female staff and students of Imperial in honour of International Women’s Day. The central focus of the project is the public exhibition of photographs, video content and archive material taking place in the College Main Entrance from 9th to 13th March. This week, Imperial College Union hosted an event on Thursday evening entitled “A Catalyst for Change”; a number of student groups took part in the discussion about key issues faced by women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine.

HOLDING CANDLES IN solemn silence, SOAS students and activists formed a “circle of life” to mark 100th anniversary of the Armenian & Assyrian Genocide.

Later they joined hands to perform a series of traditional, and at times emotional Armenian dances. Those present wore butterfly shaped badges that bore names of over 50 peoples subjected to genocide in the past century in a remarkably inclusive and open ceremony.

Genocides also commemorated included the Holodomor genocide in Ukraine, the Holocaust, and the Rwandan Genocide.

ON THURSDAY LSE SU Terra society gathered on Houghton Street to raise awareness and show solidarity with the Free West Papua campaign. Students and members of Terra Society stood with signs and tape over their mouths, as representatives of the West Papuans who are silenced for speaking out against the Indonesian state.

The LSE student body prides itself on being well informed of current affairs and aware of conflict going on in the world. Yet for many

the signs held up for a Free West Papua were foreign. This was even more surprising for students from Asia, who were astounded that they could be living in such close proximity in Malaysia or Singapore and have so little exposure to the conflict in West Papua. Papuans struggle to gather international coverage but their message is clear; they want the opportunity to decide their own future in a free and fair referendum, as part of their right to self-determination. The protest aimed to give the Campaign publicity on a campus filled with international students with the potential to shape our world in years to come. The overwhelming response

from students was one of support.

Many stopped to discuss how the region could develop it’s capacity for self government, and how the campaign can progress in gathering assistance from major political powers. Photographs of the protest have been circulated through social media by the Society and the Free West Papua Campaign; a message to the world that students at the LSE are listening and they care.

The protest was held in lead up to the event on Friday evening, where the society hosted the founder of the Free West Papua campaign and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Benny Wenda. Mr Wenda opened with a song on his uku-

lele, which he takes with him as he campaigns around the world. He said, “The songs a spirit. The guitar is my friend. I carry it with me everywhere, and I sing this song because it reminds me of my people.” Mr. Wenda delivered an emotive speech dotted with anecdotes of his own experience growing up in West Papua. He spoke frankly about the violence he witnessed as a child and adult, and the friends and family he has lost.

The audience had the opportunity to ask questions, the majority of which were raised by the Indonesian members of the audience. Mr. Wenda welcomed Indonesian students, and stressed the importance of their presence, and the need for Indonesians to be informed of the history and current conditions of West Papua. He addressed the question as to whether the region would be better off as an independent state, considering its neighbor Papua New Guinean has been independent since 1975 but still has widespread poverty, with the response that freedom for his people comes first. For West Papuans a life free of Indonesian control is most important. Concerns about structurally stability and development are necessary, but ultimately the priority for people who are subject to heavy military control and violence is separation and self-government. To close Mr. Wenda made an impassioned plea that the students at LSE remember him and his people, and should we become future leaders, that we help them and spread their call for freedom.

STARS and SU Awards LSESU STARS Alastair Duncan A&D Officer IT’S BEEN A BRILLIANT year this year. Now it’s time to celebrate.

Throughout this year I’ve held weekly drop-in sessions with members of Clubs and Societies. Every week I’ve met Presidents, Secretaries, Treasurers and Members of our 200 clubs and societies, and I’ve been struck by the outstanding quality of our student groups and the students who lead them. We’ve organised conferences, sports competitions, hard-hitting campaigns, international trips, debates, jailbreaks, flashmobs, cultural festivals, elections and performances.

Now it’s time to celebrate the very best!

The LSESU STARS and SU Awards Nominations are now open at www.lsesu.com. The SU Awards are your opportunity to nominate your group or your friends for a number of prizes. There are 26

awards that you could win, so make sure you get everyone to nominate.

The Awards range from Honorary President to Best Ongoing Collaboration, so there will definitely be one you can nominate for.

The LSESU STARS are Gold, Silver and Bronze accreditations awarded to the very best clubs and societies. If you win, you will receive extra funding for next year, as well as the best spaces at the Freshers’ Fair. It’s our way of recognising and promoting the very best student led activity at LSE this year to the LSE community, whilst supporting the sustainability of your clubs and societies for the future.

The STARS and SU Awards Ceremony will be held on 1st May, and it’s going to be better than ever, so get nominating for your chance to be there. I’m incredibly proud of all of your achievements this year, and I’m looking forward to celebrating the activities of the most committed, enterprising and exciting students in the country. So get nominating at www.lsesu.com.

AND SU AWARDS

NOMINATIONS NOW OPEN

STARS AWARDS: Win Bronze, Silver, Gold or Double Gold accreditation for your club or society, with monetary rewards and recognition across the School.

SU AWARDS: Nominate the best students at LSE for the top awards!

Submit your nominations online: www.lsesu.com/activities/awards

VISIT LSESU.COM AND OUR SOCIAL NETWORKS

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News

Tuesday March 17, 2015

Library Services

Library Design Competition: win Waterstones vouchers Using the theme ‘Good conduct in LSE Library’, post a photo of your design on twitter using #lselibrarycomp or email it to library@lse.ac.uk to be in with a chance of winning a £20 Waterstones book voucher.

You can submit a drawing, photo or a graphic design - the most creative entries will win!

Three separate winners will each receive a £20 voucher as their prize.

Vouchers will be awarded to the most original designs submitted before 26 March by current LSE students. Winners will be notified via twitter or email after the 30 March.

The L ib like to rary would k good b now what e the Li haviour in brary m to you eans .

Comment Section Editorial:

Comment

I APOLOGISE FOR THE TEXT heavy Comment section this week. I was overwhelmed by content and wanted everything to be included for our last edition of term!

The Beaver is currently recruiting for a number of new editors to replace our outgoing third years, and also to get an extra pair of hands in the sections that need it. Comment is one of those sections, as when I got the role of Design Editor, suddenly everything became too much.

I’m too attached to Comment to leave it for good for my new role, but figure I can learn to share the section with someone with a fresh outlook and better ideas for pictures than bland, uninspiring shots of the LSE campus. Anyone that can think of something (that is available on Creative Commons) that succintly illustrates the complex issues such as gender equality for instance, has got my vote.

As this is the last issue of term I would like to thank all of the contributors to the section over the last twenty weeks. Some of you I have agreed with, and some of you I really haven’t, but I appreciate all of your efforts regardless of your (occasionally misguided) opinions. Have a great Easter Break everyone!

Ellen Wilkie

Tuesday March 17, 2015

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

Exclusive Inclusivity On Campus Our liberation movements need to be more inclusive when seeking equality

Zoe Olukoga I TRULY TREASURE THE time that I have spent at LSE and I want the university to become a better place for students going forward after I leave.

This is my two cents worth on how we can do that.

If you cannot open up a conversation then you cannot have a debate. And if you cannot have a debate you cannot be opened up to different points of view, nor can you find common ground and move forward in resolving issues and settling tensions between different groups.

I believe that we still struggle on campus with the very first of these criteria; opening up the debate.

We who are trying to make a difference often lament that we want campus life to be more

inclusive without acknowledging how we are hampering inclusivity. We keep complaining that it’s the same people who attend events to do with ‘liberation’ and moving forward with cultural change. What I see at times is a refusal to acknowledge where we are preventing this conversation from reaching those who do not already have strong personal convictions on these issues. We should not be our own obstacles to success in this field.

An email sent to the attendees of the Women’s Network launch, after the event had taken place, was addressed to ‘My fellow feminists….’. This happened despite the fact that we claim that all women are to be represented by our liberation officer at LSE, not just self-defining feminists. This is not an attack on feminism or the Women’s Officer for that matter (who I happen to think is a brilliant woman). It’s just an acknowledgement that not all women are feminists and not all causes of gender equality are necessarily feminist anymore either. We should not be forcing this viewpoint onto LSE students.

Contrary to what I am realising has been popular belief, I actually don’t identify as a feminist. However because of my strong personal convictions, I have been involved in the move to empower women on campus.

There are many women who either don’t have such strong convictions, or even any interest at all and who are turned off by the seeming pressure to ‘pick a side’.

While I firmly believe that it is okay not to identify as a feminist, others- both male and female- who feel this way but still want to get more involved or even just explore how they feel about certain issues should be able to do so free of judgement.

Another problem that I have noticed is LSE’s move to undertake a ‘White Privilege Project’ without offering an explanation of what we understand ‘White Privilege’ to be. While many assume that all are familiar with the term, in fact many on campus don’t believe that it’s a thing. This is something that we should surely address first, even briefly, before pushing through with an attempt to change culture. Even then, from looking at the responses written about what constitutes white privilege, it’s clear that even those who acknowledge its existence don’t agree on what can be classified as such. I personally saw some suggestions which, while consistent with prejudicial stereotyping and racism in other manifestations, did not seem appropriate to me to be counted as examples of white privilege. That is okay, because the issue is a complex one. I personally am not even con-

vinced by the label of ‘White privilege’ in describing what we’re trying to discuss here, but that’s for another article.

This absolutely isn’t an attempt to fire shots at the White Privilege project. But merely to look at the way that we ‘do’ liberation at LSE, making sure that the change we want to create will actually do just that.

Again, the fact is that some feel that ‘White Privilege’ doesn’t need to be explained. Well perhaps, in an ideal world, it shouldn’t need to be explained.

But we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in the real worlda fact that projects such as this endeavour to expose.

We need to deal with these issues accordingly. I’ve only given two examples of a general approach that needs to change at LSE. We need to give a clear understanding so that if those opposing these issues on validity grounds continue to do so, at least it’s not because you haven’t tried to include them.

More importantly do it better, so that you really can open up the important discussions in order to include as many people and viewpoints as possible.

Let us bridge the gaps rather than feeding antagonism. Let us learn from one another and move collaboratively towards unity on campus, rather than fuelling divisions which if left unchecked will only continue to deepen.

A Year At LSE: Closing Thoughts Mark Malik A COMMON GRIPE a m o n g s t s t u d e n t s h e re i s t h at t h e S U d o e s n o t re p re s e n t u s. I t d o e s n’t l i s t e n t o nor mal students like us or a nyo n e w h o d o e s n’t t h i n k c o r re c t l y – w h o eve r t h e s e p e o p l e a re. I t ’s c o m f o r t i n g to take this position. It is a c o nve n i e n t ex c u s e f o r n o t e n g a g i n g w i t h t h e S U. B u t how can the Union listen t o yo u i f yo u d o n’t m a k e yo u r s e l f h e a rd ? T h e U n i o n ex i s t s f o r eve r yo n e at L S E . T h at i n c l u d e s yo u . I f t h e re ’s s o m e t h i n g yo u d o n’t

like about the Union – w h e t h e r t h at ’s re g u l at i o n o f t h e B e ave r d u r i n g e l e c t i o n w e e k , t h e f a c t t h at a S a b b i s n’t c a m p a i g n i n g a b o u t s o m e t h i n g yo u c a re a b o u t , o r t h at c l u b s a n d s o c i e t i e s d o n’t g e t t h e r i g h t s u p p o r t – yo u c a n g e t i t ch a n g e d .

E i t h e r t h ro u g h U G M o r by r u n n i n g a c a m p a i g n o f yo u r o w n . O f c o u r s e, yo u m i g h t n o t w i n . B u t at l e a s t yo u ’ve t r i e d . N o m at t e r h o w mu ch yo u m o a n a b o u t t h e S U, p e o p l e w i l l a s s u m e t h at yo u ’re h a p py w i t h t h e s t at u s q u o - o r t h at yo u ’re j u s t n o t t h at b o t h e re d - u n l e s s yo u try to change it.

Ella Sun MY EXPECTATIONS UPON starting at the LSE were not overly positive. Having heard stories from my sister who graduated from the LSE in 2013 and seniors from my 6th form college, I felt that I already knew a lot about the school and the experience that I would have. Upon reflection at the end of my first year, there are negatives and there are positive. It is evident from my constant complaints that there are problems; I have more essays than law students that get a reading week and I spend approximately 10 hours in school every weekday. Yet, with that said, I have definitely enjoyed my first

year at the LSE surrounding myself with passionate people from my course and from the societies I have joined. I am very grateful for the opportunity to interact with like-minded people, take on new challenges and study a subject unfamiliar to me and I am growing to appreciate this. Additionally, studying in London has definitely aided my first year experience with copious places to eat and things to do.

The short distance from London to other European countries has encouraged me to travel to places such as Berlin, Prague and Lisbon.

My first year has not been easy, has been a constant race to meet deadlines and has involved many very late nights, but it has been enjoyable.

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Comment

Tuesday March 17, 2015

White Privilege: Not A Black And White Issue The term ‘white privilege’ oversimplifies the complex issues around race and prejudice Dominic Tighe WHITE PRIVILEGE EXISTS. There are personal advantages that come with being a member of the largest racial group in this country. You are likely to be on average wealthier and have better connections than non-white people. You are less likely to be stopped by the police (in some areas of London you are 20 times more likely to be stopped by the police as a black person). Moreover, you are more likely to progress in your career without facing subtle discrimination (perhaps because of people’s bias to favour people who resemble themselves), perhaps because of cultural misunderstanding.

As a white person, it’s easy to take these privileges for granted or even to assume that they don’t exist. For provoking introspection and reminding us that they do, we should all applaud this project. Educating, opening people’s minds to the reality of historic and structural imbalances in power is surely a good thing. Changing expectations and ambitions now, during education, rather than considering resorting to ‘non-white’

shortlists or some other drastic measure in the future, is admirable.

However, I do have some concerns that while raising positive awareness, such a campaign can lead to oversimplification and exaggeration. Firstly, it creates the impression that there is a strict dichotomy between ‘whites’ and ‘underprivileged’. By being ‘white’ you necessarily have some advantages over non-white people, simply on the grounds of your skin.

This is to ignore both intersectionality and the complex subgroups within white Caucasian. For instance, when my grandfather came to this country in 1930 he was met by signs saying ‘No Irish, no dogs’.

Particular white groups were not only underprivileged, but were directly targeted as being undesirables. And sadly, this persists to the present day. There’s the popular characterisation of the ‘scrounging’ benefit tourist from East Europe, and there’s the white Jewish family, whose shop is smashed up simply because of their religion (in the context of last summer’s protests against Israel). Compare these people to the lives of sons of Arab Sheiks who cruise Knightsbridge in their Porsches, or the African

minister who visits Britain on an official tour, and you see that just because you are white doesn’t mean you have the privileges associated with white people. Equally, there are many BME who have precisely those privileges – wealth, respect, social connections, and security.

A further point I would make is the prevalence of incidents being explained as evidence of white privilege, which could really better be explained in other ways. For example, one note on the board displayed in the SU read something along the lines of: 12 people in Paris are killed, world leaders go crazy. 2000 die in Nigeria, no one cares. Sure, there may be a racial element in the reporting of these tragedies, but is it not better explained by the fact that unlike the events in Nigeria, the occurrences in Paris were novel and appear to pose a direct threat to people in the UK? (At least this was implied by the French press) It is not as if there hasn’t been discussion and support for dealing with the crisis in Nigeria. Indeed, a worldwide campaign was launched when Boko Haram militants seized 300 schoolgirls, with millions posting ‘bring back our girls’. This is just one exam-

ple, but it’s illustrative of the fact that we shouldn’t be so quick to pass off incidents as evidence of white privilege, without thinking critically at the factors in play.

The third danger of a focus on White Privilege is to ignore the fact that some groups that are perceived as ‘white’ and therefore dominant risk being marginalised by liberation campaigners. I’ll give an example. Imagine a situation where a person meets a Muslim individual and says “you’re Muslim, so you must be a terrorist and support ISIS.” Any of us watching this would no doubt be appalled (quite rightly) and seek to take action against this sort of bigotry. Liberation campaigns focused on Islamophobia do a good job of highlighting this. But, I’d contrast this to my own experiences growing up as a Catholic. Being strongly involved in the life of my local Church, I was sometimes accosted by something on the lines of “Ahh, you’re a Catholic, so you must be a sex offender”. Shockingly, not much would happen at all if I were to mention it. Now, I don’t see the major difference between this and the Islamic example, but the response from liberation campaigns is very

different. Perhaps because Christianity is so associated with ‘White Privilege’ in the West that crude characterisations of it are somehow more ‘acceptable’ to liberals. Not once has there been an LSE campaign that has included issues of Christian persecution for instance (e.g fired for wearing a crucifix), while the NUS cannot even agree to make a statement against the massacre and near annihilation of Christians by IS in Iraq and Syria.

Highlighting white privilege cannot allow us to ignore the discrimination felt by people in marginal (supposedly) ‘white’ institutions.

To repeat, I do not deny that many people in this country, who are white, experience the benefits of being the majority racial group. On average, they have more power, money, connections and experience less prejudice, and this is ‘white privilege’. But let’s not seek to explain every instance of disparity with reference to white privilege, let’s not forget that that many people who are white are extremely underprivileged, and let’s be prepared to stand up for people in disadvantaged ‘white’ institutions, in the same way as we defend minority groups.

In Response: Don’t Hijack The BME Platform Angus Haller

First, I should clarify that though I take issues with his piece, Dominic is a friend of mine, he does recognise the need for social change and is one of the most charming people I’ve ever met.

So any jokes in this article are not malicious, and criticism is only of his argument, not personal. Now, without further ado...

Hallelujah we’re saved! The protector of the protected, enfranchiser of the enfranchised, the messiah of our times, is here to ensure the most privileged remain so! To paraphrase Whitesnake, “Here we go again”, another writer is here to remind us that not all white people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. I have as much time for it as I do for the guy who always complains that “ #NotAllMen are like that” every time a feminist makes a comment about the patriarchy.

The main conclusion of his piece is that not all white people are privileged and therefore we should stand up for them as much as we do BME. Though true, not particularly helpful here. No one is saying that all whites are privileged.

But even if they were, it would make no difference. As a result of this project, there is not going to be systematic discrimination against whites, and no one, of any race, is

going to stop caring about the examples of underprivileged white people given, people aren’t that stupid. All this project attempting was to educate and raise awareness about white privilege, and maybe give non-white people an outlet to share experiences.

All that is achieved by pointing out these examples is to hamper the BME platform and to further the case of white people. Though it is true there are white people who we should care about and help, this project was not made for that purpose and does not damage that purpose. But by bringing them up distracts people from the aim of the project and, when they are used as a criticism, tarnishes its reputation.

Now no one is saying one doesn’t have a right to advocate for these underprivileged people, but don’t use an unconnected project to spread this message; it’s not fair to the project or the people it is trying to help.

Aside from hijacking the BME platform, the examples used are unjustified. The point about marginalised white groups and comparing them with ‘African ministers’ who visit Britain only takes into consideration a proportion of the worst off of the white population with the minute proportion of wealthy business people and world leaders of non-white descent. There is no coherent comparison there.

Let’s turn to the other concerns, first the prevalence “of incidents being explained as evidence of white privilege” which are not necessarily so. An example is given: “12 people in Paris are killed, world leaders go crazy. 2000 die in Nigeria, no one cares.” I could agree that this is probably not a just case of white privilege, and more that western media cares more about what happens to westerners than anyone else, which in itself is abhorrent. Further evidence of this western bias (rather than white bias) is Ferguson – one black person killed country goes “crazy” (though not enough happened the failure to indict the policemen was horrific, but that is not what we’re discussing here), and yet injustices like this happen globally on a daily basis. Though this is an event that became a racial issue, it did not receive more attention because the victims were white, like it is claimed above the Hebdo case was, rather because it happened in a western country. Hence I think both are more probably a case of western bias, rather than white privilege.

However even if we are wrongly labelling things as cases of white privilege I fail to see what the huge problem is, again no one is saying to care less about the victims of the attack, but that western media gives vastly disproportionate attention to white people. Which is true. It’s

possible that if we say everything is an example of white privilege it will dilute the impact, but I don’t see this as an imminent threat.

What I take real issue is the claim that there has been proportional response between the Nigerian crisis and the Hebdo case: “It is not as if there hasn’t been discussion and support for dealing with the crisis in Nigeria”. Let’s compare the two: the Hebdo case lead to political leaders from all over Europe and abroad meeting in Paris to march in support of the victims, and wide ranging public debate over issues of free speech.

The event in Nigeria had little political engagement other than vocal support, and people typing less than 140 character tweets. I don’t see these being proportionate.

Lastly the piece says “a focus on White Privilege is to ignore the fact that some groups that are perceived as ‘white’ and therefore dominant risk being marginalised by liberation campaigners.”

The example given is the double standard between how jokes about Catholics being sex offenders are seen as fair game whilst jokes about all Muslims are not. As I write I’m agonising over this horrendous double standard, pulling my hair out thinking how I could possibly explain away the tragedy of justice that this is. I suppose I could appeal to the fact that the vast majority of

people who would call a catholic a sex offender, are joking. Liberation groups exist to campaign for underrepresented or misrepresented groups. In a Britain, a country where the Christian church has been a huge influence on our society and been intertwined with state power for centuries, a christian (of any denomination) is at no threat of actually being considered an ‘other’. Catholics get made fun of, but prejudices against Catholics won’t lead to them being stopped and searched every time at airport security; there is no political party in Britain calling for Catholics to be deported and Catholics don’t have to face fox news presenters saying -about extremist Catholicsthat we should “bomb them, keep bombing them, bomb them again and again”... Whereas I’ve heard that isn’t the case for many Muslims... (note, not condoning IS or saying they are comparable to extremist Catholics, just wanted to remind people of the Islamophobic and savage comments made by “Judge Jeanine” on a fox news programme).

The White Privilege Project is fantastic and I encourage everyone to get involved.

The White Privilege Project inaugural video screening and discussion are taking place in the Hong Kong Theatre at 7pm on Monday, the 16th of March.

Comment

Tuesday March 17, 2015

10

Meat Free Mondays: Reactions

Motion Doesn’t Mince Over Meat Consumption New policy should be revised as a ban on meat will not remedy our carnivorous culture Daniel Cayford

O N F R I DAY T H E 1 3 T H , we saw a 55% majority vote in favour of the Meat-Free Mondays motion. No meat shall be sold on Mondays from any LSE catering outlet. Whilst there are many positives to this movement, the suggested method of implementation currently in place is not acceptable. With under 8.5% (800 out of a potential of 9500) of students participating in the vote, most people are unaware of the significance of the ethical, environmental and health implications. As someone who regularly enjoys a vegetarian diet it’s clear that LSE catering is not yet geared-up to support this change. Before we remove the choice of meat, we must make sure we have valid, nutritious alternatives. A £4.50 box of green leaves with an exotic-looking fruit on top does not constitute that. Especially when there is a hot, probably more filling dish containing meat placed right next to it, at a more reasonable price. Moreover, to instantly ban something accepted for generations will not go down well.

Instead of a revocation of the motion, I am calling for a revision.

We should keep the meat, at least for now. We must focus on providing the incentives to co-operate rather than creating a platform to rebel against a weekly prohibition.

I would argue that our MeatFree Monday campaign should be viewed akin to the Dry January initiative. This is where people opt-in to live the whole month of January without a drop of alcohol, raising awareness for the problems associated with its consumption, its misuse, and to actively feel the benefits of living without it (all with charitable potential).

At LSE, we could incorporate the same ideas. The act of making a special, collective occasion out of Meat-Free Mondays would support the idea that we can “opt in” to tasty vegetarian options, and feel pride in doing so, or choose to follow the normal meat containing fare. We should allow the shift to occur through communication of the benefits, not by a shock change from a blanket ban.

The main issue here is that many of those voting for the motion are already aware that its possible to eat ‘a proper, hearty, energy giving, protein filled’ meal without the inclusion of meat. Many of those strongly opposed on the

other hand, have grown up believing meat to be the staple, if not the only ‘real’ source of such nutrients. With set tastes and set minds, to simply prevent someone from doing/consuming something they have always been able to, will not go down easily. Prohibition never does. When a perceived source of food is at risk, and a sense of liberty is being restricted, we are likely to fight (often instinctively) for the right and ability to keep it.

How then can we address this in a sustainable, substantial and globally beneficial way? The first step, is to ensure viable, nutritious, desirable, substantial, tasty vegetarian choices. Currently the only places to obtain such dishes are hard to find, comparatively far from campus, and often expensive.

Initially we could shift the balance of meat to vegetarian dishes. We could dedicate the day to the sharing of information, from signs in the cafeterias explaining the benefits (i.e. ‘This chickpea based dish contains ‘X’ amount of amount of protein’), to sharing deeper thought, reasoning and recipes online. There could be Monday subsidies in place for vegetarian options. Ideally this Monday only practice could become a

more common, more demanded situation. With an active push, and care to provide tastier, well balanced vegetarian meals, we can then start to get the ball truly rolling. Until then, it is unfair to stop people from eating what they know without a truly viable alternative.

Secondly, and this is the controversial bit, I feel we should be made more aware of what we are really eating. It is easy to see a hot, streaky line of smoky bacon and ignore all the steps prior to whipping it out of a packet and slapping it on to the grill. By eating meat, we are trading a life, for the continuation of our life. That is a privilege. We should not take it for granted. We should respect the significance in that. I truly think this lack of understanding, and acceptance is a major obstacle. Rarely do people nowadays rear and kill their ‘own’ animals, fewer give thanks in the form of prayer for their food, and the respect formed in the hunt is now diminished by the ease of the supermarket and production systems. Measures to increase association of live animals to meat on plates could go a long way to furthering the aim of reducing world meat consumption. Maybe it should be compul-

sory for children to visit a farm, with opportunities for young adults to symbolically ‘opt-in’ to meat eating by slaughtering their own dinner or labels on packaged meat with messages such as ‘killed at 18 weeks old’. I am not arguing that it is wrong to eat meat, however, we should be more aware at what cost we get to do so.

Like an animal in the wilderness, many feel they have no other option. Vegetables can be expensive, hard to find and often hard to know what to do with whereas a whole chicken can be cheap and simple. Making a whole vegetarian dish that feels substantial is a whole other issue entirely.

What we need then, before we consider removing meat options entirely, is a push for education and a push for affordability.

We need people to know what the alternatives are, then to provide them. Setting up a Meat-Free Monday could well be a good idea in accelerating this desire to experiment with a new way of eating but it should not be forced upon people. People who come to their own conclusions are much more likely to be happy with their choice, stick to their convictions and spread the word.

Let Me Make Up My Own Mind On Meat Phil Roberts

FOR A UNIVERSITY MADE up of fully-grown adults, there is a staggering amount of parental supervision on campus. Want to listen to some music in the SU? Fine – so long as it’s not ‘Blurred Lines’. Should we condemn antiSemitism? The SU has had a vote on it for you. Should we condemn islamophobia? The SU has beaten you to it, in case you were undecided. You’re male and want to play rugby? Great stuff, I hear there’s going to be a team next year. Want a meat pie from the SU café? Sure – just not on Mondays.

My point is that if we promote a better understanding about the issues we do not like, people can understand why these issues are so important. And they can take actions that are respectful, with a real dedication to getting things right.

If the men’s rugby club had truly understood how upsetting some of their Freshers leaflet content was, would they have published it? Or might they have been more determined to be open and inclusive?

Someone told me that being at university is one of the most liberal and accepting times of your

life. But is it really? It seems that the student union insists on passing motions in order to adopt a certain view with some democratic pretence. Because that is what 300 out of around 10,000 students voting means, right? The SU wants to be seen taking a hard line on the issues that affect its members, and if that’s what people want, then fine. But the problem arises because almost all of these type of decisions stick a middle finger right up at our ability to make informed decisions ‘all-by-ourselves’.

You may not like the presence of something on campus, but surely protecting freedom of expression is also very important? Let’s face it, no one would be very happy if one day you woke up and challenging islamophobia, homophobia and misogyny was no longer ‘a thing’.

What I struggle to understand, is why the LSE must always work itself into a total frenzy in the face of any ‘unacceptable’ behaviour, and then ban it outright. Because, and this is my point, what does this do to challenge the underlying assumptions? For instance, taking the ‘Blurred Lines’ song as an example, why ban it outright when you could challenge the lyrics and have a discussion about how much

people agree or disagree with the song? If people make their own minds up, and do not want the SU to play the song, then the SU probably won’t play the song mission accomplished. And in the process, we will have had a meaningful discussion that leaves people better informed about the real issues, committed to doing more to fix the problem, while at the same time respecting their ability to make decisions ‘all-by-themselves’.

So, turning to the proposed meat-free Mondays, the underlying issues put forward are to do with protecting the climate and looking after human health. So why not have a discussion about this?

Let’s talk about the climate. Let’s talk about what is good and what is bad for our health when we eat meat. Perhaps then, people can make their own minds up about how often they want to buy meat on campus. But please don’t ban meat outright. Have some respect for those of us who like to make our own choices. And have some commitment to helping people understand the real issues, not telling them what to do. After all, banning things outright is what parents do for children who can’t make adult choices ‘all-by-themselves’.

Photo: Flickr: Mike Haller

Comment Refocusing And Reforming LSE Feminism 11

Tuesday March 17, 2015

Uncomfortable as it may be, LSE Feminism needs a shift in focus and a change in attitude Ryan O’ Rourke

IT MAY NOT BE OBVIOUS TO everyone who reads the Beaver or follows LSE life on the whole, but it would seem a trend has developed over the past six months. An issue which affects several groups of people arises, only to be followed by swaths of self-elected ‘feminists’ jumping on the bandwagon and turning what is often not a feminist issue per se into one. Ensuring their opinions become the accepted consensus, those same people belittle, shut-down and smear all conflicting views. Whilst in the short run such farces may be self-satisfying, in the long run they are self-defeating. For this reason among others, female members of the LSE community have to take back their society and movement, redefine its objectives, and stop treating all opposition with such contempt.

Given the nature of the topic, it may be worthwhile at this moment to state, so to say, my status. It is true that I am a white man; those two facts were determined for me long before I came to understand their social significance. I have never been part of, nor in its current state, would I wish to be a member of the Feminist Society; nor have I attended one of their events. Nor should these facts matter. Nor, it should be stated, do I feel I come from a ‘middle-class’ background or feel any more privileged then

the next LSE student. Rather, I come at the issue of feminism from the position of an outsider looking in, judging the collective actions (more on this later) of feminists by the same criteria I would apply to anyone or anything else. Or, as the late Christopher Hitchens, a writer I quite admire, succinctly put it, ‘My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to defend it against any consensus, any majority, any place, any time. [And if you disagree], pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass’.

Having made this clear, I should probably plunge straight into what are very deep waters. It goes without saying that the fundamental issues upon which the feminist movement are based, are not only just, but necessary. It would seem however that the LSE Feminist movement has, regrettably, diverged from these.

First, as already mentioned here and elsewhere, members of the LSE Feminist movement have taken it upon themselves not only to ask for special treatment within a debating forum, but to impose it.

Whilst this will not stop me, it has certainly stopped others from expressing what are, whether you like them or not, valid opinions and points. Feminism as a movement came to exist with the aim of fighting for equality. This current state of affairs does not aim for this. If you do not believe me, thankfully a certain re-elected SU officer rather

kindly provided us with the following quote in a recent article: ‘For just as feminism has done well this year in terms of debate, so has the rise of ‘anti feminism’. I ask that person, or for that matter any of their supporters to clarify what they mean by ‘anti-feminism’. Is it, as I believe it should be, the smearing and degrading of women for simply being women, regardless of their opinions? Or is it, as many interpret, forms of constructed criticism which you find uncomfortable? Simply put, is it that “anti-feminism” is used as a tool to silence people who disagree with you?

Second, the issues upon which the LSE Feminist movement have focused on, at least in my time at LSE, are really not the most important issues faced by most women. Discussion of whether the lyrics of a song can be classed as ‘rapey‘ does not help women who suffer the most horrendous forms of physical violence, or for that matter physical mutilation. Arguing over whether women who are paid £70k+ a year are paid less than a man in a similar position does nothing for girls in places like Pakistan and Nigeria, who are the targets of the most extreme forms of male supremacy, simply for trying to attain the most basic education and human rights. Classic 19th Century Feminism, which achieved a great deal, was not based upon what the feminist aca-

demic Alison Wolf has recently described as elite, metropolitan issues which affect a few but over issues that actually mattered to ordinary women. Of course, this is not to suggest that feminism should fight one or the other; but it is a matter of emphasis. It would seem to me that rather than emphasise hard battles, members of the LSE Feminist group have decided to fight easy-to-win, populist campaigns to ensure their standing in the short run.

It should also be said that regardless of what I, or anyone else considers their most cherished beliefs, no idea or opinion is or should be above scrutiny. An article published a few months ago stated a point which I was not sure whether to find highly amusing or deeply worrying. ‘If you feel like men aren’t taken seriously enough by the feminist movement, that may be true. But the fact is that feminism chooses to privilege the voice of women and there’s nothing wrong with that....Why intrude upon a movement that was intended to be an opportunity for women to reach out to women and to share their stories?’. Now, this would certainly hold true if only were it the case that feminist issues and stories remained, as that author suggested, within a private sphere. But they do not; and nor should they.

Given these obvious facts, the insinuation that because women at one point in history were marginal-

ised means the ideas of a liberation movement should not be judged by the same criteria as all other ideas, or for that matter judged at all, really should be considered repulsive.

Finally, I write all of this not as a deluded privileged man who wishes to grind an axe, but because I truly believe the original objectives of feminism; equality in treatment, opportunity and so on and so forth, still matter greatly. The worry should be that in continuing to marginalise men and, it should be said, first and foremost women who disagree with them, the LSE feminist movement risks losing support in the long run. The reaction to an article written in the Beaver last week only validates this. The response also suggested a large group of women on campus are fed up with the prevailing status quo. For this reason, the above ideas are not aimed at those feminists who are so closed-minded, they would make Plato’s cave seem like a panacea for creative and innovative ideas, but to those who do feel change is needed. Feminists on campus should think seriously about what they want to stand and campaign for, engage constructively with those who disagree with them, and stop seeking populist support. And believe me, whether you think I’m deluded or not, if they do so, the support of everyone within the LSE community other than true sexists and misogynists will come. It just will.

On Female Genital Mutilation A FemSoc For All Ronda Daniel FGM REFERS TO ‘FEMALE genital mutilation’- the altering of female genital organs for nonmedical purposes. According to the World Health Organisation, 125 million young women have undergone the procedure, suffering from side effects such as urine infections, severe bleeding, complications in childbirth and the risk of still birth.

The procedure is usually carried out between the ages of infancy and 15 years old, predominantly for religious and cultural reasons associated with modesty and cleanliness. There are no known medical benefits.

On Tuesday, 11th March, BBC 3 aired ‘Stop Cutting Our Girls’, a documentary in aid of Comic Relief. I was surprised to see my secondary school that I attended, represented on the show. I spoke to Natalie Smith, an education director who was advocating open discussion about FGM, talking to teachers about warning signs and ways to approach situations as

sensitive as FGM. She said, about Barking and Dagenham in particular, “we would be foolish to think that FGM is not happening in the borough – it affects about 65,000 girls nationwide and we’re a very diverse borough that has people from practising communities living here”. This was sparked after Home Office’s ‘Girl Summit’ in late 2014, headed by Theresa May. FGM is difficult to address in England, both in education and health; not only do professionals risk their careers if allegations are made, but confidentiality makes it difficult to intervene. Since 2009, in London hospitals alone, the NHS have dealt with an estimated 3,939 cases. There have been no prosecutions since the FGM act in 2003.

January 2015 was initially thought to be a monumental case for tackling FGM in London, the trial of Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena and accomplice Hason Mohammed.

Both accused of encouraging young women to have the procedure after giving birth, as well as actually administering one woman the procedure in November 2012. Whilst

Mohammed was charged, neither were convicted. No doubt, this case will be forgotten- but it needs to be remembered. Not only does it highlight the proximity of such a prominent global issue in London, but it victim-blames; there was not enough evidence to convict. This is despite the physical evidence that the young lady had undergone the procedure due to not enough services being provided for her support, it had taken her 2 years to go to the police about it. For this reason there was not enough evidence that the men had done so. With increasing globalisation and migration, this needs more attention, in public health policy, and with professionals and patients. Because it’s such a sensitive issue people are reluctant to talk about it. This issue is not a question of condemning certain cultures and religions: rather, it is about protecting people. Confidentiality exists for a reason, of coursebut is it morally right to let culprits get away with it? It is necessary for medical and educational professionals to get training to spot signs; but the patients must not be forgotten.

Sophia Barchenkova

FEMSOC HAS POSSIBLY BEEN the most talked about society this year.

In light of the rugby scandal in Michaelmas term, the society advocated an end to ‘lad’ culture at LSE, and leading to the disbandment of LSE Rugby: a highly controversial move that put FemSoc in the spotlight. Since then, it seems that LSE has been split between FemSoc members and everyone else.

As a woman, I think that FemSoc’s principles of condemning sexism and promoting equal rights should be promoted. I am sure I am not alone alone in this. Sadly the way in which FemSoc presents itself has made me reluctant to be an active member of the Society. It is shocking to see critics of FemSoc continually battered on the Facebook group. Unfortunately, it is mostly men who are subject to this kind of treatment. It is impossible to battle sexism if we continue to alienate half of the audience.

Feminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.” Fem-

inism, essentially, is gender equality.

Feminism at LSE has succeeded in many ways; women run (and win) SU elections, we have a women’s rugby team and a women’s football team, amongst many other notable achievements that have paved the way for women’s empowerment at LSE. If feminism is gender equality, what has been done to help the men at LSE? Where are the campaigns that encourage men to not be afraid of expressing emotion, to not feel the need to be so ‘laddish’ all the time?

And, as a result, how can the issue of the ‘lad’ culture at LSE be resolved if we continue to hate on all men?

The solution is simple. Men, women, students of LSE, I call on you to become involved in FemSoc: a united front with fresh ideas, broader perspectives and a common goal of gender equality at LSE. Do not feel too intimidated to post on the FemSoc group, voice your opinions, and speak up. Although it may not feel like it, increased participation is what will revolutionise feminism at the LSE. It doesn’t matter if you’re male, are in the AU or play rugby, you deserve to be heard. As the wise Dumbledore said, “We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”

Comment

Tuesday March 17, 2015

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In Defence Of The LSESU Feminist Society A response to ‘FemSoc: Intimidation In Pursuit Of Equality’ by Umut Bektas

Perdita Blinkhorn

LSESU Feminist Society LGBT+ Officer OH BOY, WHERE TO BEGIN. Let’s start with Umut’s first point about the AU. While he acknowledges that the AU is intimidating, he says overall the AU is a positive force and that FemSoc has become the new group terrorising people on campus. I would firstly like to point out that no one, FemSoc member or otherwise, is arguing that the AU is only a negative institution at LSE- indeed as an active member of the AU myself I think sports has been one of the best things about my experiences here. However I and many, many others note the existence of an oppressive culture within the AU that makes many women feel uncomfortable, a culture that genuinely does intimidate, perpetuate misogyny and prevents a lot (and I mean A LOT) of students from getting involved in sport. FemSoc has never demonised the whole AU but pointed out what needs to change and while I note that Umut does not specifically lay these claims to FemSoc in his article, I feel they need to be

addressed as they are implied.

He does say that we are more intimidating than the culture I have outlined above, which is interesting as FemSoc stands for the polar opposite of said culture.

The author goes on to almost suggest that the hooded figures of the FemSoc committee gather at our candle lit rituals in the basement of the Old building, discussing how to intimidate, coerce and oppress the masses next. I found it interesting how he wrote “This will not be an article slating FemSoc”, despite the fact that’s exactly what it seemed to be doing throughout, as while he wrote that he was not talking about the entirety of FemSoc even though Umut continually switched from supposedly referring to the few intimidating “prominent feminists” and the whole of FemSoc. Umut notes how some members have felt intimidated on social media, by this I assume he’s referring to the non-membersincluded FemSoc Facebook page. I (shockingly) am going to agree with Umut slightly here. I know there have been members of this group who have been put off commenting on posts due to the way they have been responded to and it is to these people, who genuinely had a good point which got detracted from in the heat of discussion, I would personally like to apologise. Not on behalf of anyone, or anything, just from me, sorry. As a committee member of FemSoc I have the very best interests of our members at heart and since these concerns arose I and many other committee

member have tried our best to address them.

We have taken action to make the group more inclusive; I have personally met up with disillusioned members for coffee to talk things through with them in a very relaxed way (which any reader is more than welcome to do), published a list of committee members that anyone with concerns can confidentially talk to and reiterated that we have a Tumblr where people can ask anonymous questions.

When it comes to “shutting down” people there are several things you should know. Firstly, one of the biggest reasons people will face a lot of opposition from FemSoc members as a result of their comments is because that comment is either triggering, ignores the experiences of women, hugely inappropriate or makes members of the group feel like they are not in a safe space. None of these are acceptable and in many of these cases a person will be met with a warning from one of the page administrators. Secondly, everyone on FemSoc obviously has strong opinions and if they did not truly believe them they would not vigorously argue for them. So long as you are respectful (I know some people think this hasn’t always been the case in the past, but as previously mentioned I’m personally working on it) when you get involved with FemSoc in any platform you should be prepared to have your views challenged. This is not a bad thing.

In fact I find it quite laughable that FemSoc can be accused of impeding “freedom of speech”

on campus when we actively encourage discussion on a daily basis. We do not silence people for not agreeing with us, but if they are not acknowledging their responsibility of respect when using that right I will have no qualms in withdrawing from discussion with that person. The fact that I am writing a reply to an article with does disagree with what FemSoc believe, published in a student publication is surely the epitome of free speech for both the author of said article and myself. I also find it rather ironic that the very same person who argues FemSoc is suppressing free speech also rather patronisingly explained how we should “pick and choose our battles, not everything necessarily has to lead to debate”. Thanks for the advice.

If people feel that they will “get in trouble with FemSoc”, whatever that means, I must ask why you feel that way. Are you saying something offensive, oppressive, disregarding your own privilege, ignoring women’s experiences, being racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, elitist etc? If yes, then you probably shouldn’t say it- that’s called being a decent human being folks. However, the main reason I feel a lot of people feel “intimidated” by FemSoc is because they don’t feel they know enough to engage with genuine feminist debate. I would first like to point out that it is not FemSoc’s responsibility to educate anyone as the onus of that lies with the individual.

Secondly, to assist those who wish to educate themselves we have actually published a very

comprehensive list of useful reading on our Facebook page which any member can easily find. Thus, ignorance is not an excuse either and I urge everyone, self-defining feminist or otherwise to brush up on a bit of basic feminist literature before engaging with discussion. It benefits you and everyone else in the discussion as we can now have a serious debate instead of spending hours explaining basic concepts and ending up derailing the original lines of thought.

I also take huge issue with Umut’s use of “alleged rape culture”. Rape culture is not “alleged”, but a real and systematic cultural form of oppression and implying that this might not be the case only makes light of women’s daily experiences of patriarchal oppression.

There is not enough word limit in 10 Beavers to express all my points clearly, but I would like to finish by pointing out two things. Firstly, most of the people who criticise FemSoc have never been to one of their many excellent, informative and challenging events i.e. where they do most of their work. I urge everyone to take part in these with the aim of listening to learn something.

Secondly, FemSoc do not claim to be open to or represent everyone and all types of feminists. We are very clear about the feminism we stand for and encourage learning on intersectional issues. If you have any suggestions on how to make FemSoc better, talk to us because I know I’m always up for a feminist themed coffee.

Photo: Flickr: Bernardo Ricci Armani

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Beaver Wants You!

We are recruiting for the following positions: News Editors x2 Comment Editor x1 PartB Editor x1 The City Editor x1 Sport Editor x1 Online Editor x1 Collective Chair x1 For more information get in touch with Alex Fyfe, Liam Hill or any member of the Ed Board.

Anyone can stand for any of the positions, but only members of the Collective - which you have to have written for 3 issues or more to be - will be eligible to vote.

To apply: Send a 150 word manifesto to collective@thebeaveronline.co.uk for any of the positions.

Deadline is Wednesday at 2pm.

All welcome at Hustings, even if you’re not a candidate or on The Collective. If you’ve written this year then you’re in with a chance of winning a Beaver award!

Hustings: Thursday 19th March 17:00 TW1.2.03

Also at Hustings: Q&A with the Executive Editor 2014/15 Beaver Awards

Tuesday March 17, 2015

14

PARTB ART COMPETITION 2015

Alex Jabore- The Finale - 3rd place 2014

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Photo credits: Leigh Simpson 2010

ne of the great opera houses, Glyndebourne is a 12-month operation with the Glyndebourne Festival running from May to August with a programme of six operas in a 1,200seat opera house, and the annual tour taking place from October to December. Its widely respected education programme is active year-round, aiming to promote understanding and enjoyment of opera by delivering new work and projects. The Festival and the Tour present 120 performances to an audience of 150,000 with many more people experiencing its work through its yearly programme of cinema screenings and free online screenings. To achieve its mission of encompassing a global audience, Glyndebourne has pioneered specialist recordings in order to share its work through the aforementioned channels, and also offers reduced-ticket prices to under-30s. The Glyndebourne remains financially independent since its founding and receives no public subsidy, whilst it does receive valued Arts Council support for its Tour and educational work. It is a registered charity and funds its work through Box Office incomes, its Members and supporters.

This year, the Glyndebourne is launching a national art competition inviting talented and aspiring young artists to design the front cover of its 2015 Tour Programme! Artsist from across the UK aged over 16 and under 30 are invited to create visual artwork inspired by the theme of Vanity, to be submitted by Tuesday 30 June 2015.

Photo credits: James Bellorini 2014

Vanity is addressed in completely different manners in two of the productions in this year's Tour - Saul and Don Pasquale, and artists are invited to explore the theme of vanity and how it can bring about a fall from grace or from power.

"Saul has strong links with the tragedy of King Lear, where his vanity, arrogance and denial bring about his madness and downfall; in the farcical Don Pasquale an old bachelor is flattered into seeking a younger wife in the hope of taking revenge upon his nephew, and it is his vanity that allows others to pull the wool over his eyes." - Press Release by Glyndebourne Artists are invited to submit paintings, drawings, original prints, mixed media, photography and digital pieces for the competition (no video or sculpture). Pieces must work on two levels – as printed artwork on the programme front cover and as an exhibition piece.

An exciting opportunity for the artists and opera enthusiasts at LSE! Do not hesitate to join and for more information simply visit: glyndebourne.com/tourart.

VIKKI HUI

Svitlana Biedarieva - La Traviata - 2nd place 2014

Photo credits: Bill Cooper 2011 Febby Mpundu - Violetta - Winner 2014

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Tuesday March 17, 2015

PARTB/MUSIC

HUBBLE REVISITS AN ICON, THE PILLARS OF CREATION

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wenty years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope snapped one of its most iconic images ever. The three towering columns of gas bathed in the light of hot, young stars came to be called the Pillars of Creation — and they showed up on everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs to rugs. Now, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Hubble has taken a new image of the well-known region in the Eagle Nebula, about 6,500 light-years away.

stars. The uppermost tips of the pillars, the light blue parts that look as though they’re riding atop a bubbling cosmic eruption, are being pummeled by violent stellar winds. Perhaps as evidence of this stellar battering, a tuft of gas near the top of the tallest pillar is flying away.

It’s even more glorious than the first.

Released today during the American Astronomical Society’s annual winter meeting, the new Hubble photo is sharper than the original (see full-size image here). It has a wider field of view, too, and reveals the tenuous base of the cold, gassy columns. Astronomers asked the telescope to shoot the same region in both visible and infrared light, which is relaying some interesting things about this place that’s come to be so familiar.

Photo credits to: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

Infrared light can penetrate clouds of dust and gas that visible light cannot. So, when seen in the infrared, the pillars look like mere wisps set against a sea of countless stars. But inside those 5-light-year-tall towers are newborn

And though these are known as the pillars of creation, astronomer Paul Scowen notes that they’re also regions of destruction. “I’m impressed by how transitory these structures are. They are actively being ablated away before our very eyes,” says Scowen, of Arizona State University, in a statement. He helped lead the original Hubble observations 20 years ago. “The ghostly bluish haze around the dense edges of the pillars is material getting heated up and evaporating away into space. We have caught these pillars at a very unique and short-lived moment in their evolution.”

NADIA DRAKE

REVIEW: IF YOU'RE READING THIS IT'S TOO LATE BY DRAKE

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o say Drake is one of the most polarizing artists in recent times is a severe understatement; he certainly runs the hip-hop industry, but not everyone is happy about it. His popularity in the hip-hop/R&B genre has marked what many feel is a shift in the culture towards a softer attitude sonically and topically, but regardless of this he’s had a ridiculous streak of smash-hit singles. This new surprise album sold over 500,000 copies after just four days.

These are numbers unheard of in the stale climate of mainstream Hip-hop.

The fact that Drake approaches music with more variety than most artists – with both singing and rapping being his focus, its easy to see that every fan wants a different type of Drake to show up.

So far Drake’s catalogue has been wide-ranging: debut album Thank Me Later leant more on hip-hop tendencies whereas his last two albums, Take Care and Nothing Was the Same have been slower and more melodic approaches that contained the majority of what Drake has become known for, yet being two fairly different projects. There have been essentially two types of Drake songs: the ‘tough guy bravado’ Drake that borrows some trap influences (‘Started From the Bottom’) and there are the more topical introspective songs about love and struggle (‘Hold On, We’re Going Home’). As his albums have progressed Drake has seemed to diverge to both extremes – some of the songs have gotten too soppy (Marvin’s Room) but most annoyingly of all

he’s overcompensated with lazy braggadocios ‘tough’ Drake that blatantly doesn’t fit his true persona – it comes off as a reactionary and isn’t done in any unique or creative way either. These issues are faced in If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – a mixtape/album that contains more rapping than Drake has ever done on any project.

What is clear throughout this surprise release is Drake’s choice of production – the layered beats make even the worst parts of the tape listenable.

While Nothing Was the Same felt too airy and slow, these beats get slightly more amped up very similar to his smash hit ‘0-100/The Catch up’ from last year. But the production fails in some respect when it comes to the similarity in the beats – it gets hard to distinguish them from each other on many points in this album resulting in a project that seems rather monotonous– especially combined with Drake’s voice and content. There are plenty of brags about money, fame and popularity, which would be fine if Drake could do this in an interesting way, but for the most part Drake lyrically doesn’t have the capacity to make this content feel fresh or unique.

‘Legend’ starts the tape off with a strong taste of arrogance and laughably poor lyrics but, most disappointingly, starts the long-winded cycle of mumbling and blabbering the same ‘I’m a bigger deal to people than you’ content without showing lyrical skill at all. This makes for a very unfocussed and uninspired set of tracks, if not for

the production that occasionally saving tracks from sounding redundant. Take ‘Know Yourself ’, which features a fantastic hook coupled with smooth yet hard-hitting production that overshadows the lack of content. Drake fans will be left singing the catchy hook ‘I was running through the six with my woes’ all day long. On the other hand, ‘6 God’ is one song that feels slightly more up-tempo and exciting but Drake’s unbearably annoying flow, voice and content completely ruins it. This phase of the album slowly fades into two PARTYNEXTDOOR featured songs in the middle of this album, which feels way too hazy and slow, just to make sure you’re falling off to sleep if you’re aren’t already.

The last twenty-five minutes of the album is the only place where Drake meets expectations. ‘6 man’ comes off different to the majority of the tracks earlier with more energy, finally coming across as being confident without sounding boring and lazy.. The beat changes towards the end as Drake gives an ode to the famous ‘You Got Me’ by The Roots. The true highlights of this project are the final three tracks: ‘You & the 6’, ‘Jungle’ and ‘6pm in New York’. The first of these is the best on the entire album depicting a conversation with his mother, showing both a relatable and endearing mother-son relationship as well as giving an interesting insight into the parents that made him who he is. ‘Jungle’ is an impressive slow-tempo love song that goes in a direction where he sounds comfortable.

Finally, on ‘6pm in New York’ we hear

an inspired Drake rapping at his best, even making a solid jab at Tyga and attempting to make up for content that the rest of this album is lacking.

Overall Drake’s punishably difficult first half is contrasted with some of his most effective songs on the latter half.

However, most of this project can be summed up in one like from ‘Know Yourself ’: ‘I’m turning into a n**** that thinks about money and women 24/7’ –a testament to how uninspired

Drake’s music has become. This has plagued his music since his 2011 album Take Care but never has it been more evident than on this tape. In the end, this is just going to continue the polarizing effects of Drake’s music, even if it isn’t as original this time around.

4.5/10 DHRUV BHANOTHA

Tuesday March 17, 2015

FILM

I

n our common pursuit of love and connection, humans have created a fascinating range of technologybased products from online dating websites like OkCupid, popular mobile dating apps such as Tinder and Happn, to the newest product named "Invisible Boyfriend" which allows you to interact with a virtual boyfriend whom you "build" from scratch according to your preferences. With the stigma of meeting "online strangers" long gone, it seems like there is literally nothing barring us from meeting or developing relationships with others in every possible dimension.

Photo credits to: Music Box Films and Artificial Eye

Photo credits to: Annapurna Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures

Members of the LSESU Film Society voted to screen “Her” (2013) as part of the society's Week 9 screenings.

Directed by Spike Jonze, this distinctive film explores human relationships in a technologically advanced future. Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a sweet but

REVIEW: HER (2013)

occasionally awkward and quirky man who is recently separated from his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara), forms a romantic relationship with his operating system, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Despite her lack of a physical body, Samantha tries to integrate into his life through going on a double date with his colleagues and helping him to publish a book. The couple even have ‘cyber sex’ and Samantha asks a sexual surrogate to imitate her in order to have greater physical intimacy with Theodore. Constantly evolving and growing with her artificial hyperintelligence, Samantha finally leaves the human world with other OS-es for a greater intellectual pursuit, leaving Theodore devastated.

Joaquin Phoenix gives an extremely convincing performance of a man who struggles to cope with life and relationships after his separation with Cath-

ro-ness.

erine, his ex-wife who has a strong influence on him as they have grown up together. This enables the audience to greatly sympathise with him. However, Scarlett Johansson definitely plays a centre role in the film as she lends her voice to Samantha, infusing her with humanness and dimensions. With her lively and omnipresent voice, it is almost too difficult to remember she is a robotic operating system who has never truly experienced the human world in a physical form.

Besides being the winner of Best Screenplay at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, “Her” is also visually striking with its breathtaking cinematography. Throughout the film, the director and the cinematographer use heavy-handed colour correction. A warm, yellowish tint dominates most scenes, allowing the screen to radiate a warm feeling. Yet, it is, perhaps, somewhat ironic considering the distant and cold relationships depicted in the film, as well as the loneliness found in Theodore. The colour blue is often cancelled out, which separates “Her” from the usual futuristic and dystopian sci-fi films. Instead of using stereotypical colours and designs which look overly clinical and sterile, “Her” is a film with a certain degree of familiarity and ret-

Interestingly, colour is further utilised throughout the film to depict the characters’ feelings and their attitudes towards love and life. Theodore mainly wears orange or red clothes, which gain an increasingly warm tone as he further develops his intimate relationship with Samantha. However, when he is uncomfortable, he wears yellow clothes to

show his anxiety, such as when system error shows up during an unexpected software update. On the other hand, when he gets into an argument with Samantha over sexual surrogacy, as well as after Samantha leaves with other OS-es, Theodore is wearing white and blue shirts which symbolise his sadness and hollowness.

“Her” examines the changes in our lives and relationships as technology gradually develops at a quicken-

REVIEW: IDA (2013) ical issues, such as antisemitism, religion, and war. For instance, Ida's parents and Wanda's son are hidden by a Polish family during the war, but are later killed by the family's son for undisclosed reasons. It is suggested by the director that the reasons may include antisemitism, fear of German prosecution or an attempt to steal the property of the often wealthy Jews. However, these socio-political issues are not examined in a very explicit or in-depth manner, which leaves a lot to be deciphered by the audience.

"I

da" (2013) is a black-andwhite film with a boxy academy ratio. The film follows a short road trip journey between Ida and her aunt Wanda as they dive into their family history. A girl called Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a novice nun and an orphan, is about to take her vows. Advised by the Mother Superior before taking the step to vow chastity, poverty and obedience to serve God, she makes a trip to visit her only living relative, Wanda (Agata Kulesza).

Wanda tells Anna she is named "Ida" by her parents, and explains her Jewish roots which are previously unknown to the young girl. They set off to find the remains of Ida's parents and Wanda's son, who have been killed during the war.

Although the film is completely monochrome, it is "colourful" in an unconventional way. Various shades of greyness are used throughout the film.

On the one hand, it symbolises the historical tragedy in post-war Poland in

the 50s and 60s and the burden placed upon both characters. On the other hand, it juxtaposes Ida and Wanda. In most parts of the film, Anna is dressed in a traditional novice nun habit with a headdress, which looks light grey and almost white at times in the monochrome film. The makeup on the actress is also minimal. These factors make the doe-eyed Ida look young and pure. Meanwhile, Wanda is consistently in dark clothes, which appear black on the screen. This use of colour helps to contrast both characters against each other by illustrating their differences, as Ida is a devoted and quiet young nun who acts obediently and prays regularly, whereas Wanda is a hedonistic and worldly cynic who indulges in alcohol, smoking and casual sex while encouraging Ida to follow her lifestyle before taking the vows. Wanda's line, "I'm a slut and you're a little saint", certainly encapsulates their differences in one sentence.

The film covers many socio-polit-

The film highlights Ida's transformation throughout and after the trip.

She returns to the convent to prepare for the vow after burying her parents' remains. However, Ida has already changed. She slips out a giggle during a quiet dinner with all the nuns, resulting in their obvious disapproval, which juxtaposes against an early scene shot almost identically where she finishes her dinner in silence with obedience and solemnness. She also notices the sen-

16

ing pace. With a myriad of methods to bridge connections between people, computers, phones and applications seem to give people a sense of closeness by offering innovate ways to make new friends and develop connections.

Samantha’s identity as an OS with a lack of body also challenges the idea of relationships and love. “Her” is a thought-provoking piece which encourages the audience to rethink mod-

ern relationships and our distance with other people. Does love always have to involve physical closeness or intimacy?

Or, is love equally valid without such an element, such as in online relationships in which both parties have never met each other in real life (as they term it, "IRL"), or in long distance relationships in which there is a prolonged period of separation?

SARAH KU

sual bathing of her fellow novice nuns as a result of her developing sexuality,

stays at her flat. She puts on Wanda's dress, practises walking in heels, and

and she stays silent when the others are reciting their prayer. Her wavering faith is apparent in her vocal confession in front of a Jesus statute that she is not ready for the vow. After the suicide of Wanda, she leaves the convent and

experiences drinking and smoking for the first time. She also has sex with a young man whom she has met previously. However, after the night, Ida puts on her nun attire again and slips out of Wanda's home. The open ending means the audience would have to decide for Ida's fate. Does she return to the convent and make her vows, possibly because the hedonistic experience only reaffirms her faith in God? Or, does she leave the life of chastity, poverty and obedience to experience life outside the convent?

"Ida" does not really have any exciting or dramatic climax throughout the film. However, the audience would definitely appreciate the beautiful cinematography, as well as the use of colour and framing. This award winner at the Academy Award, the European Film Academy and the BAFTA is certainly not to be missed.

SARAH KU

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Tuesday March 17, 2015

FILM/FOOD

REVIEW: THE IMITATION GAME (2014) @ THE PILLOW CINEMA Unlike conventional cinemas, the special thing about the Pillow Cinema is that there are absolutely no chairs.

Instead, the room is full of giant beanbags which can fit two people each.

T

here are very few things in life more satisfying than lying in bed while streaming films on Netflix to wind down after a long day, especially when you also get a warm blanket and some velvety hot chocolate in cold winter days. The Pillow Cinema took this concept forward and created a fascinating cinema experience in Shoreditch. Having renovated an unused underground station, the cinema regularly screens both new blockbusters and classic films.

On Saturday, I made the trek down to Shoreditch to watch the historical thriller "The Imitation Game". After getting off the bus, I took out my iPhone to use my trusty tour guide, Google Map. However, I soon found that the app wasn't needed at all after being greeted by the sight of people walking with two giant white pillows on the street, which was definitely a hilarious scenario. The cinema is situated in a short brick building with graffiti all over its exterior. There is no "Pillow Cinema" sign or banner, though there are words stating that it is the old Shoreditch underground station. I had to double-check with the doorman to

make sure it was the right place.

After getting into the venue with my Eventbrite tickets, I was directed to the bar area where I could hire pillows, buy drinks (coffee, chocolate, beer, cider etc.) and grab some snacks (popcorn, cookies, sweets). The cinema

recommends visitors to bring their own pillows. However, if you prefer to save the hassle, you can hire pillows for £1 each. The beanbags are first-comefirst-served, and the film starts exactly at the stated time on the ticket so aim to arrive at least 15 minutes early to get the beanbag you want.

The beanbags are quite comfortable, though they are not as big as I thought. You would have to stick close to your beanbag-sharing buddy. The cinema also provides a big blanket for each beanbag. Feel free to take your shoes off or bring slippers to create the most comfortable cinema experience.

However, there were regular intervals when I heard train noise during the screening because the venue is so close to the train tracks. It might be annoying when you are trying to listen to the actors, but for some people it might give a full experience of watching a film in a tube station.

B

On to the film, the lead actor Benedict Cumberbatch definitely gave an emotional and heart-wrenching performance. With some similarities to Cumberbatch's character in Sherlock, Alan Turing is portrayed as an overly intelligent prodigy who is antisocial at times and hard to work with. The movie is loosely biographical as it centres on Alan Turing's experience of deciphering the Enigma machine settings in the Second World War, which greatly shortened the length of the war and contributed to the Allies' victory as they could intercept and decode German messages. As a viewer, I truly felt for the characters, such as when the group succeeds after many obstacles and when they painfully choose not to act on a decoded message to prevent German suspicion, even when taking action would prevent a German raid and save a teammate's brother who is serving on an affected convoy. Alan's dedication to a childhood friend Christopher Morcom whom he has romantically loved is also moving, as he named the machine ("Christopher") after him as he has died of tuberculosis.

The film explores social issues such as sexism and homophobia. For instance, the sexist staff member directs Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) to the room for the secretary interview, as he does not believe that she is sitting for the code-breaker selection test due to her identity as a woman. Thankfully, Alan is not biased against her female identity and invites her to sit for the test, and she outperforms the male candidates. Despite his great contribution to Britain, Alan is convicted of indecency due to his homosexuality and is forced to undergo hormonal treatment,

LAZY BRUNCH AT LANTANA

runch is the best meal.

Some of you may say it's not a real meal, but I strongly disagree. Why? Because I can. Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, usually takes place in a pleasant, calm and lazy atmosphere filled with coffee and lovely chats.

Which is exactly what people do at Lantana Cafe. It’s a small

Australian café located just steps away from Goodge Street station.

It comes highly rated from every possible enthusiastic foodie in London. If you go on the weekend, you may have to queue for a little while before getting in, but it’s never usually more than 20 minutes.

It's the perfect brunch fix and there are three locations to choose from! One in Fitzrovia, one in Shoreditch and another in Camden.

I did not know this but am very pleased that more people can enjoy Lantana across London.

The menu is simple yet original, the venue is adorable small and cozy. You really feel as though people are just going there to talk and eat good food. This sounds obvious, but you know what I mean! It feels home-y. The staff are extremely friendly as well.

Another word about the menu. It serves typical brunch food (eggs on toast, museli…) but also has some terrific options for something different! Corn fritters with spinach and bacon, sautéed mushrooms on potato bread, toasted banana bread…I am drooling just thinking about the menu. Their classics are also fabulous. You simply cannot go wrong with eggs and avocado. They take great pride in their coffee and rightfully so! The roast is splendidly strong and tastes delicious in any other, be it a latte or a long black. The food and drinks are not pricey at all which is an added bonus.

If you’re in the mood for a nice couple of hours with a friend to catch up, try Lantana Café! You won’t regret it.

Find them here: 1. Fitzrovia 13 Charlotte Place Fitzrovia W1T1SN 2. Shoreditch Unit 2, 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Rd. EC1Y1HQ 3. Camden 45 Middle Yard Camden Lock Place Camden Market London NW1 8AF CAROLINE SCHURMAN-GRENIER http://mademoiselleaventure.blogspot.ca

as homosexual acts were illegal at that time. In reality, Alan Turing allegedly committed suicide a few years after the conviction and he only received a posthumous royal pardon in 2013.

Despite some criticisms of historical inaccuracies, "The Imitation Game" is truly a spectacular film that touches on different historical and social issues. The Pillow Cinema also offers an innovative and alternative cinema experience. The price is reasonable for cash-strapped students (£10 per person if you share a beanbag with your friend, £20 if you want to occupy a beanbag all by yourself) and the cinema offers a great selection of films.

Do not try to be frugal by not hiring a pillow while not bringing one yourself.

You will thank me later!

SARAH KU

The Beaver 09.10.2012

PartB

The

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t t e i r Hen

LSESU SHOP CLEARANCE Aysha Al-Fruitcake

ALL THE LEFTOVERS FROM THE NAB PUN STOCKROOM

99p

Gee Linford Gravy Perfect to soil Beaver articles that engender your disapproval

Astro-Terf

The Jasmina Bidet

Featuring Germaine Greer, perfect for putting the boot into

Tuesday March 17, 2015

20

The Chronicles of Nonia

By Cis Lewis

Why is my witch white? Asks Kavita as she launches the White Witch Project.

Also featuring Mr Alumnus and Nadia Aslan

21

Tuesday March 17, 2015

Society Listings

onel Robbins” A talk Li of es nc ce is in m Re “Personal

by Max Steuer 17/03/15 19:00 32L.B.09

ILDING

FAREWELL EAST BU

rnoon Tea History Society Afte Wednesday 15:30 om History Common Ro

Beaver Apologise

s:

Sorry to Artichoke Society for accidentally confusi ng Alternative Aspirations for inve stments I’m sure there’s an LSE Meme in here somewhere

Tuesday February 24, 2015

INTERESTED IN FUNDING FOR YOUR MASTER’S? LSE has available for UK/EU students: 230 LSE Graduate Bursaries – worth £10,000 120 Anniversary Scholarships – worth between £3,000 and £25,000

lse.ac.uk/mastersfunding

22

The City Section Editorial:

The City

Mika Morissette

Features: Autism Awareness Week Page 26

23

Sport: The State of Formula One Page 30

Is The End Nigh For OPEC?

Oil prices are crashing to long-unseen lows. Could this signal the looming collapse of the Organization of Oil Producing Countries?

Mallika Iyer City Correspondent WITH THE US DOLLAR DRAGGING down oil prices to an all-time low for the past nine months, rumours are stirring amongst the international community that OPEC’s long run is nearing its end.

With the technological advances and the turbulent market forces of the past couple of years, the survival of a commodities cartel is becoming more and more difficult. Although OPEC continues to supply 40 percent of the world’s crude oil, American shale drillers, companies that are in the process of developing Canada’s oil sands, and even biofuel producers are gaining prominence and are starting to pose a serious threat to OPEC’s monopoly over the industry. In addition, disagreements and tension between member countries has damaged the cartel’s influence and efficacy in operating. According to Michael Levi, a senior researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations, “There’s very little evidence that OPEC has been effective as a cartel for some time”. Many academics believe that if Saudi Arabia does not intervene in order to stabilise the market, OPEC’s future will be rather bleak.

Historical trends provide evidence to back fears of the dissolution of OPEC. Most of the trade agreements for commodities (wheat, sugar,

tin, coffee, olive oil, rubber, etc) created after World War Two have collapsed with the exception of OPEC. Even the very successful natural rubber cartel formed between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand in 1979 disintegrated soon after the Asian financial crisis (1990s). Perhaps OPEC’s reign too, like most other cartels for natural resources, is nearing its end.

However, it should be taken into consideration that despite the setbacks it is currently facing, OPEC remains fiercely determined to protect its market share. The cartel’s strategy depends on the idea that if it maintains low prices for a long period of time, other producers will be forced to lower their output because they will not be able to compete with these prices. In addition, OPEC possesses a major advantage over all other commodity producing groups: its actions in the market are not restricted by any legal technicalities. This gives the cartel more flexibility to respond to changing market forces in comparison to its competitors.

Ultimately, there is the possibility that this nine month trend of plummeting oil prices is simply mirroring the events of the 1980s in which OPEC made a surprising comeback and regained its relevance despite facing similar obstacles. Therefore, it can be argued that it is far too soon to predict the fall of OPEC. We must simply wait and watch. After all, Saudi Arabia usually has something up its sleeve. Gasonline rationing in Spring 1974 as OPEC stretches its wings

Photo credit: ikiCommons

#YOURMUM PROBABLY seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was not long before Penguin’s PR campaign in the lead-up to Mother’s Day backfired somewhat spectacularly. Since I am writing this on Sunday (Mother’s Day) I couldn’t help thinking about this, though I probably can’t publish any of the brilliant examples of Twitter responses for fear of having my Editorial cut by the libel team. The City-related point is, though, that companies often start PR campaigns thinking things will go well when in fact they fail hilariously (think Abercrombie & Fitch paying the guys in Jersey Shore to not wear their clothes, or Blackberry promising lots of “RIMjobs”). On the topic of PR campaigns, the controversial taxi app Uber started a big one about women last week, but the jury is still out on whether their campaign can clean up their muddy image.

That said, since this is my last edition as City Editor, I also want to thank all the amazing writers who contributed in-depth pieces of economic and business commentary, like Mallika Iyer’s piece on OPEC, which thankfully punctuated my space-occupying nonsense. On that note, I hope to see lots of you running for elections this Thursday!

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

Tuesday March 17, 2015

24

The City

Tuesday March 17, 2015

Not So Evil Now? Uber ‘Invests’ In Women In Developing Countries The controversial app-based taxi service recently announced that it would work in partnership with UN Women to create one million jobs for women world-wide.

Mika Morissette Section Editor

Photo credit: ikiCommons

LAST JANUARY, CITIES ACROSS Europe saw their roads blocked by angry taxi drivers protesting against the apparition of Uber, the popular app-based discount taxi service, on their turf. A year later, the startup currently valued at $40 billion continues to tout controversy, with protesters taking the street in Portland, one of its most recent cities, in January, legal challenges being launched in a number of jurisdictions and allegations even emerging that top executives had used user ride histories to snoop on critical journalists.

Though the app continues to see its number of downloads grow, there is understandably increasing pressure for Uber to clean up its image. No surprise, therefore that Uber’s announcement earlier last week that it would be starting a partnership with UN Women in the hopes of hiring one million female drivers worldwide by 2020 attracted a certain ammount of attention.

Uber made a big deal of its an-

nouncement, putting the news top its homepage, emailing its millions of users as well as preparing special packs for the press. With all this fanfare, it’s fair to say the company hopes to kill two birds with this stone: on one hand, the partnerships with UN Women would be its first big corporate social responsability project and the company is already bragging of contributing to female empowerment in developing countries; on the other hand, upping the number of female drivers would also address fears of female users in developed countries that Uber might not be safe for women.

Critics have been quick to point out the questions Uber is not answering with this tactic, however.

Jesica Golstein, a blogger for Think Progress, for example, wonders why segregation of the sexes in Uber cars is touted as the most effective current solution to the problem of assualts by male drivers. “It’s as if the Uber powers-that-be are throwing up their hands at the idea that they could employ only male drivers who don’t rape female passengers,” she writes in a recent post.

Emily May, executive director

Protesters show their anger at Uber in Portland, US, in January 2015 of Hollaback!, a non-profit dedicated to ending street harassment and ensuring gender equality in public spaces called it a “token gesture.”

“It’s probably some calculated PR move on their part to try and figure out how they can make people feel safer without actually acknowledging that many women haven’t been safe while riding Uber,” she goes on.

It’s not just Uber, however,

which is buying in to the growing PR potential of tayloring services to female riders and drivers. SheTaxis, for example, is an app-based startup similar to Uber which caters entierly to female passengers and aspiring female drivers. A whole lot of money seems to be made providing new services to make women feel safe instead of addressing the underlying problem of unsafe transport and sexualy bi-

ased employment int he transport industry.

At the very least, this is something that feminist writer and activist Soraya Chemaly says that, on the positive side, Uber has been forced to recognize. “I think probably Uber did not go into this business thinking at all about gender and gender-based violence. However, they have come to understand that it’s very important.”

Residential Services

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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.

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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

Features Section editorial: WITH TARYANA LIVING it up in South Korea this week, I am once again riding solo, which leaves me with the pleasure of thanking all of the people without whom Features would be nothing. I’ll start with Taryana, George, Joe and Zita: the current Features team, who have been a pleasure to work with this year. I am equally indebted to every one of our writers; without all of our contributors’ excellent articles, our section would have been nothing. Thank you once again to everyone who wrote this year and I hope to receive even more submissions from even more people next year!

Further thanks go to Liam Hill, who was my Beaver mentor right from the start, and who contributed so much to Features before his elevation.

In other news, I am embarking on the brave venture of founding an LSE UKIP society; it would act in the same vein as LSE’s other political societies and offer students the opportunity to discuss what is now polling as the UK’s 3rd largest political entity. I’ll need at least 20 members to make it official, so if you are interested then I’ll need your support!

Get in touch via Facebook/ email to register your interest.

Features

George Harrison

Tuesday March 17, 2015

Section Editors: George Harrison and Taryana Odayar features@thebeaveronline.co.uk

25

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

In conversation with Emily Brothers:

On Gender and General Elections

George Greenwood Deputy Features Editor AT T H E P O L I T I C S A N D Forum PPC debate last week, I was able to talk to Emily Brothers, the first PPC to come out as transgender in the UK, about election pledges, and why she chose to run for parliament. Emily has a fascinating story to tell, but I did not want this piece to focus solely on her transgender identity or her blindness.

You have talked widely on Health and Social care. What do you think needs to be done to improve the situation?

“I think that an integrated health and social care budget is a major thing for the next Labour government to secure, and only a Labour government will do that. I think there are lots of other things that we also need to do on health policy, such as strengthening services on mental health provision so that there is comparative care between if you have a physical condition or if you have a mental one. And that hasn’t been the case. I think that tackling that is also part of our overall approach to early interventions, and indeed prevention; for example, the more we intervene and prevent people from having these problems, the more we improve their life chances and outcomes in other ways: in employment, education, housing, and so on. We need to see much more in terms of public service, and a strategic approach that coordinates support to individuals in terms of their health and social care, their housing, their education, and their employment. So, people need to be given these things in a way that is seamless and really meets their aspirations.”

What was the one issue that made you stand?

“I have been a member of the Labour party for 33 years, and I have campaigned against inequality for even longer in various pressure groups. I have worked professionally on inequality, and specifically on disability issues for many years and I felt increasing frustrated working with the equality and human rights commission as their head of policy in terms of bringing about change. And it came to the point that I felt it was time for me to multiply own voice within a political setting, unavailable to me representing the interests of an institution like the

EHRC, and therefore when the opportunity for selection came up in my local constituency, I decided that it was something that I always wanted to do, and the time had arrived for me to seek the opportunity to be a member of parliament and to make a difference that was going to be tangible in my own community.”

Did your transgender identity affect your selection for Sutton and Cheam?

“Well I was selected in November 2013, and it wasn’t until over a year later in December 2014 that I came out to peak news and the rest of the media in respect to my history as a woman with a transsexual history. I therefore didn’t experience any discrimination in the selection process as a result of my gender history as it wasn’t publicly known. The party has been amazing since I came out, support came from Ed Miliband and other senior figures, as well as ordinary rank and file members of the party, and from the public at large right across the country. The support has been just been amazing.”

Would selection would have been different if you had been out?

“I don’t think it would have, certainly in Cheam. It is a party and a constituency that is very open. I have felt quite recently that one of the reasons why I have wanted to come out and explain myself was because people had afforded me to transition in my own community with respect and dignity. And that’s why I felt more comfortable coming out than I perhaps would have done coming out in other areas. I think that the challenge would be in the future if I seek any other kind of selection, which people knowing my circumstances maybe that will make a difference. It’s entirely speculative whether it would be more difficult or not. But again if I go through every step in the process, or if I go for a political selection in the future, it will be interesting to make a comparison.”

What would you ask Rod Liddle, if he was here right now?

“I would ask him to tell me the answer to my question. He made the comment of course seeing as I was blind how did I know that I was the wrong sex. And my retort to that the following day in the Independent was when Liddle turns out the lights at night how does he know that he is a man.

He is yet to answer that question.

Although in some ways he has made a kind of apology, he hasn’t gone far enough, the Sun hasn’t accepted responsibility, the issue is going before the Independent Press Standards Organisation, and we expect an adjudication on the matter sometime in the next month.”

What do you think is the biggest barrier to Transgender people entering mainstream politics?

“I think the biggest barrier is confidence. And I hope as a role model I might be able to help encourage people. I think another issue is a lot of misunderstanding about the lifestyle they have. People who are transsexual, the narrative often of peoples transition is one of going through surgery.

Only a small number of people actually go through that process.

When we talk of transgender people, it’s a very wide spectrum of people, and they may not have gone through things such a surgery or people changing their identity. There are all different forms in which a transgender experience takes. I think that we need to have a bit more awareness and understanding, and it is our responsibility to be part of that experience, to help people understand it, as many people such as myself, for many years did not understand ourselves and the place that we are in.

And if that has been the case for our own feelings about our g e n d e r, then it’s no surprise

that other people might find it difficult to apprehend. So we need to advance understanding, and take some of the negativity and hostility out of the agenda, and out of the debate so that we can move forward in a positive way.”

What is your message to the students of the LSE? “This is a pivotal election that students here and students across the country have an opportunity to make a difference. If the election proves to be very close, it can very much swing the balance of power.

Particularly, in many states, voting is transient because of the student populations. The impact of student elections on politics is also very important. It isn’t just about parties prospects, it’s also about how students can make a difference. But things will not change if people don’t go and tick the ballot box, whatever way they choose to vote. So that’s important. Also, get involved in politics in your own communities in different ways, try to make a difference, and whatever your background, be it working class, or like myself, with a disability, or because you have a particular interest or a cause, then there are lots of ways of getting involved and I would just encourage you to get involved.”

The Ashcroft Polls are not pointing towards a Labour victory in Sutton and Cheam.

Yet Emily is a truly an inspiring woman, and someone who can help to show both the transgender and disabled communities to make a mark on British Politics. We need people such as Emily to blaze a path along which others such as herself can follow.

26

Features

Tuesday March 17, 2015

The Interdependence/Self-Sufficiency Trade-off Louis van der Linden Third Year Undergraduate INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS in modernity have become softer.

Though not exactly cosy given several ongoing wars, the world is a more regulated place than the anarchic realm theorised in Morgenthau’s “Six Principles of Political Realism”. Why? A simple, but elegant, answer: economic interdependence.

Economic dependence may not strike individual nations as a positive concept. Indeed, self-sufficiency is something that many, especially emerging markets, strive for.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, for example, is a proponent of localism, insisting that “a sufficient economy means to have enough to support ourselves. We have to take a careful step backward: each village or district must be relatively selfsufficient”. Certainly, there are two philosophically appealing elements to self-sufficiency: autonomy and strength. Economic dependence takes away from a country’s ability to be the master of its own destiny.

Simultaneously, any progress that a fully self-sufficient country makes is sure to have been its own doing. Its future, too, is entirely in its hands.

The nation can act in self-interest without reputational concern, and the plight of international markets is unlikely to immediately affect its welfare.

However, there are three reasons to reject this idea: first, it is clear that dependence through trade is often Pareto improving.

Second, and most relevant, economic dependence smoothens both bilateral and multilateral international relations. Finally, it is unclear that self-sufficiency is possible in the face of globalisation.

In 1962, minutes after securing 1,200 Cuban cigars for his own

consumption, President Kennedy issued the permanent trade embargo. The historical context made sense: Castro had just seized most private land and nationalised many private companies, started taxing American produce beyond reason, and had strengthened Cuba’s ties to the USSR. The subsequent missile crisis seemed to suggest that this was the right decision. However, decades later, the American sedans we would only recognise from black-and-white films are rotting beneath the Cubans that drive them and Americans are still deprived from harming their lungs with the smoothness and power of a Cuban cigar, supposedly due to the lithium-rich soil in its best tobacco regions. On December 17, Obama called for a “normalising” of the relationship: stating that “We intend to create more opportunities for the American and Cuban people”. Both January and February polls suggested that at least 60% of Americans back this move. Farmers recognise that Cuba imports about 80% of its food and, therefore, sees it as a market with low barriers to entry. When both sides

can benefit from cooperation, trade embargoes make little sense. How do the current sanctions on Russia relate to this idea?

Since the end of the Cold War it has been evident that economic interdependence is the best deterrent against international misbehaviour. Studies from the Peterson Institute for International Economics makes a case for this trend, but points out that success is most common when the demands are modest and specific. Bringing Iran to the negotiating table about its nuclear programme is such an example.

The goal of recent Russian sanctions is considerably more ambitious: to alter Russia’s ideology in foreign policy. Certainly, the sanctions have contributed to the behemoth’s economic struggles, but have not resulted in constructive political debate or sufficient domestic discontent to motivate Putin to change his stance toward Ukraine.

Unlike the Iran case, the goals are simply not as clear. Does the complexity of the situation warrant a different strategy?

First, I want to point to some history to show that economic

interdependence has worked to stabilise a relationship between global superpowers before. Bilateral economic interdependence between the US and China is evident: 17.7% of Chinese exports went to the U.S. in 2011, and China’s owns about a quarter of all foreign-held American debt. The US benefits from trade, while China will be “fully integrate[d] into the global economic and trading system”.

According to Chen-yuan Tung, professor at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan, economic interdependence promotes peace and stability because international conflict will result in damage and costs for all countries involved (not to mention the ones that are not). As a result, Chen-yuan argues, Chinese foreign policy toward the US will remain moderate and become progressively more cooperative. An example of this is China’s response to the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, when five bombs from an American aeroplane landed on the embassy, killing three and injuring more. US representatives apologised for the event, but China’s response was ini-

tially unforgiving. Qin Huasan, the Chinese representative in the UN’s Security Council, released a statement saying that the bombing “is a flagrant encroachment on China’s sovereignty and a serious violation of the international law and norms governing international relations.

It has aroused great indignation among the Chinese people.” The Chinese government reacted further by providing transportation for protesters in Beijing and postponing meetings with the US about international security, arms control and human rights. Economic impacts of this decision mounted: the Shanghai Stock Exchanges reported a decline of 7.3 percent after just two days due to worry of further decline in US-China relations. China’s subsequent decision to change its hardline stance stands to reason: “To fully demonstrate the fine, civilised traditions of the Chinese Nation we will protect foreign personnel who are in China for economic, trade, educational and cultural activities”, Vice President Hu Jintao said. The Chinese government had, in less than a fortnight, put aside the incident due to the economic incentive to do so.

With respect to Russia, its people seem to accept a lack of political liberty in exchange for economic security and rising living standards.

Putin has attempted to make Russia more self-sufficient, but has not been capable of doing so. As a result, his power is deeply contingent on a maintenance of the Pareto improving economic relations with the rest of the world. Herein lies the key to moderating Putin’s behaviour in a peaceful way. In short, dependence as a word has negative connotations due to its seeming contradiction with autonomy, but I for one am thankful for the everincreasing economic dependence that nations have with respect to one another.

Autism Awareness Week: Compiling the Facts Ronda Daniel First Year Undergraduate AUTISM AWARENESS WEEK is approaching; with the number of diagnoses increasing, it is more necessary today to be aware of what autism is, and its consequences.

What is autism?

Autism is an incurable, lifelong disability that affects the way the individual relates to and interacts with others around them. There is a spectrum; autism takes different forms. It is associated with other health issues such as gastrointestinal disturbances.

Autism is an invisible disability: it is very difficult to spot, unless you know a lot about it and can spot

things such as ‘stimming’, which is short for self-stimulating. This can be flapping hands, rocking, spinning and running. But it is very difficult to spot an autistic person just by looking at them, because it exists on a spectrum, and people’s experiences of it can differ hugely. People are quick to judge behaviours as odd or, particularly with children, ‘naughty’.

How can autism affect the individual?

Individuals that have autism can be regarded as ‘socially impaired’, due to them not always understanding what is going on around them. This can particularly make sad family experiences difficult to cope with, or take in.

Not everyone with autism is aware

that they have autism. This may be because of associated learning difficulties or difficulties in understanding what autism is. As teens/ adults, if they have not learned the necessary life skills and communication skills, life can be difficult and isolating. Bullying is not uncommon in young people with autism, nor is anxiety.

How can autism affect people around the individual?

For carers, members of the public staring, or assuming that the parent does not have control over their child, is massively frustrating.

In addition, 71% of children with autism are educated in mainstream schools. This can instigate anxiety for parents that their child will feel left out, isolated or targeted by

other children. Dangers can derive from the autistic individual themselves; but the fears, as a carer myself, are about other people.

Why is it important that we are aware? Why should we care?

Aforementioned dangers can derive from the autistic individual; incidences of autistic people harming themselves are not uncommon.

Awareness of dangerous individuals and situations can be lacking, and those who are classified as not as ‘high-functioning’ are vulnerable. However, it is important to abolish the belief that everyone with autism is less capable than everyone else. The idea that individuals have lower attention spans and lower IQs is a myth. Autism’s

invisible nature also means that ostracism is common. It is the moral duty of people who have voices to inhibit this ostracism.

Can we treat autism?

Countries such as the USA have sought to find a cure or prevention for autism. Personally, I don’t think that autism is something that needs curing. The individuals and their carers need help to cope and support with the consequences of autism, such as isolation and learning difficulties. For outsiders looking in at families impacted by autism, it is easy to assume that the individual does not have a personality outside of their disorder. But they very much do. And society must not allow autism to hinder the individual’s’ personality or success.

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Tuesday March 17, 2015

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Israel/Palestine

Hand in Hand Schools: A Grassroots Solution Lina Cherrat Postgraduate Student IN THE LIGHT OF THE past events such as the Charlie Hebdo Tragedy and the shooting in Chapel Hill, it seems that multiculturalism in becoming more and more challenging. Are we inevitably moving toward a more divided world, with no hope for cultural understanding?

The Hand in Hand project in Israel provides a different perspective. At the Hand in Hand schools Arab and Jewish children learn together both in Arab and Hebrew. And, despite the arsonist attacks they have been facing since last November, they believe in the shared future they can build together.

The Hand in Hand project was initiated in 1998 by Lee Gordon and Amin Khalaf in reaction to the observation that, in Israel, Jewish and Arab children usually live and learn in separate institutions. Consequently, they created

two schools, one in Jerusalem and one in the Arab town of Sakhnin, where 50 Jewish and Arab students would learn together. In Hand in Hand schools all subjects are taught both in Hebrew and Arab, a shared calendar celebrate the holidays of each culture and differences in religious and historical viewpoints are discussed openly. Moreover, by showing that children are able to learn together and break the cycle of negative stereotypes, Hand in Hand schools are also a source of inspiration for adults. Near Hand in Hand schools, more and more parents, extended families and neighbours got involved in shared communities providing activities such as cultural events, shared celebrations, learning opportunities and social activism. Since 1998 the project has expanded to five school and communities in Jerusalem, the Galilee, Wadi Ara, Jaffa and Haifa, bringing together around 1,080 Jewish and Arab children and 3000 community members.

The project has received a worldwide support, but in such a volatile area of the world it also triggered tensions from some the most extremist part of the population. On Saturday November 29, the Jerusalem school was attacked by arsonists. They burnt a pile of books, one classroom was destroyed and another seriously damaged. But, according the Nadia Hinani, the principal of the school, the most horrible thing was maybe the graffiti that arsonists left on the wall, stating “No coexistence with cancer”, “Death to Arab” and “Enough with Assimilation”. Facing such a hateful act, parents couldn’t help but being worried for their children; the night after the fire some of them thought about withdrawing their children from the school. However, after talking together and expressing their anger and fear, they mutually decided that the most meaningful decision was to continue to have their children learning together. Classes took place as usual the following Mon-

day and students responded to the hateful graffiti with another sentence “We are not enemies.

We continue together without hatred and without fear.”

Across Israel and across the world thousands of people, from different confessions, expressed their support for the project and gathered to walk in solidarity along Train Track Park. President Obama himself expressed his support stating “Inbar and Mounrand and their fellow (Hand in Hand) students teach us a critical lesson from this time in our history: The lights of hopes must outlast the fires of hate”.

Far from giving up after the attack, the principals and volunteers from the schools plan to extend the project further by creating a network of 10-15 schools and enhancing community activities for adults in order to involve more than 20,000 Arab and Jewish Israeli citizens. As the Hand in Hand CEO, Shuli Ditcher, declared “They may stain our walls, but they cannot destroy our

work.”

The Hand in Hand project provides hope for all of us who, sometimes, fear that they might not be an issue for conflicts, as we hear about so many killings and people fighting for religious or ideological reasons. We hear a lot about the tensions but we rarely hear about all those people who, despite initial differences, join their efforts to build a shared future. Of course, one might say that, for now, this initiative is not leading to any political actions and the situation there remains dramatically tense. However, we can believe that, beyond politics, all changes are first initiated by evolution in mentalities, cultural believes, and children are the ones that can trigger a better future.

The Hand in Hand school is the illustration that Education is the key to transform society and move away from vicious circles of prejudices into virtuous of circle of mutual understanding and respect.

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Features

Tuesday March 17, 2015

International Politics

Juncker’s Call to Arms: A Grand Army of the EU Jordon Trapp Postgraduate Student RECENTLY THE EUROPEAN Commission president JeanClaude Juncker rekindled an old debate about the need for a European army. In doing so he received the expected response. Pointed British rejection, cautious German support and cries of ‘get real’ from Russia-threatened Latvia and Poland.

This Eastern incredulity is understandable, especially when for the very first time NATO is gearing up to fulfil its founding purpose: to defend the territorial integrity of its member states.

For Polish paramilitary volunteers drilling on school playing fields and young Lithuanian’s opening their draft letters, what reassures them most is NATO tanks and planes, not aspirations for greater European unity.

Yet in making the argument at this moment Juncker has read deeply into the political tea leaves and, like so much of EU policy, has seen a golden future that justifies the hard sell of integration in the present day. There are two connected themes which gives him the confidence to make this claim now; the future of the NATO pro-

ject and the ‘othering’ of Russia.

Regarding the former, only 22 of 28 EU states are NATO members, and that even within this 22 only three, the UK, Greece and Estonia hit the minimum target of 2% of GDP spending on defence.

Even with the Ukraine crisis, budgets are shrinking, not growing, and soon austerity-hobbled Britain will fall below this target, leaving the US to fund about 70% of the entire NATO project and remain the majority stakeholder in European security 70 years after the end of WW2, and 25 years after the collapse of communism.

For both America and Europe this is an unsustainable situation and, eventually, Europe will have to take charge of its own security.

This need will become urgent

if and when the pivot to Asia truly becomes a recognisable shift in American foreign policy. Juncker is right then to argue that eventually and inevitably “Europe can react more reliably to threats against peace regarding its members or neighbours with its own army.”

One EU-specific area where the organisational and hierarchical strengths of a unified military would be clear is in manning the border. The situation in the Mediterranean is urgent and the Italian navy is severely stretched.

Less well known is the often brutal confrontations in Bulgarian forests and Greek scrubland between migrants fleeing the Syria crisis and national security forces.

Finally, when the time comes for Europe’s strongest state to put

down the painted broomsticks and equip itself with actual weapons, Germany will likely do so imbued with the rhetoric of a stronger Europe rather than a strengthened NATO. The second galvanising factor is the (re)emergence of Russia as Europe’s political antithesis. Having lopped off pieces of Ukraine and dissolved its sovereignty, the prospect of Russian invasion, thought buried with the Soviet Union, is now a distant possibility for EU members. Nothing focuses the mind and builds unity like a common threat; “European values” can indeed be defined by everything that Russia is not: peaceful, law-abiding and democratic. Juncker’s purpose is not in the near-future to march newly created Portuguese and Irish military divisions to the Estonian border and dig in, but to build a stronger collective European identity. This might not convince the aforementioned Portuguese and Irish of the need for an EU army, but the optics are right. As he argued “You would not create a European army to use it immediately . . . but it would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union.”

In this sense Russia’s bellicosity

has resulted in what it fears most, a more united Europe. Juncker’s federalist dream may be decades away, but he has correctly identified the direction of travel. European states have had a wake-up call with regards to their dependence on the US. If they cannot fulfil their security needs unilaterally, due to budget cuts, they should at least coordinate and pool the resources available to them. A lack of military autonomy is already an effective loss of sovereignty - so why not manage this transition on your own terms? Limited resources can be better spent; if procurement needs are pooled and standardised, better military planning is also advisable. This is not a European army, but deeper military integration is a logical next step - particularly when it saves money.

Federalists like Mr Juncker believe in striking when the iron is hot, as demonstrated in Europe’s rapid expansion eastwards, and in rolling out the Euro to dubious candidates. Here the iron is decidedly cool, but, rather than skip the opportunity, he has laid down what he considers to be a historical marker.

In 2015 Juncker’s call to arms is a fantasy, but it is not hard to imagine how one day it could be recognised as prophetic.

Things are heating up in the Subcontinent: India and Sri Lanka sign Nuclear Energy Pact Taryana Odayar Features Editor ON MONDAY THE 16TH of February this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and newly elected Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena signed a bilateral agreement on civil nuclear cooperation, during Sirisena’s maiden foreign visit to India. This is the first nuclear agreement signed by Sri Lanka, and many political commentators have attributed the agreement as being symbolic of the new Sri Lankan administration’s pro-India approach. The agreement covers a wide spectrum of proposals, including Indian assistance in developing Sri Lanka’s civil nuclear energy infrastructure, the provision of expert-led training and knowledge sharing, as well as cooperation in nuclear and radiological disaster mitigation, radioactive waste management and environmental protection. The agreement also spurred discussions of increased defence

and maritime security cooperation in the subcontinent, with Modi stating that, “India is Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour and friend. I believe that our destinies are interlinked. Our security and prosperity are indivisible.”

Notably, India is amongst a handful of countries in the world with expertise in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are reactors producing under 300 MWs of electricity. Currently, India is offering both 220 and 540 MWe reactors for international exportation, following the lifting of an international embargo seven years ago which was placed on the country due to its atomic bomb tests in 1974 and 1998.

Furthermore, according to the World Nuclear Association, there has recently been a “revival of interest in small and simpler units for generating electricity from nuclear power...to reduce the impact of capital costs and to provide power away from large grid systems.”

India and Sri Lanka have had a long and multifaceted foreign relations record, due largely to their close geographical proximity to each other as well as their shared religious practices and cultural norms. Former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said that, “...it seems to me quite inevitable and right that there should be the closest relationship and cooperation between India and Lanka. Geography compels it. Our history and common culture make it inevitable. So I feel that neither India nor Lanka should take any step which comes in the way of impairing the cordial and fruitful relations.” Yet sharing the Indian Ocean as well as certain societal values does not necessarily equate a squeaky-clean foreign relations record. Just last year alone, Chinese submarines were reported to have docked twice in Colombo for replenishment purposes, resulting in vocal protests from the Indian administration since they were not notified in advance of the presence of Chinese

submarines in such close proximity to their country. Furthermore, India has been growing alarmingly concerned over the billions of dollars being pumped into investment projects in Sri Lanka by China in what they feel is a bid to increase Chinese influence in the subcontinent. Just in the past five years alone, China has injected $4 billion dollars into the Sri Lankan economy by way of development projects. Furthermore, President Xi Jinping personally visited Sri Lanka last year to court Colombo’s approval for the development of a maritime trade route, becoming the first Chinese leader to visit the strategically located island in 28 years.

Previously under former Sri Lankan President Rajapakse, India had been affronted by his suggestion that Sri Lanka would seek help from Pakistan to build its reactors, especially given the fact that Pakistan’s reactors had been developed by Chinese companies.

Currently, the most advanced and state-of-the-art Small Modular Reactor is located in China,

namely the 210 MWe HTR-PM, which is being built by the nuclear power architect engineering company, Chinergy. Therefore it would have made economic sense for Sri Lanka to seek Chinese support in the building of its first nuclear reactor, and the fact that it didn’t, re-affirms political analysts’ suspicions that the nuclear pact with India was more symbolic of stronger ties between the two countries than anything else.

Indeed, Modi has been campaigning aggressively to boost India’s influence in the South Asian region, as a counterbalancing force to economic rival China.

Consequently, Sri Lanka’s biggest challenge moving forwards will be improving ties with India whilst trying not to ruffle China’s feathers as the country is still in need of Chinese investment. Sri Lanka’s new administration under President Sirisena is therefore toeing a fine line, in its quest for greater political cohesion and economic integration with India and China, as well as its other South Asian neighbours.

Features

Tuesday March 17, 2015

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UK General Election

Red Ed in Kitchen Criticism George Harrison Features Editor ED MILIBAND HAS COME under fire from the public and the press in a bizarre episode revolving around the nature of the Labour leader’s kitchen, or, as it has emerged, kitchens. Following from a PR opportunity staged inside his house (in the form of an interview with Ed and his wife, Justine), a flurry of interest emerged when it was revealed that the bland kitchenette, in which the interview was staged, was the smaller of Ed’s two kitchens.

Claims of hypocrisy were levelled at Miliband; sections of the press were shocked that someone who purports to be something of a man of the people possesses twice the national average number of kitchens. Some suggest that it seems impossible for Miliband to win in the eyes of the media, although even Labour stalwarts must surely be astounded by now at the number of PR opportunities that “red Ed” has managed to turn into PR disasters.

Further ridicule was unleashed when a source close to the Milibands claimed that the kitchen shown in the interview, the smaller of the 2 kitchens in Miliband’s £2m mansion, was used principally by the family’s “live-in nanny”. This was a clarification which, of course, did little to ease the pressure on “two kitchens” Miliband, who has been granted such a title in response to a previous scandal involving “two Jags” John Prescott.

Tales of weird and “out of touch” figures across the entirety of the political spectrum are commonplace in UK political discourse, something highlighted by the enormous degree of apathy that is ubiquitous amongst the electorate. Hypocrisy is typically met with stinging criticism though, as the most heinous of crimes that a high-profile political figure like Ed Miliband can commit; as he defends his strong stance on a “mansion tax” from within the comfort of his own enormous, multi-million pound mansion, you can hardly blame the increasingly cynical electorate for being loath to participate in the democratic process which Britain is founded on.

SNP Success eludes Plaid Cymru Mali Williams Second Year Undergraduate IT SEEMS THAT THE SNP, along with the Greens and UKIP, have managed to gain upon the general public apathy towards the three main parties. The SNP has, over the past several months, seen a surge in the number of its supporters, with polls estimating that the party is likely to win near 50 seats in the General Election in eight weeks’ time.

Plaid Cymru, on the other hand, has not seen such a huge surge in support. It will gain only one seat at the very best, bringing its perhaps optimistic total to four seats. Despite the common goal of independence, the explanation as to why Plaid Cymru has not progressed as much as its ‘sister’ party, the SNP, must lie beyond simply the independence referendum having stirred only Scottish nationalism.

Firstly, the media. Scotland has its own independent press, which engages the Scottish public with Scottish politics. However, there is no similar, national (English language) press in Wales.

The majority of the Welsh depend

heavily on the London press for news, and due to lack of interest Plaid Cymru struggles to get coverage on UK-level media. While the SNP features in The Herald, The Scotsman, et al, it is rare for Plaid Cymru to be seen or heard of in UK-wide media coverage.

This could be a significant factor, as press coverage is essentially oxygen to political parties; without it, winning over voters is a very difficult task.

Secondly, the Labour Party.

Scottish Labour politicians have seen more success in climbing the ranks at Westminster compared to their Welsh counterparts. This has arguably left Labour in Holyrood weaker, as was demonstrated in the inability of any Labour MSP to take over the reins in Scotland from Johann Lamont, as well as rumours of internal divisions within Scottish Labour. Moreover, the Labour Party has also lost a considerable amount of support in Scotland having been seen as siding with the Tories over the Scottish independence referendum.

This has led to a shift in support from Labour to the SNP in Scotland. In contrast, Welsh Labour is not nearly as tempestuous as its

Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru

Scottish branch, and although its politics are often described as dull, neither has it lost all of its talent to Westminster. Furthermore, Welsh Labour has managed to articulate a light form of Welsh nationalism through its Welsh language policies and promotion of ‘the Welsh brand’, which has prevented somewhat the move of a group of its quasi-nationalist supporters to Plaid Cymru.

Thirdly, the Welsh language.

There is a strong association between Welsh nationalism and the Welsh language that simply does not exist with Scottish nationalism and Gaelic. This has led some in Wales to see Plaid Cymru as an exclusive party for Welsh speakers that is not accommodating of nonWelsh speakers. Whilst this may not necessarily be true (Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru, after all is not a fluent Welsh speaker herself) it might suggest that Plaid Cymru has failed to articulate an inclusive form of Welsh nationalism, as the SNP has successfully done in Scotland.

Fourthly, Plaid Cymru has sometimes been accused of being ‘too nice’. Whilst historically it was responsible for acts such

as setting fire to an RAF base in 1936, and a hunger strike for a Welsh language television channel during the Thatcher years, in more recently it has become more subdued. Plaid Cymru has formed relations with the Green Party of England and Wales, despite the fact that the Greens have, rather contrary to Plaid Cymru’s background, stated they are more concerned with ‘the bigger issues facing humanity’ than ‘regional cultures’ and languages. In contrast, in recent months, the SNP has demonstrated that political might and intense grassroots campaigning can win victories, and translate into electoral votes and a large majority of seats.

Finally, the SNP’s considerable success may be partly responsible for Plaid Cymru’s slow progression. It is arguable that Plaid Cymru has been too passive and has depended too much on its ‘Scottish friends,’ the SNP, to fight its battles. It would seem that if Plaid Cymru wishes to take the opportunity in the likely event of a hung parliament after 7 May, it needs to find its own distinct voice; a voice that is as powerful as the SNP’s.

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Tuesday March 17, 2015

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Formula One In A State Of Grace Rayhan Chouglay & Amelia Thomson Staff Writers THE FORMULA I SEASON 2015 is eventually upon us, with the first race having taken place last weekend, and since the wrap of the 2014 season all eyes have been on pre-season testing and predictions for who will be the winners and losers of F1 2015.

To make it easy to follow I will go through team by team and also give my prediction on where each team is in terms of performance and what position I predict they will come at the first race in Australia based on that.

Mercedes: The current champions have gone with an evolutionary approach to their dominant car of last season and it seems to be paying off for them judging by testing. In terms of changes to the car they have most visibly shortened the nose cone and slimmed it down to meet the new safety regulations for this year. It is unclear how much performance the nose has added to the car however. The other most visible change has been to the rear wing which has been improved with a new central support system connecting it to the rest of the car and a better lower rear wing flap.

The one flaw that the team had last year was reliability and ominously they seem to have fixed that as well judging by their overall performance and long running during testing. Overall it seems that Mercedes are all set to continue their domination of 2014 into 2015.

Red Bull: Last year’s runners up and former champions from 2010-2013 caught the eye in testing this year with their black and white camouflage testing livery seemingly designed to disguise their own aerodynamic developments. With the

undisputed king of aerodynamic design Adrian Newey as their chief designer it is no surprise that they seem to have designed a beautiful and relatively quick car yet again.

This has been seen in the way they have managed to use carefully placed vents near the front of the car to clean up the airflow and overall improve performance.

However after the engine changes of 2014 the current nature of the season means that it is still dominated by engine performance and Red Bull’s engine supplier Renault is still struggling. Time will tell if Renault will be able to catch up throughout the season but if they do Red Bull are sure to be near the top.

Ferrari: The Scuderia are the longest running and most famous team but 2014 was a disappointing season for them, their worst in recent years without a single win.

With a slate of personnel changes with a new team principal, a new team head and a host of other engineering team changes there is pretty much a new team in place for 2015. James Allison has finally been given control over the design of the car and it looks to have paid off. The car looks fast with a new longer nose; the unique for the grid pull rod suspension and a host of engine updates. Ferrari as an engine supplier looks to have leapfrogged Renault into position of second best engine.

Williams: One of the most successful teams ever, Williams seemed to be on a downward spiral to backmarkers throughout the 2000s, however 2012 showed a beacon of hope with a win in the Spanish Grand Prix. 2013 was planned to be the next step forward but turned into a disaster. Luckily for them 2014 was that progression forward instead thanks to their switch to Mercedes power. (Devel-

WITH A BEAUTIFUL BAND and more wine than water, AU Ball was a huge success. Well done to all those who got awards, and even more so to those who made it all the way to Hungs - our true heroes of the evening. Being able

opment and now Test driver Susie Wolf is married to Mercedes chief Toto Wolf—still a mystery how they got the Mercedes deal isn’t it?). 2015 looks to continue that upward trend with a new shorter nose and a developed engine allowing Williams to become probably the second best team after Mercedes.

With a strong consistent engineering team led by Pat Symonds the team are sure to be Mercedes’ closest challengers for the season.

Force India: The team most notable this year for only revealing their 2015 car at the third and final test. Therefore we have only seen the car running for around 4 days.

There does not seem to be many changes from the 2014 apart from changing the car to meet the new nose and safety regulations. Nonetheless Force India could benefit from the problems that their main competitor for last year, McLaren, seem to be having this year. As a result Force India could probably find themselves in around the same position they were in last year.

McLaren: McLaren, or McLaren-Honda as they are officially known, have had a nightmare testing season. An unreliable car with a brand new engine and a whole brand new team of engineers in the form of Honda to work with as well as the accident for star driver Fernando Alonso, which means

to speak without shouting at each other must have been a relief for our animals, and they certainly made the most of practising their chat.

This week some harmless nose rubbing finally turned into something more as a snow sports pres filled his ‘Pot. These ballers are definitely becoming more and more enGROSSed in each other each week. Our AU Pres’ last stand didn’t last long as he and Subo were both escorted home rather early on for our veterans.

he will now miss the first race as a precautionary move, has made this preseason probably the worst for McLaren that they have had in recent years. In terms of the car itself the new ‘size-zero’ tightly packaged rear end and excellence in knowledge and skills that McLaren have historically had, as well as the strictly run leadership of Ron Dennis, means that the team has potential to do well as the season and the car develops. However the problems lie in the communications between the car and the engine. Once they fix that they should be quick but until then it is not looking good for the sports second most successful team.

Torro Rosso: Red Bull’s junior team is seemingly emphasising the ‘junior’ aspect this year. With the youngest driver line up in F1 history both drivers have done a credible job in preseason so far with neither making any huge crashes that you would expect from drivers so young and inexperienced. The car itself has therefore had a lot of good running and seems mostly reliable. There have not been any noteworthy technical developments for the car but it looks to be a decent midfield runner.

Sauber: A pointless season last year, both figuratively and metaphorically speaking. However with brand new sponsorship in the form of Branco di Brasil, coincidently

The latter didn’t even finish the ball #legend.

One NOT rugby gent must have had a sore head on Thursday morning after being so mad he saw White not red on Wednesday night. The poor lad was thrown out of both venues in a double whammy. Men and Women’s rugby have always had a tight bond, and this week was no exception: for the second week in a row one lovely lass got Clarked at Zoo. A Liv’ely lady was swept off her feet by a Chuck Norris wan-

becoming the main sponsor on the car at the same time as the Brazilian Felipe Nasr signed for the team (funny that), they seem to have got the money they need to stay afloat and improve their position in the pecking order. The car is reliable and has done lots of running. However it is unclear how fast it is. Topping or being near the timesheets during preseason is eye catching but most reckon that they were running light on fuel. Ultimately the car will keep going but unfortunately come the end of the race it will probably be near the back of the field.

Lotus: Like Williams in 2013, Lotus is 2014 took a huge step back after a successful season before then (in 2012). Also like Williams switching from Renault to Mercedes power seems to have done the trick and they are looking good. Surprisingly from my perspective the engine and the chassis have combined to great effect from the off and reliability seems to be pretty good. If it can stay on the track then the Lotus is set for a good season.

Manor (formerly Marussia) are now almost confirmed to be on the grid for 2015 but having not debuted their car yet I cannot comment from a technical perspective.

With all this gossip, technical intrigue and team changes it looks like we are all set for a dazzling 2015 Formula 1 season. Enjoy!

nabe while a certain Geordie got affectIONAte with an eighth team member - those girls aren’t known for their netball skills you know.

And finally Sam the Face got cuddles from a Godly girl, leaving ExMr LSE and Brizzle disappointed by broken promises of a threesome. Better luck next time lads.

Last Zoo of the year next week. Expect to see third years in tears by the end of the night.

Hit it hard AU-ers, let’s make it a night to remember - or not to, as it will probably turn out.

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Sport

Tuesday March 17, 2015

Sparks Fly In Paris As Volleyball Dominates Bruno Baisch LSE Volleyball Captain O N F R I D AY 6 M A R C H , the men’s and women’s volleyball teams took the 5:40 am Eurostar to Paris, where they would play in the annual Les Parisiennes tournament. The competition puts face-to-face the top teams in France and the UK, making it a great opportunity for the LSE squad to show off our skills, build life-lasting bonds and pretend we could speak any French.

The men’s team was first to enter the court, in a long awaited match against Bristol. An incredible demonstration of powerful hitting gave the opponents no chance and LSE finished with a 2x1 victory. They then went on to beat the hosts, Sciences Po by 2x0, rounding off the day undefeated.

The women’s team also had a successful day, putting on an outstanding exhibition of consistency and team coordination. They achieved an easy victory over Bristol by 2x0, which was enough to get them to the semi-finals.

The highlight of the day came from

Reina Hanada, who scored a breathtaking ace and celebrated by looking at our video camera, beating her chest twice and yelling out her own name.

At night, the teams headed to the social event in a Parisian club. As we walked through the doors of the venue, we were hit with a warming sense of familiarity. The room was overcrowded with drunk athletes, the temperature created a comfortable sense of stickiness, and the DJ was really keen on his Katy Perry. It was undeniable: we were at Paris’ Zoo Bar. Saturday kicked off on the right foot as we watched the UCL men get knocked out of the competition at the group stages. Afterwards, our men’s team won the semi-final against Trinity College Dublin and guaranteed their spot in the finals.

The girls played a very tight semifinal against UCL. With great serving by setter Almudena Portal and relentless blocking by Christina Pinckney, they took a 7x1 lead in the first set. Unfortunately, experience played in UCL’s favour as they were able to slowly recover and take the first set. The second set

was fought point by point, with the LSE team producing great plays from outside Lucie Rehakova. However, UCL still manage to take the set, leaving our girls to finish at a respectable third place.

The big men’s final happened on Sunday, where the boys faced École Polytechnique, aka French King’s. After losing the first set, the men counted on the cheerful and enthusiastic support from the girls’ team to come back and win the second set. The final set was a great exhibition of volleyball at the highest level. Hans Friedl and Austin Kobe stood out with their attacking prowess.

Two points separated the men from the glorious title at the end of the match.

The honourable journey of the team, however, was ended by a sharp serve by the French team, which saw LSE finish second place in the tournament overall.

The trip was a huge success, giving the LSE Volleyball brand great international exposure. The committee is thankful to all the players and hopes they enjoyed themselves as much as we did. Also a huge thank you to the LSE Annual Fund for allowing us to participate in this tournament.

Keep Your Eyes Open For Active LifeStylE Candace Gawler LSE Active LifeStylE TRYING TO GET STUDENTS out of bed for bootcamp? Impossible. For everything else, there’s Active LifeStylE. It’s been two terms of lesson learning for the Active LifeStylE team. Basing assumptions on people’s desire to stay fit and healthy, it was quickly learnt that humans are creatures of priority. These priorities do not include getting out of bed at 7am for a bootcamp. Or going for an evening run. Astounding.

Who would’ve known? Aside from the bootcamp some other interest-

ing insights were made.

Lesson 1: Males at LSE are not protesting for a male inclusive belly dancing session (???)

Lesson 2: Hula hooping is for everyone Lesson 3: Getting people to play football is never an issue Only two terms old, the Active LifeStylE programme started as an initiative to get more students active, especially postgraduate students whose schedules do not always suit competitive sports. James Ralph who heads up the programme says it is aimed at those looking for more ad hoc, recreational activities. Active LifeStylE has tried to best cater to those who don’t necessarily want

the competitive element but would like to keep active and have some fun.

The programme has gotten roughly 850 students to take part in at least one event over the past two terms. 71.25% of students who have taken part in an Active LifeStylE activity so far this term are not members of a sports club at LSE. Of the new exercise classes, 3 are being led by LSE students (Zumba, Hula Hoop and Yoga) which is an exciting new development.

The ongoing and once-off activities have ranged from Swimming Lessons, Belly Dancing, 5-a-side Football, Zumba, Boot Camp, Rock

Climbing, Futsal, and Cricket. One of the terms most successful projects has been the incorporation of hall events with Sidney Webb and Carr Saunders and it is looking to expanding into other halls that may be interested. High Holborn is running an inter hall football tournament at the end of this term.

Working across societies and with residential halls, the programme is starting to achieve what

it set out to do. Funded by Sport England and LSE, the objectives involve encouraging students to play sport or keep active during their studies and beyond. The hope is that people make a habit of keeping active. ISOC cricket, Hindu society football, and LGBT Salsa in partnership with UAL are among the projects so far that are making staying active far more inclusive and not just for the competitive.

Shake It Off With Boom Cycle On Thursdays Jaime Sim LSE AU Triathlon Team S h a k e o f f t h e We d n e s d a y S o c i a l To x i n a t S t u dent Night Spin every Thursday 19:15 (Holborn, 5mins from LSE) or 18:15 (Shoreditch).

Only £8 (50% off) Ju s t b r i n g yo u r L S E Student card, drop in o n t h e d a y, a n d m e n tion ‘Jaime Sim’ at reception.

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WRFC Successful Beyond Wildest Dreams Megan Trethewey LSE WRFC WHEN I JOINED THE Women’s Rugby team in first year we had to give the occasional walk over because we couldn’t field a full squad of 15 players. Now, three years on, with over 50 members and two teams. It’s safe to say that LSE Women’s Rugby is here, and it’s here to stay.

As many of you will know from our over active presence on social media, we’ve had a

great year on the pitch. We’ve lost only one match and that was our very first game when we were missing several key players (but we’re not bitter).

Since then we’ve won by several tries or more, and our enthusiasm has continued to be the driving force behind our first team. This Wednesday, we take on Royal Holloway in the final of the cup, which could be the first Cup win in LSE WRFC history.

Our second team have played several friendlies, entered the RFU’s Merit League,

and hope to join a BUCS league next year. They continue to be the most committed members, always at training sessions, and bring more to the club than we ever could have foreseen.

Off the pitch, Women’s Rugby has tried to contribute more this year, with teams entering Tough Guy and Jailbreak and helping our Coach to encourage some younger ladies players. From tropical birds to runaway brides, we’ve continued to take fancy dress too seriously and Zoo Bar-ed until we couldn’t Zoo

Bar any more. And of course, there was the trip to Twickenham where we trained with the England Rugby team. For many of us, that showed that the long climb had been worth it. We no longer have to answer questions of “do women play REAL rugby”, we were accepted at a national level. Meeting Mike Catt and the rest of the English Six Nation’s squad is something that LSE Women’s Rugby will never forget.

Many people throughout the years have asked me what made me join rugby. And at

the past two Fresher’s Fairs, many have asked me why they should join rugby too. The answer to that has always been clear, and that is that above all else we are a family. A family who have made my time at LSE rucking great.

As I leave LSE, I retire from the pitch but I know that I have made friends for life and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Next year, we want a league promotion, and a second team in BUCS, and we’re willing to work for it. Who are we? We’re LSE ladies and we play rugby.

Mini Football World Cup Finishes In Style Jenny Hovland Johanson LSE WFC Captain WITH THE WOMEN’S WORLD Cup coming up in Canada this summer, the Women’s Football Club (WFC) wanted to arrange an inclusive event, where both boys and girls could play football together. Over the past two Fridays, 11 teams have participated in a 5-a-side Mixed Mini world cup tournament, which was sponsored by the LSE Annual Fund.

On the first Friday, on the 6th of March, the teams were randomely allocated into two groups.

After playing all other teams in the group, four teams from each group came through to the quarterfinals, which were played on Friday 13th. Unfortunately, Team Monaco, Chile+4 and Leonor FC did not make it to this stage.

In the quarterfinals, the teams were getting much more competitive. The games were now seven minutes longer, and they all had to fight a bit harder. In the semifinals, Christos FC played Mohamed Salah FC, and Blackout met Team USA. These were two intense games, and both were incredibly close. Mohamed Salah FC managed to beat Christos

FC, while Blackout and Team USA had to shoot penalties after their 1-1 score. The teams followed each other to the very end. Then, Blackout’s goalkeeper made a beautiful save, which ensured them a place in the final. In the finals, both Mohamed Salah FC and Blackout were eager to win - as a big trophy was waiting for the winner. They followed each other closely, but Blackout won in the end. Their captain, Joshua, could proudly lift the trophy, after all their hard work and great team spirit. Blackout played some great football throughout the whole tournament, and truly deserved their gold medals. They

could now finally enjoy the barbeque and lucozade power drinks with the other teams, which were provided by the organisers.

This event was a great success, and the collaboration between ActiveLifeStylE and WFC worked

splendidly. We hope to organise more mixed sports tournaments in the future, and would like to encourage as many students as possible to take part. Thanks to the Annual Fund for making this possible!